by Pat Coddington

Overview

My Vista Media Center (VMC) / Windows Home Server (WHS) home system is a work in progress. The initial objective was to bring together in one place all of my family's photos, videos, and to be able to share them on a larger screen. Over time, I have added other features with commercial products as well as some great add-ins available in the community.

Figure 1 Overall system schematic

The Network

My home uses wired networking (CAT 5e) as the primary infrastructure. I use wireless more sparingly for convenience and for situations like a temporary installation or in areas without cable pulled to it. I have a primary 801.11N router and a secondary access point to improve coverage

Media Center build

I took at home-build approach to my VMC to control the individual components to optimize price, performance and noise. The Asus video is nice in that it has decent performance, built in HDMI (no adapters), and is passively cooled. While I'm currently running at stock speeds, the Black Edition CPU and the efficient cooler give me the option to overclock later if needed.

Figure 2 The Media Center Build Components

Figure 3 The VMC PC

The Sapphire TV tuner cards each have dual tuners – one for OTA DTV/FM, the other for SD TV. I have a roof mount antenna which catches the local HD feeds as well as FM radio. I have a separate DirecTV tuner box dedicated to each of the tuners. The boxes are controlled using IR emitters from the PC and send S-Video and stereo audio. Since I have no ability to record HD programming from DirecTV, I have a 3^rd DirecTV receiver connected to my HT projector through the AV receiver for watching HD.

Figure 4 Three DirecTV STBs and the AV Receiver

The VMC PC outputs both audio and video through HDMI to drive a Panasonic AE3000U 1080P projector via an Onkyo SR875 AV receiver and a 7.1 channel sound system. I've used HDMI wherever possible (other inputs are the third DirecTV box, the PS3, and a HD Camcorder) which has significantly reduced the cable clutter. The video is projected on a 126" diagonal Carada screen.

Figure 5 Home Theater Projection Screen

Extenders

I currently use both the Linksys 2100 extenders as well as an Xbox 360. One of the Linksys units is in a bedroom, where silence was the most important criteria. It is connected to a 720P LCD via HDMI. The other drives a SD TV in the workout room and using a wireless connection. Both of these extenders have performed very well, however the one which is connected wirelessly occasionally loses its settings and has to be reconfigured from the VMC. I also use a 360 as an extender in the kid's game room. It's driving a 65" RPTV via component output and has performed very well both as a gaming platform and as an extender. The fan noise isn't really an issue in this room.

Other components

I'm using Logitech Harmony 890 and 880 remotes to control all of the various components including the VMC PC. The Logitech's can be programmed to perform common activities ("watch TV" or "watch Movies") by turning on the right components and setting the right inputs. Having the same type of remotes in different rooms supports the common user experience

My WHS build

I chose to build my own WHS to provide me the flexibility to control the components and to provide more drive bays than most of the commercial servers. It has worked out well, although I'm a little envious of the software updates HP release for their latest units.

Figure 6 WHS Build Components

Figure 7 The WHS Innards – 6 internal drives

After using the 4 on-board SATA II ports it was a challenge finding a controller card that worked reliably. After purchasing several RAID capable controllers which wouldn't work or were flaky, I finally found the non-RAID Promise. It's PCI-based so it's not the highest performance but has worked well.

Figure 8 The WHS Front Panel – 5 additional drives

When I outgrew the internal drive bay capacity, I was extended the case using an AMS SATA backplane module which took three 5.25" bays and gave me and additional five 3.5" slots. I also added a supplemental cooling fan in the front of the case for the internal drives which keeps them cool (70-85°F).

Integration and use of the system

Let's start with the base features of VMC and how I've chosen to use them. First, all of the digital media content (with the exception of recorded TV) is housed on the WHS. I chose to do this as it's easier to maintain (add, delete and backup) on WHS and I also can easily share the content I choose with remote friends and family.

• Music: All of our family's music (~11,000 songs) is ripped into MP3 format and stored on a share in WHS which is available to all the PCs and TVs.
• Photos: All of our family photos (~12,000) have been digitized and organized by year and are available on a share. These photos are also shared remotely via a generic family log-in.
• Videos: I have also digitized all of our family videos, including some really old Super 8mm films. Most of the video was captured in AVI files which are big (~10GB/hr) and don't work on extenders. After much trial and error with different formats for re-encoding the video, I settled on WMV as the best compromise. It's reasonably compact, decent quality, and works well on the extenders and for streaming remotely. For most of the re-encoding work I used the free Microsoft Media Encoder and was able to re-encode the content down from 425GB to a more manageable 65GB. More recently, I've started using Sony's Vegas Movie Studio to edit and re-encode video from our HD camcorder with success.
• Live and Recorded TV: I have 2 dedicated DirecTV receivers which are connected to the Sapphire Radeon cards via S-Video for watching & recording standard definition TV through the VMC interface. I have a top antenna which also feeds the same cards for HD recording and playback of network TV.

Recorded HD TV

Given an aversion to CableCard solutions, I've found the options for recording HD material for playback in VMC are pretty limited. As I'm a DirecTV subscriber, I've used one of their proprietary HD PVRs for recording and use the DirecTV2PC application to play back the recorded HD shows (including premium content) on my Home Theater Setup across the wired network.

Figure 9 VMC Integration with DirecTV

I used the Media Center Launcher Configurator utility to add the application to the media center menu. As you can see below the launched application has the look and feel of the DirecTV DVR instead of media center, but the media center remote works just fine.

Figure 10 Accessing the DirecTV PVR in the Home Theater

While it doesn't work on extenders, it does provide me a way of recording and playing back HD content in my home theater.

DVD Library

I own a fairly extensive DVD library (>300 discs) which I have digitized and store on the WHS for playback in the home theater and on other PCs and extenders throughout the house. I do this by taking only the main movie and converting it to DVR-MS format.

I use the My Movies add-in to organize and display the library. This free application developed by Brian Binnerup is provides a great user experience on both PCs and extenders.

Figure 11 The My Movies Interface

Blu-ray Playback

I only have a few Blu-Ray discs in my collection – mainly my all time favorites. I haven't been able to find a solution to playing these back on extenders, so I only am able to play them back in the Home Theater. I use the TotalMedia Theater (TMT) application integrated with My Movies to play the Blu-Ray ISO images I store on the WHS. This setup also requires the use of the free Virtual CloneDrive application for dynamically mounting the images upon playback.

Streaming Media

In addition to the various standard streaming features in VMC, I've added a couple of add-ins. For NetFlix Watch Now movies I've been using the vmcNetFlix add-in. While the streaming works fine, the picture quality doesn't hold up well on my home theater's 126" screen.

Figure 12 Netflix streaming via vmnNetFlix

Home automation

Home automation (HA) using WHS which is running 24x7 has worked very well. I chose the mControl package from Embedded Automation as it's relatively easy to configure, is reasonably priced, has a nice VMC interface and most importantly is well integrated into WHS.

Through the VMC interface I can turn individual devices on or off or kick off macros to perform more complex tasks. In practice, I more often will use a wireless keypad to kick perform these tasks.

Figure 13 Wireless keypad for activating devices and macros

Some examples of task macros I have created are:

• Movie time: Turns off all lights in the home theater room except 2 side lamps, which dim to 20% power
• Bed time: Turns on a series of lights between the HT and the bedrooms; after 2 minutes dims them all to 50%, then 60 seconds later turns them all off.

The HA software also has a series of automatic macros which is runs continuously from the WHS without intervention. Some examples are:

• Lights out: Turns off all the lights. This macro fires every weekday 30 min after we normally leave and every night at different times – later on the weekends than the week nights.
• Welcome guests: If it's night time and motion is detected in the front of the house, turn on the porch lights and leave them on for 5 minutes after motion ceases.

Figure 14 Motion Sensor on the Front Door

The mControl software has some other nice features which lend it to integration with VMC. For example, there is a capability to trigger VMC actions based on external events. In my example, I have an X10 sensor wired to my doorbell. If we're watching a movie in the theater (where we can't hear the doorbell) and someone rings the bell, the movie is automatically paused and a message windows pops up on the screen.

Figure 15 Integrating Media Center with Home Automation Events

Remote access

Providing easy but controlled remote access to our media was accomplished using the WebGuide 4 add-in. I use the VMC version only for managing recorded TV on the VMC PC. It allows me to connect from the office to schedule a recording I forgot or to stream recorded shows if I'm travelling and nothing good is on in the hotel.

Figure 16 Remote management of recorded TV via WebGuide

I also use WebGuide on WHS for sharing personal content with family and friends. Its interface is much nicer than the standard WHS remote interface, which is OK for basic downloading but not so good for browsing. WebGuide also allows you to stream video at different bandwidths to meet your needs. This is particularly nice for relatives who live far away to keep up with the latest without large downloads.

Figure 17 Remote Browsing with WebGuide

The other application which lends itself well to remote use is the mControl HA software. It allows you to come in remotely and turn devices on/off or to change thermostat settings or anything else you might want to do. Again, in the future it might be useful in conjunction with cameras and security systems.

Figure 18 Accessing mControl from the Remote Console

Final Thoughts

My family and I have been very satisfied with the user experience provided by this VMC/WHS integration. It provides a consistent look and feel around the house while providing easy access to our digital media. The home automation is another very nice addition.

The next significant change to my system will likely be driven by the release of Windows 7, which promises to build upon the integration with WHS. I'm also looking to utilize the iPod touch as another alternative for providing remote control of various system functions.