SKY+ & Flat Screen TV/Monitor & PC Master Plan "Is this possible?"

C

Clayts

Guest
I posted this in the digital TV forum but it might be better placed here?

--

I will shortly be moving house and have a kind of plan for what I want to do in my new place. I figure I am starting from scratch so I might as well do it right. Not all this info may be relevant to this forum so please ignore the points that are not, I will post these elsewhere also. If you can answer all my questions then great!

1) I am planning on getting SKY+ in my lounge on my existing TV. In addition to this I would also like SKY in my kitchen and Bedroom. So my first question is if i want to watch a different channel upstairs to downstairs do i need a 2nd sky+ box? and do i have to pay the extra £10 a month?

So...... (if) I am not that bothered about watching seperate channels in these rooms can i get some kind of magic eye that will change the SKY+ box channel from the kitchen and bedroom so i can at least watch SKY in these rooms? and then just buy a couple of extra remotes?

2) I am going to buy a kind of mini flat screen TV/Monitor for my kitchen. Is there any way of connecting this up to the SKY in the lounge? If possible I also want this TV/Monitor to be able to connect to my PC up stairs so I am play music through it in the kitchen. Does anyone know of any way this can be done wirelessly or otherwise? Is there any way to control the PC via remote or touch screen through this TV/Monitor in the kitchen? Basically I want to be able to see and control my desktop from a monitor downstairs and also show SKY (if i want to) on the monitor as well?

3) Can I connect a TV/Monitor to SKY+ box wirelessly?

4) I am going to get BroadBand for the PC upstairs and also want to do this wirelessly can i just go with any provider or are some better than others for this? Do i need any extra security for a wireless network?

5) Is it possible to get a kind of Mini PC that is in the monitor in my kitchen so i can connect to the internet through this via my wireless network?

Thanks in advance for all your help?
 
I think your part of the new generation like myself who want this kind of multimedia access around the house, i wouldnt setlle with the bedroom and kitchen, id settle with the bathroom, garage, garden etc etc!!

The best way to hook up a basic signal throughout is to use the secondary coax feed from the sky box to run into each of your adjacent rooms, this will carry both the sound and video, if your just moving in youll be able to plaster over the cables, or run them under the floor boards.

The other option is to use a sepearate sky box for each room, if its sky plus youll incur charges, and each will require cabling to a feed anyway so not really worthwhile.

The last option is to use either the hardware media extenders which are becoming popular in the US, or a the extender for the Xbox which wirelessly communicates with your pc, sending video and audio. This way you could run sky into your pc (running media center 2005) and then have this piped to all your other tv sets, but this would be rather expensive (your lookin at 150 per extender).

But if you go down any of these options you'll need some way to compute into the pc from all rooms, this is where bluetooth keyboards/mice (which seem to be erratic) or to find a bargain pda (like i did on ebay - hp ipaq rx 3715 from the US at 200 squids) which will run wifi and you can use this to control infra red all your devices and to wifi control all options of media center 2005. Not to mention the fact this pda you can surf the net in bed, use it as an ipod mp3 center or take and send videos.

hope this helps.
 
tim K, how do you manage with the battry life of a PDA, I know my ipaq isn't bad but I would like to leave it lying around the kitchen, I dont think I could rely on the wife putting it back in a cradle to charge it and trying to explain to her why it needs charging would lead to a barrage of questions mainly aimed at the fact we dont need to mess about with the sky remote and so this new fangled tecno stuff is crap.... Women.... (not you Lisa)


Laters

P.S. Tim, i am the smae as you though (maybe not younger gen as I am 32) but I want to have acces to all my mp3's and ideally video as well from everyroom in the house at the push of a button...
 
I think the focus at the moment is on wireless devices, and although all pdas suffer cons like having to look at the buttons, and life span (ie treatment) and also the bird friendly which we all know too well will cause us grief. The way i see it is my birds happy to watch the 42" plasma for sky, if she wants the luxury of havin it around the house then she'll have to learn how to use the equipment, and to recharge the pda. I think you'll find like me that women will always cause grief whatever the situation, but im always happy to help in pointing her in the right direction as somehow it gets me off on the fact that she undestands some of the technology, Next step to train her for halo 2 multi player, shes not havin any of it!!!!
 
tim, just a simple word of warning. A friend of mine tried to get his GF into the xbox so she wouls stop nagging him, she ended up better than him on most games and he had to buy another xbox and ended up relegated to the spare tv in the conservatory... Be warned.

If you don't mind I will PM you when I have more time to get some more info on your setup.

Cheers

Dave
 
Yeah no worries mate, ill point ya in the right direction if i can, an believe me mate i love my xbox and all my girlfriend has for it is annemosity, if thats spelt correctly! but i must admit even on a 42" plasma i dont enjoy sharing the luscious screen with mates.
 
Many thanks for this. Very useful.

Keeping it simple :) would it be possible to buy 2 magic eye systems (one for the kitchen and one for the bedroom) I could then change the sky channel from all these rooms? How does the magic eye connect to the the SKY+ box?
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom