I am not sure where to begin to look and was curious, I'm ready to change my setup of my Entertainment Center in the living room and there is a closet directly behind where the TV sits, I'm debating on if I should move all the perphials to the closet but I don't know what to search on for IR so that my remote still signals all the correct info I've seen some folks have there AV equipment in another room but are able to still use normal remote functions and I'm not sure how the signal is reaching the equipment.

the need for a "Flat Panel" tv has died with my wife for now (Flat Panel would help dress up the area and if I were able to get that I wouldn't worry about moving the equipment), since we are going on a cruise in July and there is nothing wrong with our current TV (HD Rear projection TV 3yrs old). right now I'm just using a normal end table to house the DVR, SRS, 360, VCR and it looks "ok" but I just want a change.

if I go into the closet behind the TV I can hide everything except the TV and then I can wall mount the center, left, & right speakers.

kind of give it that "clean cut" look.

Thank you
Dave

I'll be watching. :) I'm in the market for a reliable IR retransmitter too.

anybody?

Creatine,
There are two basic types of remotes, Inferred Red (IR) and Radio Frequency (RF). IR remotes need to see the equipment in order to perform the switching whereas RF remotes do not. Depending on the distances from your equipment rack and video display, I would look into an RF type of remote. If you use a IR type you will most likely need a transmitter of some kind used with a connecting block in order for the remote to communicate with the various pieces of audio/video gear should you choose to place the equipment rack in another room. Harmony, universal remotes and Crestron are all excellent manufactures. For the emitters and connecting block, you may want to research Xantech.com

Marc, I'm familiar with IR and RF remotes. A hopeful shot in the dark here, but can RF remotes (ie: Harmony) control equipment that has an IR eye and remote? This would solve Creatine's problem also.

The Harmony 880 is based on IF or line of sight control. In otherwords the remote has to be pointed at the rack when the macros are being performed. On the other hand, the Harmony 890 is based on the RF technology and is used in conjunction with a RF wirless extender which recieves the signals from the remote then blasts the IR signals to the associated equipment. This may be an unrealible system as some signals could get lost while using the extender. Your best bet when using IR related equipment is to use the mini mouse emitters with a connecting block/reciever. Better yet, if the equipment has an RS 232 port you're golden!

What benefit does the RS232 port give you? My Integra receiver has one I believe.

RS 232 is an asynchronous communication method usually transmitted over cat5e wire. The purpose of RS232 is to communicate to a piece of equipment using a binary code while keeping perfect syncronization. This is done by sending/receiving a low voltage signal of about +/- 15 volts converted into a series of 1's and 0's. Simply put, through RS232 communications if your video display is on and you send it a macro to turn on the display again, the unit will not shut off because it will sense the unit is already on!

I really appreciate all the advice and help, thank you very much