Hi all,
Building a new home and at the point of needing to complete my pre-wire/rough-in. I reached out to a Control4 dealer for a setup recommendation. His proposal was predominantly Control4 kit (specifically for video and audio whole house distribution). I've been trying to research options to reduce cost as the Control4 kit (video matrix, audio matrix, audio amps) were pushing the total cost too high. That's when I came across the video storm/netplay alternative on these forums.
Here is how the house audio/video situation is planned:
16 Audio Zones
3 rooms with TV (Samsung, Vizio, LG) and surround sound (centralized audio amplifiers with speaker wire to speakers in each room from centralized media rack) - these rooms also include whole house audio included in the 16 zone count
Audio Sources: Primarily Amazon Prime Music and local iPhone/iPad devices
Video Sources: DirecTV, Apple TV, 4K Blu Ray Player - Centralized location
So, here is my question for those of you using video storm for both video and whole house audio distribution:
1. What Control4 and Video Storm hardwire is required to make this setup/distribution work? I basically want to be able to send any listed video source to any TV and any listed audio source to any audio zone.
2. How should I prewire back to my control rack in a centralized media rack location? I think I need to run Cat6 from each TV to the media rack for video distribution. Not sure what jumpers or whatever might be required in the media rack for the amplifiers that feed both the whole house audio amp and the amps/receivers for the 3 TV rooms.
3. How does Control4 fit into this equation? Are you using the touchpad (or C4 remote) to control the video and audio sources to each zone or do you use the NetPlay interface? If using NetPlay interface, what is the point or benefit of even having it integrated into Control4 (in other words, what is Control4 adding to the equation).
4. What about volume? How is volume in each zone controlled? Is netplay doing it or is Control4?
5. How would you recommend getting a video doorbell integrated with all this? The Control4 mini-DS2?
Sorry for all the beginner questions, but I want to get this right since you only get one chance before all the sheetrock goes up.
Thanks in advance,
Stephen