Need some Newbie Advice PLEASE !!!!

[Carlos]

Hi all.. Hope you can help.. I am very new to this home automation but find it very interesting what others have done. Esp. overseas.
Living in Australia i suspect we might have limitations. I am looking at buying the starter pack - Active Home Computer Kit X10 Home automation. But using HomeSeer.
All i want to do in the beginning is to control a few lights, but i also want to control my VCR/DVD, watch computer thru my TV, have a monitor to see who is at the front door etc...

Am i starting in the right track ??
What would i need to do this other than the pack above ??
I believe i need some receiver/transmitter to convert RF to IR.

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Carlos

[jeff_lawes]

the Active Home Computer starter kit is a good place to start for controlling lights from the computer. THis gives you the ability to start out small but add other x10 modules later as you need to.

As for watching the computer on TV you either need a tv that accepts a vga input (most lcd/plasma have this), or a composite video out from your computer. a lot of the newer graphics cards have this and this is what I use. Eon3 had some vga senders that took the standard vga output from the computer and sent it wirelessly to a reciever that had composite video out. I havent seen them since but they worked really well.

You may have seen the powermid from Eon3. What this does is take the IR and transmit it in RF. It also works with the remote controls available from Eon3 or the 8 in 1 from Dick Smith. These remotes send IR at the same time as RF fro each button. The powermid also takes the RF transmitted from the remote controls and sends the IR evuivalent. To control devices from the computer you will need to have an IR sender from the computer.
I havent got this yet so if anyone else has a good option they use in Australia then please let us know.