2 Room HTPC Setup

P

p0lish

Gawd
Joined
Sep 11, 2002
Messages
642
A buddy of mine is looking to run 1 media center for two rooms. I was thinking of building a Win 7 box is his living room, and running a HDMI and USB cable to his 2nd room(bedroom). He wants to have blu ray, OTA HD tuner, all the good stuff. I believe if i use a HDMI splitter(1 in, 2 out) and two Win7 remotes this could work. Can Media Center handle 2 remotes?(not used at the same time) Are there better ways to do this?

thanks,
Bill
 
Can't really help, but just remember to consider the max length restrictions with both HDMI and USB. Don't remember the numbers at the moment though..
 
The link i posted showed a 50' -> splitter -> 50' with no problems. the run will only be 20 or 30 feet.
 
Blu-Ray is the biggest "challeneg". If you just want to extend media center, the cheapest and quickest way is to put Win7 with MC on one TV and an XBox 360 on the other. It will allow you to extend the content to the 360. I don't know that it can extend blu, though -- possibly through a 3rd party plugin.

You shouldn't have a problem with two media center remotes as long as you can get the IR into the other room. I recommend a Hot Link Pro from Amazon.com to do that. In fact -- you can even get one that runs over ethernet, but it's pretty expensive.
 
Can XBOX use the TV Tuner? I'm pretty sure it can't play blu ray. I think i would rather spend $25 on the splitter and $30 on another remote than $300 on an xbox.
 
well you can get a xbox for $150ish

yes it can use a tuner, if you rip the blu-rays to mkv and then use the new divx pack that enables mkv playback on the xbox360

HDMI splitter will work, but youu obviosly have to watch the samething at the same time on both.

with a xbox360 and HTPC you can view 2 different sources at the same time.

just a thought.
 
I'm working on a similar setup as well. I'm going to keep the HTPC and xbox 360 in one room, hook it up to a 4x2 hdmi switch so that the bedroom and living room will be able to use one, the other, or both at the same time.

I don't have it set up yet, but should within the next two weeks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top