Unthinkability

Sharing the joy of “media binge-fests” means sharing the knowledge of media distribution networks.  It’s like having a ‘media refrigerator’ in every room, allowing you to snack on new “30 Rock” episodes and old 80’s movies on Netflix Streaming, anytime and in any room.  Kids can watch recorded Dora The Explorer downstairs while mom hides in the bedroom watching episode after episode of NCIS, CSI, and SVU.

Our house is wired with a 10-drop house-wide CAT5 network and 802.11b wireless.  With the home-run cable network in my house and the RF modulator that I installed, I can watch our Windows Media Center on any regular TV in the house by tuning to channel 3.  I also have an XBOX 360 as a media extender connected to the ‘big screen’ in the living room.  I can also access the recorded content from any of the laptops and PCs in the house. 

So we can watch recorded TV, Netflix, DVDs on any TV in the house.  You can do it, too.  I created a diagram of the one that I built for my home back in 2005.  It would be helpful if you had an RF meter to work out the cable TV signal strength levels, but you might be able to “eyeball” it and get lucky.  (If you run into cable signal problems, you’ll need a cable TV RF signal level meter and some knowledge to work it out.  Those RF meters cost over $1,000 and are not commonly-found at rental places, but maybe you can buy your local cable guy a few beers and have him help you out.)

We’re considering getting rid of our cable and reverting back to off-air HD broadcasts for our new content, and continuing our Netflix and Hulu/Fancast for the older stuff.  Considering that would save us $700 a year, it seems like a no brainer.  Our home media network makes it an even more obvious move.

Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 5:12 pm and is filed under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts, Quitting Cable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.