Where can I get the answer to my technology dreams?

[Hathor]

OK geeky gurus, is this possible?

I would love to get rid of all cluttery stuff like CDs/DVDs/stacks of silver-coloured plastic gadgets / TV/ music players / PC in the house and just have a wall-mounted flat screen that shows TV / PC / photos / videos / plays music / games / broadband / email / records TV programmes / radio / phone / internet phone, etc.

Everything techno in one neat place. The rest of the room an oasis of minimalism.

Am not a techy person, so I need to know how is this possible?
and
Is it too expensive for a normal person to even think about?

If you don't know the answers, do you know a techy forum where they might?

You would need some kinda amp/speaker combo esp if you wanted surround sound.

I would go for PC tower, tv box (sky freeview virgin whatever), amp, games console, and poss video player if you still needed one.
You would be able to hook pc up to tv screen if necessary so could store all music and play films on there. It's easier if you have more than one harddrive or with an external backup harddrive with everything on.

You could get a tv table/stand thing a bit like this but flat fronted/invisible doors with everything behind.

Or you could forfeit the tv screen and get a projector instead. You can get small ones - lodger was looking at one for about £200-£300 that could fit in your hand.

Get a 19 or 21" flat screen for your pc and a projector if you wanted to watch e.g. film or something for which you needed a bigger screen.
That's dp's dream (the projector - he already has the pc screen).

Our house has stuff combined - not as much as dp we would like, but enough that problems become apparent. However any system does have flaws it's just working out which ones you hate the least.

E.g. ds reprogramming the amp when smaller meant I couldn't get sound on anything till dp got home and figured out what was wrong. I can't use the video cos can't remember the exact combination of switches it needs. IF stuff goes wrong I can't fix it and it takes out a lot of stuff with it. Luckily for us dp can as he set up the system - same with our pc network. If you didn't have someone who knew what they were doing I wouldn't want to have anything like that.

Rusty - I see what you mean.

Also I wouldn't even be able to set the darn things up or connect them together.
Am currently defeated by the simple act of finding the right place in a DVD, let alone setting up a techno-dream entertainment/work/play/music station.

Am amazed by what seems to be possible.
Lots of good advice here..

AppleTV will do all this. It's a faff, but it does totally work. It synchs to your itunes, it's a tiny little box, costs about 300 quid or something.

PCs are not the way forward for this sort of thing.

I was just about to post a similiar question. We want a tv and pc in one and would use a cordless keyboard and mouse.
I saw this in a magazine today and it looks rather interesting - no big pc box and rrp is £450.

Modern TVs take PC inputs.

Ok you could sort of do it then if you're happy to internet on a 32" screen with not much privacy.

You basically need some place to store it (I'll leave that to you): inside you need sky plus, dvd player, the pc tower part, wireless keyboard and wireless mouse.

You then need to sort out the sound system, if doing it properly you would need a subwoofer (which can't go in cabinet).

You then get this remote that works everything TV DVD etc related.

Then on the media front, you use wires to link the TV screen to your pc tower thing. Upload all DVDS, CDS, PHOTOS etc to computer. Music wise you need something like this; there might be cheaper alternatives and you'll need speakers in each room you intend to play music. They normally work using a central remote.

Ideally the computer would be on all the time so storage thing needs to be have some ventilation.

To be extra snazzy you could get those standby transistor thingies to turn everything on and off standby using only one switch.

Should cost less than £1000 depending on what you already have at home!

this speaker should also work but would need to have ipod connected to either PC or speakers - so only works if you already have an ipod.

This sort of speaker would work wirelessly with this remote too so should be a lot cheaper than network alternative if you already have an ipod.

An all in one system does exist that will do nearly everything you want - think you would need to add on a USB phone handset and VoIP software, plus have a broadband wireless router. It is the Sony VGC-LT1M ... trouble is I can't find anywhere that sells it. Also it's only 22" screen, not 32". Found a 24" all in one system from Sony which seems similar... will set you back a little under £1,500. Sony VGCLV1S.CEK

you cannot consolidate everything into one device at the moment but here are some options

1 - LCD/Plasma TV (of course) - Panasonic make and others make ones that will take a MMC card with all your photos to display on the TV directly
2 - Home entertainement system DVD/CD, radio, amp and surround sound all in one - these boxes now allow you to connect an external HDD or memory stick (you can get 16/32G now) you can put all your music and pictures on thie external device and display on the TV - to go one step further you can then encode all your DVD's and put them on the HDD and play everything from this device on the TV.
3 - For internet.. I would suggest a Mac Mini as it is tiny and will connect directly to your TV with a wireless mouse and keyboard

The major downside is that you will have to encode all your hard media into digital format and this takes a lot of time..

The major upside is that you have everything you could ever need on two devices and a single TV...

This is the setup I have and even my wife likes it (and can use it).. sounds great and takes up no space at all