What I'm referring to on this is my home theater/audio-video system. The big pieces are there, have been there for a very long time. They work very well and do pretty much everything I want it to do. But the final touches have eluded it. Now, I don't mean that it's "finished"; it'll probably never be "finished", but now it's "function" is very close to being there. Let me start from the beginning.
I'm a child of the 70's, a young adult of the 80's, and a technological gear-head. As such, not only do I love the function of these systems, but love the equipment as well. The 70's was the era of big gear, shiny Japanese electronics with cool meters and big knobs, and BIG American speakers! Then it all came together in the 80's with slick magazines such as "Audio Video Interiors" showcasing huge built-in media systems that covered entire walls! Eventually, on to the 90's when the electronic realities made the interconnection of these pieces possible (and relatively affordable).
So, now that you know where I'm coming from and the A/V nirvana that I'm trying to get to, that sets the stage. I've always particularly loved the systems that had a big video monitor flanked on either side by stacks of component pieces, plus secondary monitors that allow the user to......well, monitor other things. Anyway, I've always had the equipment to one extent or another; sometimes better than the stuff that those installations in the magazines used. They of course always had to deal with high-strung trophy wives and high-dollar interior designers. It's been the tying it all together into a cohesive unit that has eluded me to some extent.
A few years ago when we lived somewhere else, I got a friend of mine to help me put together a modular cabinet that I had been doodling on for several years. Since I figured I'd never own one of those million dollar homes with everything built in, I thought that it'd be better to build something that could be moved, but looked "built-in". I had planned for this thing to hold media, audio, video and computing gear to run not only a home theater system, but a distributed A/V system as well. I designed it to have an "audio" side where the bulk of that reproduction equipment would live, and a video side where those "sources" would go. In between, would be the space to house a decent sized TV/Monitor. The lower sections would have drawers for the media and other storage, and above the stacks would be space for "secondary" monitors.
Which after this loooong lead-in is really the subject of this post. The concept of these monitors was always somewhat amorphous: meaning I wasn't really certain what exactly they would do. There were 2 glassed-in spaces built into the cabinet that have over time fluctuated between storage and holding actual monitors from previous aborted attempts to have an "A/V computer" Well, I finally finish the A/V computer (v.3.0) and really needed to install it. I had made the decision that I didn't want to just connect it to the TV. I wanted to have the ability to just turn it on and be able to work on it via a separate monitor, plus I wanted this monitor to be able access the regular TV channels so I can keep track of something like a baseball game.
Before we get into the monitors, I'd better explain the computer part first though. What the A/V computer is, is my old desktop's guts inside an Ahanix D-Vine HTPC case that I picked up from a buddy. Imagine a black version of the one from the above image. What I'll be able to do is to completely access a centralized library (as soon as I create it) of media (and files) that reside in our Windows Home Server, plus function as a web-surfing PC, as well as DVR. I have an old compact version of IBM's TrackPoint keyboard attached so I can control it without needing a mouse, in addition to a Logitech DiNovo Mini (below)that I can use across the room. I'm going to get more into what-all is in this thing and how I intend to use it in the future, but I'll have to say that its very cool!
As far as seeing what was going on in this computer presented another problem. I didn't want to turn on my big projection TV every time something needed to get done, so I needed an answer. The ideal solution turned out to be an inexpensive 19" wide-screen LCD TV. Here's the reasoning: The LCD TVs are really just LCD computer monitors with a tuner and a cheap little plastic foot for a stand. They not only have the tuner to pick up OTA (over the air) and cable signals, but usually a variety of other inputs as well, but most importantly, a HD15 (otherwise known as VGA or sub-D) computer input. The situation has gotten so that you can go to Wal-mart and pick up one of these things for $130-140 brand new. However, I've found that they show up in various places like pawn shops, Craig's List and eBay with no stands or remotes for as low as $50! Don't know for sure why, but I suspect that they had been mounted somewhere by a business or something, then eventually replaced with something bigger etc. As luck would have it, my spots in the cabinet is sized for that exact type with little room to spare (I actually sized it for the then current 13" CRT monitors with room on the side for a cable tuner), plus I had a computer monitor stand that would fit!
And since it has a bunch of inputs, I've also connected the Sony Mega-Changer to it so I could work with the DVDs in it without firing up the big TV.
On the other side of the stack is the "old man" of the system. Its an Amdek RGB, CRT type monitor. I know, I know....what the......! It's kind of an interesting story. I was in my first few months of working at Tulane at the time and they told me that one of my buildings was slated to be gutted and have a renovation done on it. So, at the end of the summer session, I needed to get into the office and get everything out that I didn't want to go into a dumpster. Along with some mid-century modern furniture that I saved, there were 2 Apple II computers which went into the dumpster, but attached to them were these 2 Amdek color montiors that took a regular composite input. So I kept those.....since 1995!
One of them which looks exactly like the image above is still up in the attic, but the other has on-and-off been used as a secondary monitor for keeping track of games and such back when I had a VCR with dual outputs. The other day, I connected this one to the glassed in cabinet cavity above the "audio stack" to the receivers composite "monitor out". That way, I can read the receiver's and the Griffen iPod docks on-screen menus without turning on the TV.
So now, I have an almost ideal setup. There are 3 monitors; ones from which I can see and control what's going on with the audio side, one from which I can control the computing functions and doubles as a secondary source monitor, and the big display for actually watching things......and most of a day stringing cables to and from everything to make all this work!
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