My New Home Theater Setup and How I cut Cable (lots of info to help to save money)

[Black92LX]

This is a long post but it comes from about 3 months of trial and error trying to get the best configuration possible. I have written it in hopes of helping others save a little money each month and time as I have run into a few snags but found a way through almost everything. I enjoy gadgets so this has actually been a fun venture though sometimes frustrating process trying to work through kinks that I would come across but feel I have a very stable platform for not needing cable any longer.

I will start off by saying that after a couple financial goofs after college I am quite the budget minded guy. I got myself into some pretty good debt, now that I am married worked hard to get out of debt except for the house and one car out of five that has a little left on it (though come tax time should be gone). I spend money where it needs to be spent but rarely ever pay full price for anything. And I pay cash for everything and only buy it if I have "X" amount in savings.
So I have been on a quest to cut the cable bill that is currently $115 (including internet) that my wife and I rarely use.

I have been saving for a new TV, Audio/Video Reciever, and Blu Ray so I figured now would be a good time to set things up. Could have done it using my 5 year old setup as well. So I have about $1000 in my setup that I did not have to spend if I was not going to upgrade anyway. Cutting cable should save me about $70 a month. I also sold my old receiver for $70.

My Components include the following:

Vizio 42" 1080p LCD TV w/ internet apps, built in wifi, Audio Return Channel (ARC), and Consumer Electronics Control (CEC).
http://www.vizio.com/via-hdtvs/e422va.html
This TV is phenomenal I would highly suggest Vizio for anyone on a budget. The picture is amazing and the Internet applications are great and constantly expanding. I paid $500 for the TV at Costco. Only complaint about the TV is the remote absolutely sucks. But I use a Logitech Harmony so I have no need for it.

Pioneer VSX-1120-K (paid $475)
Highest Pioneer Model currently available not including Elite Series.
7.1 Channel 3D ready, internet capable, 6 HDMI inputs, THX Certified, HDMI passthrough, and 1080p upscaling for all video sources.
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Home/AV-Receivers/Pioneer+Receivers/VSX-1120-K

Panasonic DMP-BD65K Blu Ray Player with Viera Cast internet apps. ($100)
http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-electronics/shop/Video/Blu-ray-Disc-Players/model.DMP-BD65K_11002_7000000000000005702

Mac Mini 1.66ghz Core Duo with 2 gigs of RAM (about 5 years old) running Snow Leopard. (already had)

Refurbished Apple Airport Extreme Dualband Wireless Router. (already had)
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FC340LL/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY
I have all my components (TV, BluRay, Mac Mini, AVR) hard wired so they are constantly receiving my 10mbps internet speed without interference as when I was running them on wifi it would be quite inconsistent but still very watchable.

Speakers are left over from my old Onkyo Home Theater In a Box. They actually sound really good so they will not be replaced for awhile.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Black92LX/Random/HomeTheater.jpg

Now onto the media aspect of things and how I think I am ready to cut the cable. I have been implementing one new thing at a time so if I ran into a snag I could figure out easily the problem.

My wife and I do not watch a lot of TV so this will not work for everyone but works great for us.

The heart of my video watching comes from a simple Mac Mini used as my Multimedia Interface. It's 5 years old has a 1.66ghz Core Duo Processor, and 2 gigs of RAM running OSX Snow Leaopard. I bought this new years ago but they can be had for a couple hundred bucks now. While not the newest or fastest It has plenty of processing power and has a digital audio output that is Dolby Digital Capable and DVI out so it is HD video capable. Granted I have nothing stored on the internal drive except the Operating system and 5 programs to keep as much load off the processor and RAM all of my media is contained on external hard drives.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Black92LX/Random/MacDesktop.png

My Main Program used for watching streaming content is Plex Media Client ( www.plexapp.com ) it is only available for Mac
It is a media interface that can access any media file on your hard drives via direct connection or drives on your network. It also has Programs/Application which are mainly TV Stations and they function pretty much identically to your OnDemand programing with the Cable Company or Dish.
What content is available and when is solely based upon the channel, most of the Big name Stations put the stuff on 24 hours after the original air date until the season is over with.
The stations I utilize with Plex are: (Though there are tons more and more are constantly being added daily)
CBS
CBS Sport
Comedy Central
ESPN3
Fox News
HGTV
HULU (free content not Hulu Plus)
MTV
National Geographic
NBC
Netflix (Easiest most user friendly Netflix interface I have come across)
PBS
WB
USA
Yahoo Music Videos
YouTube
Pandora

Here are a couple screen shots showing the interface
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Black92LX/Random/Plex3.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Black92LX/Random/Plex.png

[Black92LX]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Black92LX/Random/Plex2.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Black92LX/Random/PlexHulu.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Black92LX/Random/PlesHulu2.png

The Second Media Server I use is Boxee (This is available for both Mac and PC http://www.boxee.tv/ )
Very similar to Plex yet I don't like the user interface as much and the channels are lacking but more are constantly being added.
The Channels I utilize from Boxee are:
WheelsTV
Speed Channel
MLB.TV
NHL Game Center

The third source I use is slightly different than the other two as it is an internet browser (much like IE or Firefox) except it is designed to be used on a HDTV vs. your standard web browsing. It takes you to normal websites but formats the sites for easier use while sitting on the couch and trying to watch videos. It uses quick links to almost every site you can imagine that has videos and full TV episodes.
It's called the Kylo Browser and is available for Mac and PC http://kylo.tv/ The browser is free though they do sell a Kylo Loop remote it is not necessary for use.
The Stations currently available are: (but again more are constantly being added)
ESPN3
NFL
ABC
CBS
CNN
FOX
VH1
TV.com
HULU
Disney
Discovery
ABC Family
SYFY
ABC News
CBS News
CBS Sports
MSNBC
ESPN
Comedy Central
PBS Kids
Fox Sports
TBS
USA
CNET
Braco
Animal Planet,
Fox News
Science Channel
BBC World News
The CW
NBA
TNT
Cartoon Network
Turner Classic Movies
A&E
Food Network
Nickelodeon
Nick Jr.
HGTV
CMT
TLC
PBS
ETV
FX
DIY
TVLand
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Black92LX/Random/Kylo.png

So those are all of the stations I have available in an OnDemand Kind of setup. Most stations provide their new shows 24 hours after the original air date then for about a month or 2 afterwards. Again each channel is different on how they provide this.

We also have a Netflix subscription both streaming and Disks. Plex has an awesome interface for Netflix.

I tried Hulu Plus but it is a waste of money. The content available on Hulu is not available on Hulu Plus and I found nothing that I really had to watch and could justify paying $8 a month for.

As for DVR I currently use the cablebox DVR
Though once I do cut my cable bill and start saving $70 a month I will be getting an EyeTV http://www.elgato.com/ and it is an HDTV turner that has a built in DVR program (just hook it to an external drive) it also has an app so I can watch TV from my iPhone or iPod Touch.

The Bedroom is the only other TV that really gets watched and it's mainly just to have something to fall asleep to. I have a DVD player hooked to it, over the air stations, and a Roku Box
http://www.roku.com/
Usually just put on a Netflix movie via Roku and set the sleep timer. When Apple gets it's act together and puts the app store on the Apple TV (or the jailbreaks get a little more stable so I can run plex) I will replace the Roku Box with the AppleTV. But as of now for $50 the Roku Box cannot be beat for Streaming Netflix. I run it wirelessly and have no problems with video quality.

(The following has not been fully implemented as I don't pay for things without cash and have two vacations coming up so I am waiting on buying an outdoor antenna)

We don't watch much TV in the rest of the house so all the rest of the TVs will be over the air local HD Stations.
When I built the house I had a coaxial outlet put in every room and each ran as a home run to a distribution box in the basement (currently hooked to cable). But the main cable line will be routed to the coaxial jack in the living room to continue to feed the cable needed for cable internet. An individual Antenna will be put onto that TV for locals.

While I will install an Antenna outside and then run it to a splitter/amplifier that will then feed each coaxial jack in the house. Therefore I won't need an antenna on each individual TV as they will all be fed from the antenna outside and just a coaxial cable from the TV to the outlet will be needed. As I stated early I am pretty cheap so I still have a couple old CRT TVs so I have been collecting digital to analog converters for awhile for cheap or free.

The only other TV that gets any real use is in the Home Gym in the basement. But it is mainly for my wife to do workouts using the Wii (which also also Netflix Streaming), have the Xbox hooked up for a DVD player as she does a lot of workout DVDs P90X Kettleworx and the like.

About the only thing to be added to the setup is the HDTV tuner/DVR for the Mac Mini and another Hard drive so I have DVR capabilities for local over the air HD. I also am going to get a mini keyboard with trackpad
I currently use a full size mac keyboard and mouse but it can be a bit cumbersome.

The only downfalls that I have found with this setup is that there is no real way to setup any sort of playlist. So if one has kids and wants to sit them down for longer than one show you need to come and start the next show yourself.
Though I have sent emails to netflix for a playlist kind of addition to their setup or an option to play all episodes in a series.

Also being that my Mac Min is older and utilizes a DVI for video and an optical Audio for sound (newer Minis have HDMI and will solve this problem). I use a DVI to HDMI cable for Video. My receiver is not capable of running HDMI video and optical Audio at the same time so I get one or the other (or I have yet to figure out how to do it). I have my Mini ran directly to my TV for video. Therefore whatever resolution is output from the Mini is what the TV outputs. If I could run the video through the receiver all video from the mini would be upscaled to 1080p by the receiver.
So once the newer minis with HDMI hit the $300 range refurbished my current mini will be replaced.

Also this is not a setup for Sports fans. Not much in the Sports realm ESPN 3 has some decent live stuff from time to time but that's it. The only sports I watch are the Bengals and that is available on my Locals if they aren't blacked out. As for highlights there are ESPN and CBS sports and enough on the internet to feed my sports need.

Hopefully I have explained it well enough for everyone understand. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I am more than willing to help.

So all in all this should save me $70 a month. Though I may upgrade my internet speeds to see if I can tell a difference in streaming. So I may in the ned only save $60 a month but that's $720 a year so I think the time has been well worth it.

[bobtsgt]

This is basically what I do even though my mom has cable. I usually watch all programming threw the laptop or threw my desktop onto the tv. Whenever I get my own place I will have the same basic set up as you. Programs are not that important to watch the day they show just to talk about it the next day and forget about it the day after. With all that available out there and for those who know what they are doing this is a great alternative.