My budget setup!

[admin_exported]

Hello, new here but thought I'd post up my budget system in my lounge/store room. I have got most of it from Car bootsales and have slowly built it up - don't earn that much and am 20 with a baby so at times its not easy!

Opinions and ideas welcome!

TV - 40" Samsung Series 5 Full HD (New £600)

Projector - 720p Sanyo PLC-XU32 (Car bootsale £50)

Amp - Sony STR-DB940 (Car bootsale £20 with sony 5.1 speakers - then sold those for £45)

Sky+HD (New £100 from Sky when I got it)

PS3 (New Gift)

Xbox 360 Elite (New Gift)

Ninento Wii (New £179.99)

PS2 Slim (Car bootsale £1)

HP ProLiant ML115 Opteron Quad Core with 750GB storage running Server 2008 R2 and TVersity to stream HD stuff from. (New £180 plus £60 for a 500GB drive)

Logitech Harmony 525 remote (New but from Car Bootsale £10)

JPW rear bookshelf speakers - (freebie)

Front speakers - (Car Bootsale not sure what they are but they were £10)

Centre speaker is a Packard Bell speaker but appears to be the same as the Bose Dual Cube speakers visually - thats shoved down the back of the tv cabinet currently thanks to my 14 month old!

I do have a motorised projector screen (£4.97! Was a mistake on one of my works suppliers sites but they had to honour it) to go up but it's quite heavy so
gonna have to mount some wood first me thinks!

I have now put up a shelf for the projector and got a 10m HDMI cable run to the Xbox 360 (projector doesn't seem to like the PS3 - not sure why!).

 

[Gerrardasnails]

jt999:Hello, new here but thought I'd post up my budget system in my lounge/store room...

If I had that lot when I was 20, I would not be calling it a budget set up!! Nice one.
Are the Fruit Shoots some sort of isolation trick that you have been keeping secret??

 

[Anonymous]

Where do you get a New ProLiant ML115 with Server 2008 R2 for £180...the OEM licence alone is more than that!

And a projector at a Car Boot Sale? I need to go to more car boot sales if there are bargains like that to be had. Nice one

 

[Anonymous]

It's budget compared to the ones I have seen on here so far, I'm really interested in home automation so I'm trying to look for cheap ways to bring all my av system together, so far have only managed to use tversity and then simple media server to stream to my ShowCentre in the bedroom.

I'm still in the trial period of server 2008 - I'd like to go linux based but haven't got the know how just yet and not sure if tversity would work!

The projector was a bargain but no idea how much bulb life is left but for £50 it was worth the risk and so far has gone smoothly!

I highly recommend car bootsales, I bought some KEF Q5 speakers for £20 but couldn't keep them as I would worry about the baby ruining them so they went on ebay for £90.

And in regards to the fruit shoots - not sure what you mean by isolation but they are for the baby

I prefer the orange ones

 

[Anonymous]

You have certainly done well for yourself - very resourceful too.

 

[Anonymous]

When I was 20, all I had was a crappy radio!!! How times have chnaged.

 

[idc]

My in-laws are mad on car boot sales (as sellers) and I have been to a good few now and I have never seen anything worth while hifi wise. All I have found is cheapo min and midi systems and ancient VHS and ropey DVD players. You have done really well.

 

[Anonymous]

There is an awful lot of tat at car bootsales but I get there for opening time to catch the bargains (particularly when it looks like its about to rain or is spitting) as they unpack and so far haven't bought anything that hasn't worked.

Well I'm glad my system has gone down well, really want to replace the amp with a hdmi one as I have way too many cables about and it's rather complicated now when I add things as I have to set it up on the Harmony remote. Also the amp isn't great for music - my old Sherwood was better at that but didn't have enough optical inputs and I hated my manual switch.

 

[Anonymous]

Looks great and especially at the price!

 

[mgillespie05]

wouldnt mind going to one of your car boot sales

 

[Anonymous]

Going to mount my motorised projector screen this weekend coming, shame it's not a remote controlled one (switch is on power cable) but for the money its hard to complain! When I move next I'll get a larger one I think, the one I have is only 1200x1200 so seems a bit small (although thats pretty much my limit due to the projector being as far back as possible already.

Also considering the Samsung motorised wall bracket - has anyone got any views on this? I realise its a bit of a gimmick but to be honest thats the sort of thing I like! Just having issues with my 1 year old trying to hit the tv with everything he can find!

 

[Anonymous]

Tidied up some wiring - don't think there are any real changes but took some new pics regardless!
Projector now mounted and JPW speakers at rear but forgot to take pics!

And I am now having this issue:

Damn electricity costs these days! Next place has got to have gas heating!

 

[Messiah]

That is quite a consumption in 1 day. 95 units!

 

[Anonymous]

Messiah:That is quite a consumption in 1 day. 95 units!

Don't I know it! 4 Bedroom house with big windows and little/no insulation doesn't do great when you have to keep it warm for a baby!

Next place needs to be a flat so I can absorb heat from those below me

 

[Anonymous]

Projector/Motorised screen now mounted, just needs tidying up!

Projector mounted on some spare wood and some Microwave oven wall mounts I got at a car booty. Ceilings don't look strong enough to use a proper ceiling mount, I'll save that for my next house.

 

[Anonymous]

My next task is to find a reasonably priced HDMI matrix, also need to look into HDMI HDCP stripping as projector is not HDCP compatible as far as I can tell - does anyone have any details on this?