My Home Entertainment Setup

Hi Internet,

Today I am deciding to share my home entertainment setup in my apartment living room. It is not big and fancy, but I am happy with it, especially with how little time I spend using it as I am usually on my computer. Ignore the messy left side of my cabinet :-D




In random order, this is what I have:

• Mohu Leaf Indoor Antenna White
• VIZIO P552ui-B2 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED HDTV
• VIZIO S3820W-C0B 38-inch Sound Bar
• Connected via optical TOSLINK cable
• Polk Audio PSW10 10-Inch Powered Subwoofer
• Connected to Vizio Sound Bar via RCA cable
• Apple AirPort Extreme (802.11ac)
• Motorola SurfBoard SB6141 Cable Modem
• With Cox 100/10 Mbps internet
• Nintendo Wii U
• Google Chromecast
• HP ProLiant N40L Ultra Micro Tower Server
• Specs:
• 4GB of RAM installed
• 250GB Base Hard Drive
• 1 TB Western Digital 7200RPM Drive for Time Machine
• 3 TB Seagate 5200RPM Drive for Downloads/Misc
• 5 TB Toshiba 7200RPM Drive for Media Storage
• Xpenology installed as the Operating System
• Plex Media Server
• Time Machine server
• Web server
• Torrent server
• DNS Server with ad-blocking script
• VPN server
• Photo backup and sharing
• File server
• File syncing across devices
• Security camera motion detection and storage
• iTunes server
• HTPC (Home Theatre Personal Computer)
• Windows 7 automatically booting to Kodi Open Source Home Theatre Software
• Specs:
• CPU: Intel Core i3-4150
• Motherboard: ASRock Z97E-ITX/AC
• RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB DDR3 1333
• SSD: Samsung 830 128GB
• HDD: Toshiba 1 TB 7200RPM Drive
• DVD-RW Drive with Lightscribe
• Case: Cooler Master Elite 130
• PSU: Seasonic 620W Bronze
• Microsoft Xbox USB Receiver
• Logitech C510 720P Webcam

Some notes on the choices above: 

The reason I got the Vizio Sound Bar was because I wanted it to seamlessly integrate with my Vizio TV. This way I have the TV speakers disabled and when I press my TV remote to change the volume, it turns the sound bar on automatically and adjusts the volume accordingly. The Polk subwoofer has a smart sleep mode that stays asleep until sound comes through and then it automatically turns on. The sound quality isn't the best, but I think it is good enough for my needs since I don't want to disturb my apartment neighbors. I turn off the enhanced bass option on the sound bar, make the the subwoofer just handle the lower frequencies so it doesn't sound muddy, and I placed thick cardboard underneath so as to reduce the amount of floor vibration.

I have the TV, HTPC, and Server all connected via LAN cables to my Airport router so that the connection is reliable and my Wi-Fi wireless spectrum is not crowded. The 2.4GHz range is already crowded from nearby apartments and the quality is pretty bad.

I used to have Debian Linux installed on my server, but I switched to Xpenology because I loved being able to control things from my iPhone using the Synology apps, having the automatic photo backup from my iPhone and iPad, and the way the torrent software automatically extracts downloads once they are done. The CPU is powerful enough to handle 720P transcoding in Plex, and I have found it powerful enough for 1080P transcoding too, depending on the source. Some videos cause micro-stuttering while others are fine.

I have my HTPC automatically booting into Kodi for my multimedia needs. I use either my iPhone, iPad, or my Pebble watch in order to control it. I have an Xbox 360 controller which can be used as well, but I hardly do.

If you have any questions about my home entertainment setup, let me know!