GUI on TV

[jwest]

Hello. I am new to the site and in the middle of building a new home. Quick question before I meet with my dealer:

Do I need a seperate HTC for each room I want to be able to use the TV GUI in?

Thanks - JW

[tumult]

welcome to c4!

depends. if you plan to have distributed video, you can share the gui among many tv's. for example, in my home, we have 2 hc-300's shared among 7 tv locations. if you don't have distributed video, then yes, you'll need a hc-300 or other controller at each location where you want the gui.

tum

[jbs]

we went with the distributed video and I'm so glad we did. It's actually something that our installer talked me into . . . I didn't think it would be that big a deal for the cost. I was way wrong, it ended up being the best part of the whole investment (well, except for C4 itself of course :-))

So as tumult said if you go for the distributed video you can share one controller amongst all your displays.

[jwest]

Thanks for the answer! I am sure there will be many more questions....

[MSI]

tumult & JBS:

Very interesting.

Can you explain your setup. How do you accomplish the distributed video ?

Did you put all your equipment in one central location and just run wires to the TVs ?

I am looking for a solution that will allow us to use 1 or 2 DVRS and watch recorded shows on any TV in our house.

If you have 2 cable boxes and 3 people are watching on 3 different TVs, Who controls the source?

[tumult]

Our installer ran a ton of pre wire from a dedicated equipment room not exactly centrally located, but it works. I think we ran 5 coax, and probably about 4 cat5 to each tv location (7) but I could be mistaken. so, you've got component video at each tv and each tv location gets its sound from overhead speakers or speakers next to the tv. there's a video matrix switcher tied into c4 that routes the cable to whatever tv is calling for it. on the c4 gui, we have tivo 1 and tivo 2. my wife watches tivo1 and I watch tivo2. to my knowledge, there's no way yet for c4 to know that my wife is watching one tivo so that it automatically selects the other. there should be other threads here that discuss the same setup and I think there's even some pics.

if you had 2 cable boxes and 3 people watching different tv's, you'd be in trouble. one person would get 1 cable box all to himself and the other 2 would be fighting over the second cable box. We have four people in the family and two are young kids. the kids don't watch separately yet and my wife and I haven't watched tv separately yet while the kids are watching so the 2 cable boxes hasn't been a problem. also, if it did happen, I'd probably just watch a different source, such as the xbox360 or the dvd changer. However, i am thinking about adding a third hd tivo just for live tv and music.

hope this helps.

tum

[lippavisual]

For Vid. Dist., all equipment is located in a central location and wires are ran from this location to your displays. A video matrix switch is installed and is what controls what source goes to where.

As long as you have selected that source, you will be able to control it.

I suggest that if you want everyone in your home to be able to watch there own HD programming or whatever, that you get 1 box per person in your household. This way you can lable each box the person's name and they can select their own box anywhere in your home. Otherwise, there really isn't a way to know who is watching what box, other than LED colors from switches/keypads.

Hope this helps!!

Beat me to it tumult!!

[jbs]

tumult & JBS:

Very interesting.

Can you explain your setup. How do you accomplish the distributed video ?

Did you put all your equipment in one central location and just run wires to the TVs ?

I am looking for a solution that will allow us to use 1 or 2 DVRS and watch recorded shows on any TV in our house.

If you have 2 cable boxes and 3 people are watching on 3 different TVs, Who controls the source?

MSI-

There's a good thread on this here:

http://www.c4forums.com/viewtopic.php?id=1477

and I suspect my response there addresses your question:

We have 5 TVs in the house, each wired back to an equipment closet with RGBVH and Cat6. Have one HC300 and a Media Controller in the closet, along with all the video sources (DVD changer, DLink Media Lounge, Tivo, Cable Box, Camera system, etc). The sources go into a video matrix, the TVs all come out of it, and the IR signals from the Media Controller run over a couple of strands of the Cat6 cable. At the TV end there's a Cat6 jack behind each TV with a short length of Cat6 cable coming out of the spliced into an IR bud which is stuck to the front of the TV near the IR receiver.

At first I did not like the fact that the IR bud "flashed" but now I find it a useful diagnostic/confirmation.

We are using the Media Controller for all the IR control, but the HC300 for the OSD because it's an HD OSD (720 I think). As others have suggested, we've thus far had no problems with the fact that all the TVs get their OSD from the same box, and the programming is set so that if I press the Red4 when I'm in the Living Room (and the remote is set to Living Room of course) then the OSD comes up with Living Room selected, so all you really have to do is make sure the remote is set to the right place . . .

The centrally located components, though, are definitely the way to go, and for us the video matrix makes it all much more functional.

[tumult]

lippavisual - great idea! I hadn't thought about using led's to show who's watching what. I might have to tinker with composer HE tonight:)

tum

[lippavisual]

At my house, I have 2 cable boxes (box 1 and box 2) and a 3-button (2 buttons for programming- 1 unused) in my living room. If either one of the boxes are in use, the unused button changes its LED. It also changes different colors for other sources as well.

Box 1 in use> change button 3 to red

Box 2 in use> change button 3 to green