is it "doable"/ hardware advice
#1
Hey, I will start by apologising for my somewhat erratic writing, punctuation and spelling mistakes.

Now I'm looking to setup a home theatre environment, I have purchased a 7.2 surround sound separates (ONKYO TXNR636 - much research went into this so I'm happy with my options.)


I plan on setting up multiple XBMC(or is it Kodi now) hardware boxes. I have looked into android based boxes and decided against it as it felt limited also lacks upgradability. So I decided to built a cheap as chips system in hopes that Haswell has allowed improvements on budget systems. I selected as follows...

Green=Complete
Red=Not needed


----Works Perfect----
ASRock B75M-ITX motherboard (for its optical out)
Haswell pentium g3420 1155 processor.
4gb ddr3 1600 ram (I have spare corsair vengeance LP)
Q4 HTPCcase with included 350w PSU and IRDA+remote.
----Happy----


Now my first questions are will this CPU be powerful enough to power this system.
Will the GPU from has well chip be powerful enough?
Will the temps be good with stock cooling?
Will the onboard audio be sufficient?


If not, would you recommend a gt640 graphics card and a xonar dgx audio card?
Or is it really unneeded?



Finally, I already have a dual Xeon 5550 system (16 cores with HT) 16gb ram 128gb SSD, 16tb HDD space (4x4tb) setup as a home server, this will feed my content via DLNA, it holds audio, pics and videos. Now can I plug a dual tuner TV card in to the server and allow live TV to the XBMCboxes? Also basic home automation control? Curtains, lights, door and window sensors, temperature etc. I have a internal wired network with 1gb LAN cat 6 cables and BT fttp 300mbps internet.

Thank you in advance.
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#2
The cpu will be powerfull enough, if you don't need true 3d.
No need for extra hardware.

And yes, you can install a Live-TV backend on your server and then watch liveTV on your xbmc boxes.

And your server CPUs are pure overkill for what you will do with this box.
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#3
Ah, that's brilliant to know, that saves me a small amount (also allows for the case I selected)
I shall look up "live-tv backend" for more information. Also is it best to Jeep home automation tasks separate? Or can this also be archived by kodi? There was one thing I failed to ask in above, how simple would it be to have a mini touch screen device fitted in common rooms in a casing (like a light switch) to allow displaying of current media with play controls? Sounds strange a lcars interface on these touch devices would be brilliant.

As for server being pure overkill, I agree although I also use the server as a web host, samba machine,Minecraft server for the loved ones, graphics renderer and programming compiler/aospa build machine. I use to have it all separate on lower machines but the heat/sound wasn't great. This way its silent and cooler.

Thank you for advice also
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#4
As tv backend ou can have a look at tvheadend.
Kodi / xbmc does not support home automation afaik.
For the touch screens you can use simple tablets controling xbmc via wifi with f.e. yatse.
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#5
XBMC does support home automation, via plugins/scripts.

Note though that some of these examples may need modifying to work with the latest release of XBMC. There are probably other examples in the addons section, but to give you an idea,

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=143070
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=82160
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=42874
Learning Linux the hard way !!
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#6
(2014-08-14, 09:42)CaptainPsycho Wrote: As tv backend ou can have a look at tvheadend.
Kodi / xbmc does not support home automation afaik.
For the touch screens you can use simple tablets controling xbmc via wifi with f.e. yatse.

Brilliant, thank you I shall start looking now.


(2014-08-14, 10:32)black_eagle Wrote: XBMC does support home automation, via plugins/scripts.

Note though that some of these examples may need modifying to work with the latest release of XBMC. There are probably other examples in the addons section, but to give you an idea,

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=143070
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=82160
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=42874

Ah, This looks promising, Thank you for this! I shall look further.
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#7
Photo 
A little update

(2014-08-14, 09:42)CaptainPsycho Wrote: As tv backend ou can have a look at tvheadend.
Kodi / xbmc does not support home automation afaik.
For the touch screens you can use simple tablets controling xbmc via wifi with f.e. yatse.

I have purchased a nice dual tuner hd dvb-s receiver, had to compile some drivers, but I can say it works perfect with tvheadend, love the auto channel naming and pushing of epg etc..
I purchased some Motorola flip out android phones (they are square) then purchased some light switch blanking plates, cut a square the size of the screens and linked them up in place of my light switches (they are powered and look like they where built to be in the blanking plate) I then made 3 home screens with xbmc widgets for now playing, remote control (yatse) and lighting control (to replace the original light switch) I have only done this in 3 rooms (due to cost) but I flashed each with a custom firmware bare bones with full screen immersive mode to maximise screen usage.


example of the flipout (when I finished all I will upload finished products.

Image

Rehoused into

Image

(2014-08-14, 10:32)black_eagle Wrote: XBMC does support home automation, via plugins/scripts.

Note though that some of these examples may need modifying to work with the latest release of XBMC. There are probably other examples in the add-ons section, but to give you an idea,


http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=143070
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=82160
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=42874

I Have managed to get basic on and off control of lights currently, I'm working on dimming, ambience (rgb light strip in a backed rail around roof edges of entertainment space, in hopes to link to movie controlled lighting for immersion.) and curtains.



I thank you both for the directions and help.
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#8
A very interesting project you're working on alatrum.angelus. I will be following this closely.
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