Hi,

I'm basically re-doing my whole living room's home theater setup from scratch, just removed a 60" Sony RPTV and finished mounting a new 65" Panasonic on the wall, and waiting for new couches to come in (removing the one in the far left pic). I've already asked for speaker and receiver recommendations on another sub-forum (budget of $5k-$7k for audio) but I keep thinking about centralizing all my equipment to another room (a closet under the stairs that's about 40' of cable run away from TV wall, since I have more and more equipment as time goes by: big heavy A/V receiver, Directv HR21 DVR, XBOX360 Elite, big HTPC running Vista Media Center (case as big as the A/V receiver and similar in aesthetics), 2U rackmount power conditioner, Logitech squeezebox, etc.

I'm trying to keep the wall with the TV very minimal rather than loading the table in the picture up with tons of equipment on the top of it. The closet underneath the staircase would be perfect location for a small 4' x 19" rack into plus some shelves to mount the equipment. The double-doors to the closet are even already "vented" (slatted). All I'd need to run would be a long HDMI cable (50' or absolute worst case 75') plus the speaker wires.

1) Anyone see a downside to my plan? I assume HDMI v1.3a (1080p + 8 channel uncompressed audio over a 50' or 75' HDMI cable won't pose any issues).

2) What's my best bet for getting IR relayed from where my cabinet under the TV is, to the equipment rack? I assume I need some IR transmitter. Google search turns up really old ones - like those ugly radio-shack looking pyramid IR retransmitters - ugh. I use a Harmony 1000 and a Harmony One remotes. As far as I've seen, WiFi Uni remotes are still pretty expensive?

3) Anyone know of any modern tips/tricks installers use to do in-wall wiring, or am I stuck brute-forcing it old school style and opening drywall and/or using a long 6' drillbit with cable pull at end?

Here's the room I'm talking about:

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/7521/img0258rk4.th.jpg (http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0258rk4.jpg)http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7636/img0264hu4.th.jpg (http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0264hu4.jpg)http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/4991/img0269jl7.th.jpg (http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0269jl7.jpg)

This is the way I went for my theater, and for a friends living room setup - equipment in a different room. I really like going this way, it makes everything very clean, quiet and dark. The only downside is that you need to walk a little to change disk media.

Anyone see a downside to my plan? I assume HDMI v1.3a (1080p + 8 channel uncompressed audio over a 50' or 75' HDMI cable won't pose any issues).

You won't (or don't need to anyway) run audio over the long HDMI cable to the display, it just needs the video portion of the signal. 50' or 75' over HDMI can have problems, and it can work just fine. At that distance you might need a booster/equalizer to make it work. Check out monoprice.com for long cables (and anything else you might need).

What's my best bet for getting IR relayed from where my cabinet under the TV is, to the equipment rack? I assume I need some IR transmitter. Google search turns up really old ones - like those ugly radio-shack looking pyramid IR retransmitters - ugh. I use a Harmony 1000 and a Harmony One remotes. As far as I've seen, WiFi Uni remotes are still pretty expensive?

You have some options - IR repeater or RF to IR converter or wifi (not to be confused with dedicated RF remote solutions). The IR repeater option is usually relatively cheaper and can be very unobtrusive with many different "eye" options for the IR sensor. Personally I like RF to IR - it is nice to be able to use the remote anywhere in the house (music) and not have to point it at anything, but if your current remote won't do that and you want to keep the remote, then you are back to IR repeaters. The pyramid radioshack things are pretty vile, and not worth looking at in my opinion. Check out Buffalo as a fairly inexpensive IR solution. Parts you will need: IR sensor "eye" (get one that is "plasma resistant" if mounting near plasma) , connecting block, power supply, and emitters. Smarthome and partsexpress both carry Buffalo stuff: http://www.smarthome.com/_/ProductResults.aspx?Ntt=buffalo

Anyone know of any modern tips/tricks installers use to do in-wall wiring, or am I stuck brute-forcing it old school style and opening drywall and/or using a long 6' drillbit with cable pull at end?

It depends on your space, layout, and construction. If you have access above or below (attic/crawlspace) it tends to be much easier. You can also try to use some baseboard wire channel - it can help in some situations.

Mine is like this, luckily I only needed a 35-foot HDMI cable and it isn't giving me any problems.

As for what cables, no matter what you decide go ahead and run a few CAT5 cables, they are like the duct tape of the IT industry and you'll be happy you ran them later. Personally I ran 1-HDMI, 1-component and 2-CAT5.

As for control. I used one of the CAT5 cables to connect an IR sensor using a Xantech IR repeater block, which works great and is very affordable.

Monoprice is a great place to find long HDMI cables.

my equipment is also placed in another room. I would recommend that you run the CAT-5 (for IR) and the HDMI in a tube so you can pull additional cable later if you need. Also, this will help if a cable has any issues. For IR, I am using a Russound IR block and I have also used xantech with good results.

The Harmony 1000 already uses RF, so all you would need is the associated RF receiver that rebroadcasts as IR (about $100, I believe).

I love having my equipment in another room - it looks clean, keeps the light/heat out of the room I'm in, and allows me easy access to the back of the equipment (this is proably the most important feature, to me). Particulalry with the memory-based Harmony remotes, it's nice that with RF, the equipment always receives the signal regardless of where the remote is pointing.

The only downside for me is that to see the volume I have to enable the on-screen display. It really disrupts viewing to me to see the giant white on-screen display (I wish it could be made smaller), but the other alternative is seeing where the volume was set when I put in the disc and remembering how many clicks I used on the remote.

The Harmony 1000 already uses RF, so all you would need is the associated RF receiver that rebroadcasts as IR (about $100, I believe).

I love having my equipment in another room - it looks clean, keeps the light/heat out of the room I'm in, and allows me easy access to the back of the equipment (this is proably the most important feature, to me). Particulalry with the memory-based Harmony remotes, it's nice that with RF, the equipment always receives the signal regardless of where the remote is pointing.

The only downside for me is that to see the volume I have to enable the on-screen display. It really disrupts viewing to me to see the giant white on-screen display (I wish it could be made smaller), but the other alternative is seeing where the volume was set when I put in the disc and remembering how many clicks I used on the remote.


My equipment is in a projection room with the PJ. I think it is te only way to go. It eleiminates the clutter of equipment and wires as well as the annoying lights you see in the dark.

RE: Volume control. I have the same issue.. SO, I ran a small video coax from the monitor out from my pre/pro to a small, cheap LCD screen I keep at my side. I can see volume, surround mode, source, etc with that and not bother the display. That said, you couldn't run your video through your receiver (e.g. use an HDMI splitter)

In the beginning I had the equipment in the actual theater. Not only was the equipment loud, the lights were distracting, and it was a cluttered mess. Adding a 8'x8' room with a wall in the center to hold the rack is one of the best things I've done. Add that to hushing the JVC RS1 and the room is dead silent.

On the topic of volume level, I thought I had this beat with the Onkyo 885 Pre/Pro OSD. Since switching to Blu-Ray I find it only displays on some discs. To combat this I'm going to add a Pronto TSU9400 or TSU9600 in the future with the new RFX-9600 extender with bi direction via RS-232.

Don,
So this remote allows two way control ?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/largeimages/503231.jpg

Yes sir the TSU9600 and TSU9400 will do this, but you need the RFX-9600 extender and devices with RS232 of course. The 9400 and RFX-9600 can be had for less than 1k on Amazon last I looked, pretty cheap as remote systems go. I'm sure you want the TSU9400 as the TSU9600 is a tablet.

You should be able to get your core setup over from the TSU7500 with no snags. Bi Directional communication will require some Pronto Script work but it didn't look too bad. This would allow you to do some RF and RS-232 with Feedback (I.E. Volume, Chapter, and so on).