Black Morty Rackham
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2004
- Messages
- 4,728
I'm moving in with my girlfriend, and her current network situation is basically a single Cat 5 cable coming out of the wall going into her laptop. I assume there is some kind of switch system in the building, but we have no control over it (obviously). As far as we're concerned, all we have is a network cable with internet connectivity.
There is a TV with HDMI in (as well as DVI, 3.5mm stereo, Scart, etc). DVDs are played on her laptop, through an HDMI cable. With my laptop, iPhone and iPad added, it's a bit of a cable nightmare. Internet is generally shared either by switching the Cat 5 cable to the other machine, or by turning on internet sharing via wifi on the one computer that is connected. I frequently connect my laptop to the internet through my iPhone via Bluetooth. Not the best of solutions, as it's not very fast and I do have a network cap on my phone.
The annoying thing right now is that whenever we want to watch a movie or play audio, we need to connect and disconnect a whole bunch of cables. And, of course, every time we do, they get more and more tangled...
So, long story short, I want to set up a device/software combo that does the following:
1. Wifi (g/n). This is obviously the most important bit.
2. HDMI out to connect to the TV.
3. Audio out. The speaker system is a pair of self-amped studio monitors. They're pretty good, and I have no intention of replacing them just yet. The only input is a regular 3.5 mm stereo cable.
4. Lets me play music in Spotify and iTunes on any of the connected devices and have that stream to the speakers via wifi. Airplay seems reasonable, but it's iTunes only?
5. Lets me play video content, in iTunes and/or other software, on any of the devices, and have that stream to the HDMI output.
6. Preferably, the router should have a USB (or equivalent) connection for sharing a hard drive across the network. Ideally, this should be able to store our media library.
I looked into the Airport Express, but it only does audio. The Apple TV only does optical audio, so I would need a digital audio receiver as well. Seems pointless right now.
Is all this possible? I haven't really had time to keep up with home networking tech the last few years. It's a bit much to take in all at once, so I figured I'd check with you guys.
Thanks!
There is a TV with HDMI in (as well as DVI, 3.5mm stereo, Scart, etc). DVDs are played on her laptop, through an HDMI cable. With my laptop, iPhone and iPad added, it's a bit of a cable nightmare. Internet is generally shared either by switching the Cat 5 cable to the other machine, or by turning on internet sharing via wifi on the one computer that is connected. I frequently connect my laptop to the internet through my iPhone via Bluetooth. Not the best of solutions, as it's not very fast and I do have a network cap on my phone.
The annoying thing right now is that whenever we want to watch a movie or play audio, we need to connect and disconnect a whole bunch of cables. And, of course, every time we do, they get more and more tangled...
So, long story short, I want to set up a device/software combo that does the following:
1. Wifi (g/n). This is obviously the most important bit.
2. HDMI out to connect to the TV.
3. Audio out. The speaker system is a pair of self-amped studio monitors. They're pretty good, and I have no intention of replacing them just yet. The only input is a regular 3.5 mm stereo cable.
4. Lets me play music in Spotify and iTunes on any of the connected devices and have that stream to the speakers via wifi. Airplay seems reasonable, but it's iTunes only?
5. Lets me play video content, in iTunes and/or other software, on any of the devices, and have that stream to the HDMI output.
6. Preferably, the router should have a USB (or equivalent) connection for sharing a hard drive across the network. Ideally, this should be able to store our media library.
I looked into the Airport Express, but it only does audio. The Apple TV only does optical audio, so I would need a digital audio receiver as well. Seems pointless right now.
Is all this possible? I haven't really had time to keep up with home networking tech the last few years. It's a bit much to take in all at once, so I figured I'd check with you guys.
Thanks!