Home Theater Automation

Posted by: hybrid8

Home Theater Automation - 24/08/2012 18:14

Here's a short video I made of my watching/listening room - which I briefly discussed a couple of years ago while I was planning it. A lot of specifics are left out of the text intro in my blog on purpose, but I don't mind sharing them here.

There have been a number of threads over the past year, some over the past few weeks, that relate closely to what I've worked on for this room - remote controls, automation, multi-room audio, LED lighting, RGB LED lighting control, networking, VOIP, LCD/LED TV, etc.

http://twistedmelon.com/blog/aug2012.html

The video is about 8MB, h.264-encoded m4v (mpeg4). I've added it to the page with a plain/standard video tag but I have no idea (yet) how it's working in all browsers. The page isn't linked from the rest of the site, and this is the only place I plan to post an external link.

This gave me a chance to play with some video editing which I hadn't touched in many years. Instead of going nuts with GoPro fisheye video I used a Canon P&S instead, which produced better/sharper quality video in any case, albeit not as wide angle.

On the top shelf and behind the glass cabinet doors I have LED strip lighting, RGB and white, controlled independently. The lamp above the TV is made from slightly machined aluminum bar stock and warm white LED strip. There are compact fluorescent recessed lights in the room, some of which are hidden by two long acoustic panels I've made and mounted to the ceiling. Then there are also high-voltage LED lights in pendants which are the ones I use most often. Everything with the exception of the CFLs can be controlled remotely. Actually, apart from the pendants, everything must be controlled remotely. smile

The panel around the TV has a bullet-style IR receiver built into it which I can use to override my control system with an original factory remote if I need to. Everything in the video except speakers, decorations on shelves, the four high-gloss cabinet doors and the two glass doors were designed, fabricated and installed (with some lifting help of course) by myself. That includes the leather ottoman, if anyone remembers the ottoman thread that Matt started, where I mentioned not finding anything suitable at retail.

Everything seems to have come out just about as close as one could possibly hope for when compared to the original designs in SketchUp.
Posted by: mlord

Re: Home Theater Automation - 24/08/2012 19:24

"Video format or MIME type is not supported."

Edit: Though oddly enough, I can do Right-Click and View-Video and it plays nicely.

Posted by: mlord

Re: Home Theater Automation - 24/08/2012 19:27

Cool niche. Nice work on the room/setup. I like the trolley car too, it goes well with the rest.

Cheers
Posted by: petteri

Re: Home Theater Automation - 24/08/2012 19:33

I'm running a laptop with Windows 8 release candidate on it. With Chrome ver 22 dev version I get nothing. Just a blank play screen and hitting the play button does nothing. I'm running Chrome here as a "metro" full screen app.

Switching to Internet Explorer 10, everything is just fine.

Other than that, nice theater!
Posted by: canuckInOR

Re: Home Theater Automation - 24/08/2012 21:20

Nicely done!
Posted by: Taym

Re: Home Theater Automation - 24/08/2012 21:31

Very nice setup, Bruno!

Win8 RTM + IE10
Win8 RTM + Chrome 21.0.1180.83 m

Both work well.
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: Home Theater Automation - 24/08/2012 23:06

Originally Posted By: mlord
"Video format or MIME type is not supported."
Me too. But in my case, right-clicking does nothing.

Firefox 14.0.1
Windows Vista

tanstaafl.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Home Theater Automation - 25/08/2012 00:02

Works for me on OSX 10.6.8 smile Oh, and Chrome.

When I get home I'll check it on Win7 and Chrome.

Great home design, Bruno.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: Home Theater Automation - 27/08/2012 19:35

So, what devices are you using to control those light switches with the URC? When you said it was $130 per light in the other thread, it really made me wonder what you were using there!
Posted by: hybrid8

Re: Home Theater Automation - 27/08/2012 19:36

Thanks for the compliments guys. WRT to the video tag, I've now included a call to an external script here: http://api.html5media.info/1.1.5/html5media.min.js

This should allow the video to fall back/work with every browser, using Flash if necessary (unfortunately). At least that's what I understood was promised.

I've also updated the page with two screenshots of the room model in SketchUp, trying to match the angle in the video. The room was created to duplicate the model, not the other way around. smile

I'd like to link this page to my site, but I'm questioning the "fair use" of the music. I'll include a copyright notice for it, but I'm still not sure if it's cool to do - I definitely feel conflicted about it, though of course I don't have the expertise/time to create any original sounds of my own.

Music issue solved with a public domain (CC0) track.