The living room will be likely the place where I will receive guests, and they will likely be to. There will be a TV wall with 6 ethernet jacks rather than any coaxial jacks. The reason for this is to eliminate the coaxial jack beyond the communications room. The living room will have a 3 piece sectional with 4 end tables. Based on my Ideal Phone Setup, I will have a phone with my 412 number attached to it. Since I only need one phone, I can carry the home phone with me when I go to other parts of the house.
The lights will be on wall sconces, and will be the same color as the walls to not stick out. There will also be a Nest Thermostat for adjusting the indoor temperature. This will make the inside more comfortable, but I will follow my rules. Keep it as warm as I can tolerate in the summer, and as cool as tolerable in the winter. For the lights, there will be slider switch.
As mentioned, I noted that the TV wall will have 5 ethernet jacks. Assuming that I won’t need the coaxial jack right now since the Tablo is still using ATSC-1, I will use a MOCA Adapter to allow for an extra ethernet jack that would run and terminate in the Communications Room.The jacks will be as follows:
- Media Server (MOCA)
- Blu-Ray Player
- Mac mini
- Apple TV
- Microsoft Xbox
- Sony Playstation
All of these devices will plug into an 85″ television which will be wall mounted. all of the cables will run through a cable channel which will be behind the walls so to not have unsightly cables from the TV to the devices at hand.
Media Server
While this will normally be located in the Communications Room, it makes as much sense to also host it with the 85″ TV. The media server is actually a 2 bay NAS? with 2 NVME slots. The NVME drives will be used for caching, and the mechanical hard drives will be the movies, and TV shows. Assuming the TV has enough HDMI ports, the server can plug into the TV. If not, it can still connect by using ethernet. If there are less than 6 HDMI ports, then the NAS will not be able to connect directly to the TV. Once coaxial is required, the MOCA? adapter will be taken out, and the media server will go to the Communications Room.
Blu-Ray Player
There will come a time when I can not get a digital version of a movie or TV show. If that happens, then I will seek for DVD or Blu-Ray. While I would ideally like to import the disc into my media library, I wouldn’t know how to go about this. With that said, if I find I have many movies, I will buy a disc rack which I can slide Movie cases in the rack, and allow for a choice when the time comes for a good movie.
Mac mini
While I know that the Mac mini has wifi? support, I will always prefer to connect to the LAN? via ethernet when possible. The Mac mini will be used as a desktop PC, and allow me to create files, and documents on an 85″ screen. This will allow for multiple windows to be opened while still having the ability to read everything on the screen. This will allow guest to also use the mini as there will be a guest profile for the the system. The guest will need a USB-C thumb drive where they will plug into a front port, and save files to the thumb drive.
Apple TV
Currently, my smartTV is a Roku based system, but it is a little sluggish. I am not sure if that is Roku bloat, or the fact that my TV is 10 years old, and having a hard time handling the updates of the Roku. By acquiring a basic TV, and plugging the Apple TV into the TV, this will function as a smartTV adapter, and if that was to not meet up with me, it can be upgraded without having to buy a new 85″ TV. The Apple TV will support all of my IPTV? services, and the Tablo device as well. With that said, and the fact it function as a hub for all Apple Home features only makes the system a more functional device.
Microsoft Xbox/Sony Playstation
Assuming I will have the money to buy and renovate this house, I should also be able to afford a game system, and buy games for the game system. I am not much into games mostly because of cost, so I will be really new to this whole gaming system. The game systems will allow me to play during times where I need to relax, and just enjoy something.