Designing sweet College tech house...help?

[Go Dog Go]

I am moving into a fairly nice house next month with a few good friends. One of them purchased a very nice 52" 1080P LCD TV, which we will have mounted in the center room.

I have a really nice stereo system, with speakers, receiver, etc.

What I'm trying to do is find the best setup for our house. I would like to be able to easily select music, listen to it, and I'm not 100% sure if that's where I want it to end. I see 3 options, and I would like some advice...

1) TimeCapsule and Airport Express - Allows everyone to backup and share files, and also stream music to the main area (or wherever they'd like).

2) TimeCapsule and AppleTV - Same as the Airport Express, but more options...

3) Airport Extreme and older iMac - Throw a huge HD in the iMac, backup to it, use it as the main jukebox for the house.

Any opinions?

 

[Hellhammer]

AirPort & Mac Mini would be my choice. Just put bigger HD in or use externals and it'll be a beast

 

[Aldaris]

Coolness...

Well, here is the route I'd go:

TV, Receiver, (Entertainment stuff, Dvd, Blu-ray, etc...), AppleTV added into the mix.

AppleTV for the following reason, STREAMING. This will allow everyone to use a 802.11/g or later connection to run media through the Entertainment setup.
Also allowing them to store their own content.

If you are looking for a mass storage solution, I would recommend one of the following, depending on your needs/wants:

-Old G5, expandable HD space up to 3TB+
-MacMini (Intel being a plus for longevity) w/ external HD or Dorbo
-iMac (Intel again being a plus) w/ external HD or Dorbo, the benefit here is the monitor, however you could just as easily hook up the MacMini or G5 to the 52" screen.

Anyway, send some pictures, and questions and thoughts as you go along.

 

[mr_matalino]

Get an Apple TV. Do some upfront work and convert all your DVD's via Handbrake and stream them to your ATV. That way, you'll have all your movies with your music. It's how I have it set up in my house.