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how does Control4 Amp and Ipod work?


willl

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Hi,

I will have 8 pairs of speakers and would like to have 1-2 ipod station.

We have 3 children 12 yrs and 14 yrs 16 yrs (so total of 5 people in the house).

Question:

1. How C4 Amp 8 zones work? if we want to be able to individually streaming music from NAS or Time Capsule (will re rip all songs to mp3).

Does the C4 Amp pick up the music right from the network? Or it need to have Hc-300, Hc-200 audio out to feed the audio in of C4 Amp? So if this is a case, for our case of 5 individual zones needed to play at the same time, we will need at least 2 of hc-300 and 1 of hc-200 (one hc have two audio out). It would be great if C4 Amp can pick up the music right from the network so that we will not need only less hc-300 as posible.. and spend money for some other stuff..

2. How ipod dock station work? is the music in ipod will be available to other room through LAN? Or we need to plug the Audio out of ipod dock station back to this C4 amp to be able to distribute to other zone? This is important for us to determine the location of ipod and the hc's (centralized and opposite).

3. Other thing: Is the C4 remote controller also provide infared on top of RF? I ask this so that we can determine between centralize system or not. Basically will use the same remote to control the 2 of the TVs. It will be great if we don't have to wire IR back in front of tv from centralize hc-300 ir control.

thank you in advance for helping me out.

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1. How C4 Amp 8 zones work? if we want to be able to individually streaming music from NAS or Time Capsule (will re rip all songs to mp3).

Does the C4 Amp pick up the music right from the network? Or it need to have Hc-300, Hc-200 audio out to feed the audio in of C4 Amp? So if this is a case, for our case of 5 individual zones needed to play at the same time, we will need at least 2 of hc-300 and 1 of hc-200 (one hc have two audio out). It would be great if C4 Amp can pick up the music right from the network so that we will not need only less hc-300 as posible.. and spend money for some other stuff..

The Amp does *not* do decoding of the audio. That requires a controller. The amp *does*, on the other hand, have a built-in audio matrix switch, so you don't necessarily require one in your project, which does help on the budget a bit.

If you want to have X independent streams throughout the house, you need X independent analog audio outputs. Along with Controllers, Speaker Point devices can also be used as audio outputs, but then you wouldn't be using their amplifier function, so it's a bit of overkill.

I'm sure you know this, but you can have the same source streamed to multiple zones with just a single audio output, and you don't need to stream *any* analog sources. i.e. AM/FM Tuners, Satellite radio, output from the iPod dock, as long as they're an input on the amplifier, they can be distributed.

2. How ipod dock station work? is the music in ipod will be available to other room through LAN? Or we need to plug the Audio out of ipod dock station back to this C4 amp to be able to distribute to other zone? This is important for us to determine the location of ipod and the hc's (centralized and opposite).

The iPod dock does *not* digitize the audio. It outputs analog audio, which would need to be put into your multi-room audio system. The ethernet connection is for control.

3. Other thing: Is the C4 remote controller also provide infared on top of RF? I ask this so that we can determine between centralize system or not. Basically will use the same remote to control the 2 of the TVs. It will be great if we don't have to wire IR back in front of tv from centralize hc-300 ir control.

The remote does *not* provide IR. The remote is ZigBee so that it does not depend on being pointed a certain way to control equipment, it'll even work if it's under your blanket on a night like this one (which my wife likes).

RyanE

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Thanks RyanE,

More question. :)

"The remote does *not* provide IR. The remote is ZigBee so that it does not depend on being pointed a certain way to control equipment, it'll even work if it's under your blanket on a night like this one (which my wife likes)."

If we will also have 3 zones with TV (these 3 zones are going to share the same speakers as our 8 audio zones mentioned earlier). And we want 3 individual zones for watching Cable TV, and 3 individual c4 media player. Understand that it is recommended to have at least one controller at each tv location. Is it better to put all devices in centralize?

or is it better to put one cable tv, one media player and one hc-200 in each of local zone (then need to wire audio out back to C4 AMP and wire speaker out of C4 AMP back to each of local zone). or do i misunderstand something?

We probably need another C4 amp or matrix i think..

thanks

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You can centralize, but you'll need a video matrix switch of some kind and a means to get the video to the tv.

Depending on how many people will be using the GUI at the same time, controllers can be shared in some cases. Rough rule of thumb is one navigator per person.

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thank you the code man.

If doing centralize, then i will need to have IR emitter to the front of each TV location? Any recommendation on where i can check or get this?

from central location to each local tV location is 20 ft, 50 ft and the longest one is 90 ft, Can i use this?

http://www.smarthome.com/8170S/Mini-Stick-On-Infrared-IR-Emitters-Bugs-Blasters/p.aspx

and this to extend the range (just pure male and female for 50 feet. Maybe need two of this to extend it to 90 feet)?

http://www.techmall.com/Xantech-50ft-Emitter-and-IR-Sensor-Extension-Cable-p/30026.htm

will the signal be weaker before it reaches the longest tv location destination?

another question about NAS:

If 6 music zones individually at once

3 streaming movie from Media play individually at once

these are all i need.

Can Time Capsule take care of this?

I am also looking at readyNas netgear. Is Ready Nas Duo or Ready Nas NVX enough for this?

Thank you in advance

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If doing centralize, then i will need to have IR emitter to the front of each TV location? Any recommendation on where i can check or get this?

Each C4 controller comes with IR emitters. All you nned to do is have the wire in place to extend from the TV to the centrally located controller. I have extended IR over 100 feet so you should not have a problem.

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If doing centralize' date=' then i will need to have IR emitter to the front of each TV location? Any recommendation on where i can check or get this?[/quote']

Each C4 controller comes with IR emitters. All you nned to do is have the wire in place to extend from the TV to the centrally located controller. I have extended IR over 100 feet so you should not have a problem.

This can be done easily with CAT5 network cable or high gauge (22+) stranded speaker wire.

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Thank you thecodeman and Alan,

Interesting to know it is something easy.

But forgive me for not fully understand this.

How exactly to "extend" the cable? and via CAT5e cable? You mean plug it directly? or splice it to a pair of any four pairs of Cat5e? I thought the back of Hc-300 IR out is in 3.5mm Jack. Would be nice to see how this work.

thanks in advance again.

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The IR emitter is two conductors, or wires, together. Simply cut it, extend with cat5 using one pair (two conductors) with a compression connector (a little round thing that you put the wires into and then clamp down) or with speaker wire and soldering. Just ensure that you test to make sure it emits before making any permanent connections.

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Thank you thecodeman and Alan,

Interesting to know it is something easy.

But forgive me for not fully understand this.

How exactly to "extend" the cable? and via CAT5e cable? You mean plug it directly? or splice it to a pair of any four pairs of Cat5e? I thought the back of Hc-300 IR out is in 3.5mm Jack. Would be nice to see how this work.

thanks in advance again.

Just cut the wire between the bud and the jack, insert however long of cat5 you need, and just twist the ends together. You only need one pair of the cat5. That's one reason cat5 is so popular for this, you can run 4 over a single cat5.

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Wow..

I like this forum. very fast and positive attitude.

And thank you everybody for helping me out here, ILOVEC4, Ryane, Thecodeman, Alan

One thing left is on NAS. If anybody could throw some light on how can we select the right NAS which has enough processing power for streaming media in our case. Actually, it would nice if any rough way to calculate this..?

thanks again and again.

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Wow..

I like this forum. very fast and positive attitude.

And thank you everybody for helping me out here, ILOVEC4, Ryane, Thecodeman, Alan

One thing left is on NAS. If anybody could throw some light on how can we select the right NAS which has enough processing power for streaming media in our case. Actually, it would nice if any rough way to calculate this..?

thanks again and again.

I'm testing with an older Buffalo Terastation, a newer ReadyNAS Duo, and a Netgear ReadyNAS Pioneer Pro. HD streaming even from my older Terastation on a terrible $5 Netgear 10/100 switch to a Netgear 9100 express works fine.

Best way to figure it is to determine how much disk space you need. Worst case scenario is DVDs take up 9GB each and Blu-ray @ 50GB each. Multiply by number of discs you own to find out total number of terabytes needed. If greater than 2TB (2,000GB), divide by 2TB to determine the number of drive bays and hard drives you need. Add one to this number for redundancy. Save your money, look for a deal, and buy.

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Thank you thecodeman for the input and some tip.

I was just afraid if during sunday or saturday everybody try to pull different HD movies (3 people max) at the same time, the movie will be interrupting and broken in streaming.

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Thank you thecodeman for the input and some tip.

I was just afraid if during sunday or saturday everybody try to pull different HD movies (3 people max) at the same time, the movie will be interrupting and broken in streaming.

In regards to horsepower, look at the Netgear ReadyNAS Pioneer Pro. It has a Core2Duo processor and 2GB of memory expandable to 4GB. It does not come with any disks however. Beyond that, QNAP is the other option for more bays & power, but it will cost you.

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When picking a NAS it all comes down to expansion room and throughput.

If you want to stream HD Video, you need to look at the ReadyNas Pro/NVX lines (Pro is diskless, NVX comes with disks, same hardware). For regular video streams and music, the older NV+ and Duo lines are fine.

The 4 bay chassis gives you much more room for expansion than the 2 bay units, but at a higher cost.

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