Today I find out that I will soon be in media server heaven. Plex has dropped their Google TV Plex app. I still don’t have the Google TV 2.0 update but it should him my machine any day now. This is brilliant to say the least. I don’t need to run any more cables or worry about resolution from my Mac Mini to a third monitor. It will soon all work right through Google TV. Christmas is coming early this year!

I can’t wait until Google TV rolls out the update to Iowa. They are releasing the udpate by state and I think I might get it today or tomorrow.

Right now all I can show you are screen shots from the Plex Blog. Expect a full review this weekend when I have the Google TV 2.0 update pushed.

Click the thumbnails to see the screenshots.

Here is a quick promo video of the system. It doesn’t show much really.

Here is what they had to say in the email today.

Keep it simple
The interface is now much simpler. The new customizable home screen gets you to your favorite content quickly. And within “all apps” you can see all of your shortcuts, similar to your Android phone or tablet.

Make it easy to find something worth watching
We’ve improved search across the board for content from live TV, Netflix, YouTube, HBO GO, and more. But what if you don’t know what to search for? There’s now an app called “TV & Movies” that let’s you easily browse through 80,000 movies and TV episodes across cable or satellite, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and many other sites. If you’ve opted in to recommendations, we can better predict what you want to watch next.

Make YouTube better on TV
We’re launching a new YouTube experience specifically built for Google TV. It is now fast and easy to get to your favorite HD-quality YouTube entertainment. And we’ve integrated YouTube more closely with Google TV search, so that you can turn virtually any topic – mountain biking, cooking, etc. – into a channel.

Bring more apps to TV
We are opening up the TV to the creativity of content creators large and small through Android Market. Android developers can now bring existing mobile apps or entirely new ones to TV. Initially, the number of apps won’t be large – for example, apps requiring a touch screen, GPS, or telephony won’t show up – but 50 developers have seeded the Market with some cool and useful apps for the TV. We’re excited to see the number of apps grow.

For even more information on these changes, check out these links:
1. Help Center
2. Website

You can also see our revised Additional Terms of Service and Privacy Note that apply to our updated software here

Happy TV watching!
The Google TV Team

My goal is to control the music from our iPhones and iPad when I am out on the deck while streaming through a receiver from my iTunes collection. No wires or the need to go into the house to control volume or make selection was a must. I started by bringing up the Yamaha receiver from the bar in the basement. The receiver has been collecting dust since the home theater is operational. Next to our back door I setup the receiver. I will run the speak wire right through the wall and behind the siding outside to each speaker.

I have my Mac Mini in the basement with iTunes running. All my music is on that computer’s external hard drives so I need a way to get the music playing outside. To do this I picked up a Apple AirPort Express. I plugged this in right by the receiver by the back door. From the receiver I have a optical cable going into the AirPort Express. Once I setup the Airport Express on my AirPort Extreme network I configured the Express to work as a network extender. This simply allows me to have another point on my network that broadcasts a wireless signal. The Airport Extreme sits in the theater room and the Express is upstairs by the back door and receiver.

On my initial testing I only had so-so speeds outside on my deck with the Express inside the house. The network still has a hard time getting through the walls and glass to the outside deck. I normally get about 10 Mbps inside my house. With the Airport Extreme was inside the house and I was right next to the back door I am able to get about 3 Mbps. The walls kill about 7 Mbps and it gets worst at the far back of the deck. Luckily I have an outlet right outside my back door. I can take the AirPort Express and plugin it in outside. This allows me to get 7-9 Mbps out on the deck which is great.

It is super easy to just unplug the AirPort Express and plug it in outside when we are out there since it has no network wires. Here is a photo of the Express inside the house. You can see the optical cable going into the Express at the bottom.

Now here is a photo of the Express plugged in outside the house.

No other wires are need to plugin into the Express for me to stream music from the basement Mac Mini to the Express and out of the receiver that the optical cable is plugged into. I am going to have to run an optical cable connection to the outside of the house. I will get a plate and then run the cable through the wall to another plate inside. When I do have the Express outside I simple plug the optical cable into the wall and I am connected to the stereo inside the house.

I am using Plex on our iPhones and iPad set to AirPlay. This allows me full access to my music in a nice looking UI. I simply select the music I want to play, make sure Plex is set to output to AirPlay and the music plays wireless to the receiver upstairs and out to the deck. Here is a quick screen shot of Plex.

As soon as I have the deck speakers installed I will write up another quick review and a video of the entire setup so you can see it working. Now if summer would just come around and give us some decent weather I would be all set.

The best home theater I have had the opportunity of demoing was driven by the same Crown 202D amps. The theater was from a local home theater builder who was running a 6.1 system off three of the 202D amps. There is very lengthy discussion on these amps on just about every home theater forum. After hearing them in person I was sold. Here are the power specs.

Stereo, 4 ohms (per ch) 300W
Stereo, 8 ohm (per ch.) 200W
Bridged-Mono 8 ohm 600W

Now I have four of the Crown 202D amps powering my 7.1 theater system. I am running 8 ohm speakers so I have 1200 watts with one channel open. With the one free channel I will save it for a project sub in the future. Here is all I have in the rack so now it is time to finish the trim I guess.

I just finished watching Star Trek and I couldn’t be happier. Everything sounds great. I am on the hunt for some 7.1 Blu-ray titles so if you have any suggestions let me know. I think DarkCity, 3:10 to Yuma and The Doora might be my only 7.1 titles. For now that is it for things in my rack. I’ll work on the trim and post an a photo update when completed.

If you have HBO and like LOTR then you must watch on HBO. Can’t wait for next week!

I love how they made Chris Evans, who plays CA, look so scawny in the begining of the trailer. This is going to be a great summer flick!

I have update my thought on all three of these.

We ended up picked 3 individual Southern Motion Starfire theater seats. Each seat has two cup holders and they are skinned in a black “pleather”. We ended up getting the manual recline models but somehow they gave us two manual reclines and one power recline. I am not sure how that happened but I did not complain about it. I put the power recline in the middle which is the optimal acoustic seating position and put dibs on it. It is my equivalent of Archie Bunkers chair.

The seats are so comfortable that I can fall sleep in them without any effort. It makes watching movies so much more enjoyable. The family was away this weekend and I but I spent 8 hours straight in them only getting up for a beer and let the dogs in and out. At first I had some buyers remorse not getting the leather models. Then I figured that I can move these to the back row after the kids get older and get a leather in front at that time. The kids are the ones that will put all the wear on these anyway. If I can keep them for 4-5 years I’d be very happy.

They are wide enough that only one side of the chairs is open up for access to the back row. That works out well since it will keep people from going down the side of the riser closest to the component rack. As you know we have kids and most of our friends have kids so keeping them away from the rack is a good idea. This photo is of the short side. I can still get by but don’t want other using it.

Below is the full access side. Plenty of room to get to the back row of traditional theater seats.

Here is the space between the front and back row. Then another of me sitting in the back row. I am 6’2” with a 34” inseam. So unless you are 6’6” there is plenty of let room.

I still have enough room that I could move the riser back a good 12 inches if I really wanted to. I have a bunch of junk behind here right now that will eventually make its way into the component rack. There is 18” behind the second row and the wall when the seats are unoccupied.

Here is me stitting in the back row. These are seats out of a real theater so they rock back. You can see there is still lots of room with my fat butt sitting in them.

After a week of watching movies, listening to music, and sleeping in the chairs I am totally satisfied with the seats. I love the style of them and the comfort level couldn’t be any higher. I guess the only thing that could been better is full leather but the price was just not in the budget. There you have it. Another major miles stone in the home theater build. Not a lot left now. I will try to get a new room measurement this week to see what impact the seats have on the acoustics.

After some trial and error I finally did got the software working. I mentioned that I switched over to FuzzMeasure Pro 3 in a previous post. That went off without any issues. I was up and running in a matter of minutes. My very first frequence response looked like this.

After showing that to the members on the AVS forum and asking for some advice I learned that this actually a pretty solid curve. My only real issues is a null at about 40Hz. This is most likely having to do with sub placement or something in my room causing the null. No major 10+db spikes or hulls so I was happy. But overall the response I got on my chart was really good. Most of the experts said don’t change anything and try to fix the 40Hz area.

I played around a bit trying to work on that 40Hz null. I noticed that my air compress was in my room. I took that out and took another reading. Here is that result.

The above chart is better than the first by a little. The next recommendation was to try the subs at different placements. I really want my front stage and subs hidden but I went ahead and did some rearranging. I move one sub to the right back of the room. Here is the final result of that.

Moving one sub did make a little difference. The question I am asking now, is taking one sub out from behind the AT screen worth the increase around the 40hz frequence? Probably not for my preference. Here is a magnified range from 0Hz to 200Hz to show the difference.

So now I am pretty happy. The room is working out better than I was expecting. I’ll finish up the stage area before I do any more testing. Then I will try to smooth out the lower when frequency with some bass traps.