Audio Video Tech Stuff

My home studio. That is one part of our transition to retirement that I will miss. Lots of high tech goodness in that part of the house.

I will have some recording gear with me when we go out on the road full-time with the Castaway and it will be far more modest than my current studio. Although, I think I will still be able to get some good sound even with the limited space and gear. However, that is a different topic for another time.

Today is about how we are approaching the Audio Video technology in our coach.

The current equipment in the coach is okay. In the forward section of the coach:

• Entry-level Sony STR-DH550 AV Receiver
• Bell Expressvu 6131 HD Satellite Receiver
• Entry-level Sony Blu-Ray Player
• Winegard Satellite Antenna Control
• Winegard Digital TV Antenna Control
• Two 120mm Cooling Fans in the Forward Cabinet
• Two as yet unidentified boxes routing the HDMI satellite feed
• Two Sony LED TVs

In the back section of the coach:

• One Sony LED TV
• One Entry-level Sony Blu-Ray Player

We are adding a few things to make the place a bit more geek-friendly.

I had Newmar pre-wire an Ethernet Cat 6 Cable between the forward AV cabinet and the back AV cabinet. For some reason, this caused our dealer to ponder such a custom request. Why would we need an Ethernet cable? Isn’t everything wireless today?

Well, yes and no. Read on.

We will set up a wired and wireless local area network in the coach to allow media streaming to all of our devices and screens. We expect to carry at least two iPhones, three iPads and a laptop. And we want to be able to throw things up to any of our TV screens. We will have a fair amount of technology in the coach.

We will install an Apple Airport Extreme in the back AV cabinet. It will be connected by Ethernet to a Synology DS416play NAS. It will also be connected by Ethernet to Apple TVs in the forward and back AV cabinets.

The NAS will run an iTunes server for all of our music and video content. This will allow us to stream media over the wire to the Apple TVs and, by extension, video content will go out to the TV screens. Wired lines still provide the best performance particularly when streaming high definition video content.

I have already configured our Harmony Elite remote along with the Harmony Hub to simplify the operation in the forward section of the coach. I will configure our older Harmony touch remote to operate the technology in the back section of the coach.

The NAS will hold basically all of our data, documents and media content, so it will be the overall digital workhorse for our coach.

I expect to have most of the technology in and running over the next couple of weeks. I will do a video walkthrough to show you how it all worked out.