Patio AV Project

[Towen7]

I've been using a little class D amp wired to outdoor speakers to play music on the patio. The source is almost always my phone used to stream Pandora or my own music from iCloud. The problem with this setup is that I have to physically connect my phone to the amp, which means I can't use it for calls (or much else) and play music at the same time. I also have to reconnect/disconnect the speakers from the amp so I can take the amp inside when not in use. I decided to solve the problem with an AppleTV that I could "AirPlay" music from the phone to. The AppleTV doesnt have an analog out so I decided to connect it's optical out to an outdated reciever I had laying around. Then I thought that it'd be nice to be able to use the AppleTV to watch Netflix out on the patio. So I connected it to an old TV. One thought lead to another and this is what I've decided to do.

I'm using component video because;
1. My receiver doesn't have HDMI
2. I have an old component video amp to share the video output from the receiver to upto 4 TVs
3. This way I dont have to buy or worry about an HDMI matrix switch or HDMI handshake issues
4. PQ is secondary since the displays are low quality and will be used only for casual viewing

I have most of the cabling and most of the components on hand already. The only things I needed to buy are ceiling mount brackets for the patio TVs, in-ceiling patio speakers, and speaker wire. The brackets I got for "free" from my company's award catalog. The in-celing patio speakers and wore will be ordered from Parts Express soon.

Thoughts? What else should I be thinking of?

 

[Deleted member 133]

Thoughts?

That my patio is covered in a foot of snow right now and won't be used again until next May.

What else should you be thinking of?

How insensitive it is to remind me that my patio is covered in a foot of snow right now and won't be used again until next May.

Final thought?

Wish I could draw nifty diagrams like that. How you do it?

 

[Towen7]

Final thought?

Wish I could draw nifty diagrams like that. How you do it?

I used MS Viso which I sometimes also use for projects at work.

 

[malsackj]

You could invest in a Radiant heating on the patio floor?

MCM electonics has some video mounts for the 1 3/8 speaker stands for around 30.00.
These will hold 22 lbs of monitor on the speaker stands and would be easy to move.

http://www.mcmelectronics.com/browse/Po ... 0000002156

With a DJ speaker stand or On Stage Stands might be nice

 

[Yesfan70]

Post some pics Tom. I would love to see it. I only have a modest stereo setup on my back porch. I never got around to running the wiring for a TV due to my mom's health.

 

[Towen7]

I salvaged and old shelf from my scrap pile and mouthed it over the garage door. I placed the equipment and mounted one TV. I ran that one through the old video amp just to make sure ain't still works. It does!

The wiring is a mess. I'll clean that up once I'm done with everything. I still need to place the in-ceiling speakers and mount/wire the second TV which will go next to the goor to the garage. I also picked up an IR repeater. I'll put the sensor on the second TV to keep the wires short. Finally I'll mount and wire the outdoor speakers on the side of the garage facing the pool. I'm not really worried about getting that done for a while. I've scratched TV 3 for the foreseeable future.

 

[Yesfan70]

Looks great! I know what you mean about the wiring mess. I really need to clean mine downstairs.

 

[Towen7]

I got TV2 mounted but the component cables I have on hand are too short. I'll make some next weekend. I decided to use the outdoor speakers I already have. You can see One on the table (excuse the rest of the mess). When the weather is a little better I'll paint them black and mount them on the wall where TV1 (the one on the left here) is.

 

[Botch]

Starting to look like a sports bar now, cool!

 

[heeman]

Lookin' good T7!

:music-rockout: :music-rockout:

 

[Batman]

Love it!! :handgestures-thumbup: :handgestures-thumbup:

Looks GTG ready :eusa-whistle:

 

[Towen7]

I spent the morning painting two of the speakers I bought from a music store that was going out of business a few years ago. I made a make-shift paint boot from old cardboard boxes but I couldn't wait for the weather to get warmer so I used a propane heater.

Now I can watch AND listen to the Texans play terrible football on the patio. With the AppleTV and Airstream I can also access my entire meager music collection, Pandora, or iTunes Radio.

 

[Zing]

:bow-blue:

I so want to hang out there, preferably while drinking coffee and smoking a Novella with you.

 

[heeman]

Looking Good.................just curious why you mounted the speakers so close to the display?

 

[Towen7]

... just curious why you mounted the speakers so close to the display?

Because of the window and curtain on the left. That curtain is made from a very stiff material. The bottom of the speaker interferes with the top of the curtain. Mounting it further left would prevent us from opening the curtain. If I mounted them on the ceiling I could have mounted them a lot wider but I felt that screwing them to the fascia board was more secure than using anchors on the drywall ceiling.

 

[malsackj]

Looks great. Like the paint job.

 

[Botch]

... just curious why you mounted the speakers so close to the display?

Because of the window and curtain on the left. That curtain is made from a very stiff material. The bottom of the speaker interferes with the top of the curtain. Mounting it further left would prevent us from opening the curtain. If I mounted them on the ceiling I could have mounted them a lot wider but I felt that screwing them to the fascia board was more secure than using anchors on the drywall ceiling.

Actually, I've been in far too many restaurants where the speakers were so far apart you could only hear one channel, depending on where you sat. Similarly, the soundman for my last band (who actually had a degree in sound reinforcement!) refused to run the band in stereo, he explained that there's only a small strip of seats in any club that get the full stereo effect (this disappointed me when I got my Nord Electro II keyboard, a Hammond Organ simulator with a fantastic stereo Leslie simulation; ah well, it sounded good at home!).

Where your speakers are mounted will give a good stereo effect for those close/in front of the TV, and present both channels close to equally to those off-axis, methinks! :handgestures-thumbup: