Current Setup

[rchawla80]

Hi there -

I need some really thought out advice to "refresh my C4 system". This is my current setup:

Zone 1 - HC-300 running 1.6 (not the newest version as my dealer won't do it for free)

Main zone with independant Receiver/speakers in Wall/TV/DVD Player

Zone 2- HC-100 (old school controller) running 1.6

Running independant receiver/speakers in wall/tv/dvd player

Zone 3- HC-100 (old school controller) running 1.6

Running independant receiver/speakers in wall/tv/dvd player

Zone 4- HTC Media Controller (v1 - 40gb)

Independant receiver

16 channel Amp (v1) - (supplying to 3 zones (exclusing Zone 4)

Zone 5 -Audio zone only from 16 channel amp

Zone 6 -Audio zone only from 16 channel amp

Zone 7 -Audio zone only from 16 channel amp

Zone 8- Theatre room (running HC-100) with wireless hub

Independant receiver with DVD player, Home Theatre PC and 7.1 audio setup

Now, Zone 4 is the main zone that everyone usually sees, guests and the audio interface is mainly used there. I have some latency issues when I stream to all zones. I am using a DIR-655 with a Apple N router (DHCP off) and it all seems pretty slick. I have this coupled with Gigabit switches. My home network DOES NOT GET Gigabit speeds though (probably because Control4) lags the LAN.

Here is what I want to do. I really do not want the Media Controller any more. I would rather use a Mac Mini and let it serve Itunes music somehow or use a NAS to do it.

I want my system to look NEW, be SUPER FAST and have HD UI and ideally at some point do video distribution (independant zones). I dont mind putting in a small pc in each room or some other solution.

Also, I have no HDMI in the house as when house was built, it was not approved for inwall use. I have component running and Cat5e. The Cat5e is being used for ethernet jacks. Can I split it to get HDMI in?

I know this is a lot but anyone willing to write back or call me in detail and spend some time I would truly appreciate. I do not mind paying a small consulting fee only.

I just want a place where I can stream music and movies to zones and control it in a very slick way. I am all about "appereance", hence I love macs too.

Please advise and thank you in advance.

[thecodeman]

Get a NAS with DLNA, something with hot swappable disks and dynamic expansion. I use the Netgear ReadyNAS Pioneer Pro and 1TB enterprise Segate drives, but there are other options. Great for data protection and expansion without a lot of hassle. Plus the hardware is beefy enough to support 10+ simultaneous 1080p streams. You can put your movies here, music (mp3 & flac), iTunes database (theres a two-way apple tv integration driver coming in a few months and even some iTunes support? - http://control4blog.com/ ) With the netgear 9150 HD or Control4's upcoming Media Player, it's cool streaming the same movie around your house without discs.

Take advantage of the trade in promotion. Keep your HC300 and repurpose it soley for Director. Get some HC200s for zones 1-4 & 8, as needed. Rule of thumb is one per tv, but you can think about how many times you'll have two people using the on-screen tv navigation at the same time. For example, if it's a maximum of three, then you only need 3 controllers for navigation purposes as opposed to one in every zone. However you'll need to plan accordingly for local IR control like TVs - the 200s can be economical for local IR, digital audio endpoints (rhapsody), and zigbee servers.

Your network sounds good, but it's likely that the old HTCs are what's slowing the system, and that the HC300 is running all services. Having new HC200s and the dedicated 300 as the brain will help, but budget allowing, an HC-1000 will REALLY kick your system in the pants for speed boost that you can't get out of a 200,300, or 500. Yes, it's big money, but I've never heard anyone say they regret it - and it will give you more horsepower for 2.0 down the road. If you get an hc1000, you can get one less 200 and use the 300 for HD GUI still.

If you really want HDMI (I wouldnt at the moment) you can use Just Add Power for HDMI over Ethernet as seen in our CEDIA thread. For simplicity and until we get some JAP systems in the field, I would stick with component for now.

Hope this helps.

[rchawla80]

Hi Code Man -

Thanks for all your advice, much appreciated. All in All, you recommend a full refurbish of every C4 equipment with the Exception of the HC-300. What does an HC-1000 retail? Also, I would have to swap all the remotes too on 1.8 as I have the old ones.

The NAS storage is a good $1k with drives (give or take). So I am looking to spend a good $4-5k with programming to get this up to speed. Sound about right?

Cheers

[thecodeman]

Hi Code Man -

Thanks for all your advice, much appreciated. All in All, you recommend a full refurbish of every C4 equipment with the Exception of the HC-300. What does an HC-1000 retail? Also, I would have to swap all the remotes too on 1.8 as I have the old ones.

The NAS storage is a good $1k with drives (give or take). So I am looking to spend a good $4-5k with programming to get this up to speed. Sound about right?

Cheers

The Netgear I mentioned streets around $1200 shipped - it's a beast and does not come with any hard drives.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822122032

The drives are the Seagate NS line - designed for always-on raid use. Be careful using standard desktop drives as their power saving modes will cause drives to drop offline when using raid and will report as "dead" to your NAS.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148278

Of course you dont have to start with six drives, you can start with just two and expand as space needs and budget dictate.

Yes, the HTC/MC controllers dont have much use in the 1.8+ firmwares, since they can really only be used for the SD navigator, contacts/ir/relays, and zigbee. However with 2.0 they will not run the new flash navigator, and if they are supported will run the legacy "circle of power" we have now and it wont be consistent.

How many remotes do you have that are V1/V2? Theres a trade-in deal for the remotes as well right now, $50 off an SR-250 for each remote traded in so that helps a little.

As far as pricing, that's dealer dependant. You can certainly get a couple quotes from dealers in your area to get a ballpark of what it would cost.

[rchawla80]

Hi again -

So I called around, I could probably get an HC-1000 for $3,000. I have 6 remotes in the house which is a bit of an expense. Do I have to change dimmers or anything else to make it work with 1.8. Also, I have an HTC with every room that has a TV, do I really need that with an HC-1000?

I wish I had more nicer dealers that were "reasonable" in cost nearby. I called another dealer today and their words:

"We are not network experts and cannot help you speed up your network but can make sure we setup your C4 right" <<< as much as I find this good for them being honest, I do not think non-network experts should be C4 dealers. There is a heavy networking design component for C4 to work effectively.

Another dealer: replacing your old HTC's will not speed up your system, you just need to put in an HC-1000 and that will fix "everything". Code man - you recommended replacing out the old HTC-100's with the new HC-200's. Do I do that? or do I put in HC-1000? and leave those as is?

I am so confused...

Uggh... regretting C4.

[GoGo Delicious]

. . . I am using a DIR-655 with a Apple N router (DHCP off) and it all seems pretty slick. I have this coupled with Gigabit switches. My home network DOES NOT GET Gigabit speeds though (probably because Control4) lags the LAN.

In regards to your network, just because you have Gigabit switch does not mean you will have a Gigabit network. You have to take into account 4 important factors.

1) Your switch must support Jumbo Frames.

2) NIC's - You need to not only have gigabit NIC's on every device. Those devices have to support Jumbo Frames.

3) Jumbo Frames - Even though your NIC may have Jumbo Frames it has to be enabled manually.

4) OS - Your OS must support Jumbo Frames.

What are Jumbo Frames and why should I care? (The following excerpt is taken from a post I wrote a while back. You can read it in its entirety HERE)

A quick lesson in Jumbo frames. Standard 10/100/Gigabit networks send information in 1500byte frames. So no matter what the speed of the network your packet size is the same 1500bytes. Jumbo frames enable you to send data in 9000byte frames. Thus sending more data per packet.

Think of it this way you have a 3-lane road, 10Mph, 100Mph and 1000Mph and each lane has an 8-passenger van. No matter how fast you can go you can only carry the same amount of passengers 8. Yes, lane 2 gets there faster then lane 1 and lane 3 gets there faster then either lane 1 or lane 2 but you are still making the same amount of trips to get 100 passengers from point “A” to point “B”.

If you have your Gigabit network setup for Jumbo Frames you can now move data in 9000byte frames, a 600% increase in the amount of data moved per packet. Now lets take a look at the above example, this time using Jumbo frames.

You have a 3-lane road, 10Mph, 100Mph and 1000Mph. Lanes 1 and 2 still have an 8-passenger van but lane 3 now has a 48-passenger van (A 600% increase). No matter how fast you can go lanes 1 and 2 can only carry the same amount of passengers 8. But lane 3 can now carry 48 passengers at a time. It takes lane 1 and 2, 12.5 trips to carry 100 passengers from point “A” to point “B”. Where as, by using Jumbo Frames, it takes Lane 3, 2.1 trips to take 100 passengers from point “A” to point “B”.

As you can see if you are running a server in your house that serves Audio/Video you will definitely want to use Jumbo frames as it reduces traffic on your network. Depending on how many “Zones” you have on your house this can have a positive impact on your network throughout your house.

Remember in order to run/enable Jumbo frames you need to have the following.

1) 10/100/1000 Router/Switch that supports Jumbo Frames

2) 10/100/1000 Ethernet Card that supports Jumbo Frames and make sure it's enabled

3) Your OS supports Jumbo Frames.

Mac users. If you are using OS X 10.4.X Jumbo frames support is built-in. I also believe Jumbo frames is supported in OS X 10.3, I cannot remember if it is. All G5 and Intel Macs support Jumbo frames. As far G4 Mac’s SOME do it depends. If you have a G5 or Intel Mac and are running 10.4 and have a switch that supports Jumbo frames I can help you if you like in setting your network settings to support Jumbo frames.

With out a properly engineered network you will not see any significant results with a gigabit network. Not only do you have to have items #1-4 within your network, you need to account for gear on your network thats only 100Mb and how that will impact your networks over all performance. You can easily get 100Mb and 1000Mb products to play nice on a network and have the 1000Mb (Gigabit) products function at their full capacity, Gigabit with Jumbo frames, you just have to make sure your network is properly engineered up front and gear that is not Gigabit is taken into account.

Hope that helps a little bit.

[rchawla80]

Thank you for your note. We need people like you in Vancouver!

[rchawla80]

This is how my network is setup:

DIR-655 - Is this a jumbo supported router?

I do not know what version I have but I know its barely 6-7 months old.

I think the biggest problem I have is the most "bandwidth intensive" zones are wireless N. It is hogging bandwidth from the main router.

Last time I setup a NAS device (a year ago - Dlink) I do not know if it had Jumbo but it was sooooo damn slow!

[thecodeman]

Great post James, here's something supplimental that a lot of people overlook that shines a light on drive read/write speed as the bottleneck.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabit-ethernet-bandwidth,2321.html

[rchawla80]

Thanks everyone - after an update to 1.7, a lot of my latency issues have disappeared. My Zigbee is very slow though so I am thinking about how to resolve that.

Thoughts?

[thecodeman]

Where is your zigbee server in relation to the equipment? Centralized? One end of the house?

[rchawla80]

Zigbee server is the same as the director HC300 - The HC300 sits on the top floor corner but is in close proximity to 2 other zones upstairs - they work fine. The zone downstairs is slow. I have about 10 dimmers as well.

[thecodeman]

May look into adding an HC200 on the first floor and changing the channel down there on those devices.