Remote AV - can someone explain a few things for me please?

randal · 9 Aug 2013 at 15:28

Feel very much like a noob in this field, but it's something I'd like to roll out when we buy our house next year and seeing as we have a forum full of like minded experts I'd like to defer to greater knowledge!

After seeing EVH's house building project, Easyrider's AV room and the countless others I've often wondered how it all works.

Now what I'd like to achieve is to have a cupboard in the house that has all of the AV equipment in it, away from the sticky fingers of my little boy when he's of sticky finger/toast in DVD player age! Then, just a simple TV and 7.1 speakers mounted on the walls.

I envisage the following equipment in the cupboard:

7.1 amp
Satellite receiver
HTPC
Couple of consoles, HDMI.

So I get that all of the wiring in the cupboard is the same as it would be if it were positioned under the telly, but how does it work with getting their outputs into the lounge? Is it a case of running 8 lots of speaker wires and an HDMI from the amp and that's it? Do I only need an HDMI switch if I want to distribute the signals to other rooms?

How does it work with regards to IR signals from the remote to the various devices?

Also, what about controllers for the consoles? Ideally I'd want the cupboard to be in range, but depending on the house we buy it might not be possible to have the AV rack + lounge close to one and another.

I'm totally comfortable with the CAT6 cabling infrastructure for networking/Internet, but I haven't got a clue for decentralised AV really as all of my setups have been in a traditional TV unit. I'd love to minimise all the clutter and cables, and make it child friendly hence the questions.

Thanks in advance.

Tackle_Berry · 9 Aug 2013 at 16:05

Also interested in this,

My girlfriends friends husband has got everything in their loft and just a projector hanging of the ceiling and speakers built into the walls. It's all controlled through a Logitech Harmony remove but how does IR work?

Mav · 9 Aug 2013 at 16:15

here's one way it can be done ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCKmUjxEaKM

other makes of AV amps also support this as a option ..

lucid · 9 Aug 2013 at 18:07

Mav said:
here's one way it can be done ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCKmUjxEaKM

other makes of AV amps also support this as a option ..

By jove. That ad is glossy, isn't it. And exciting. Ooh... look at all those exciting words... big, impressive-sounding words... and Apps!! Gotta love apps.

So right now you're probably thinking "Great. This'll do the whole lot for me. Fantastic!"

I hate to burst the bubble, but as someone who installs whole house AV systems for a living I can tell you that big AV amps are only a small part of the solution. They do quite a lot for the money, don't get me wrong. However, you'll need quite a bit more kit besides one of those if you want to do anything much more than a bit of music in a second or third room.

Here's a list of a few of the things that catch out the unwary with AV amps...

the speaker outputs for Zone 2 are often the same ones as used for 7.1 rear speakers. That means you can't have both.
powered Zone 3 (i.e. you can plug speakers in directly rather than needing an additional power amp) is found only on the more expensive AV receivers
Unless you go for the top-end AV receivers, then Zone 2 and 3 audio sources are analogue or net-radio only. There's no digital audio decoding for Zones 2 & 3. So no HDMI or optical or coax sourced audio in the tertiary zones unless you're listening to it in the cinema at the same time.
Those AV amps with video out for Zones 2 & 3 are similarly restricted. It's analogue only.
Apps for an amp only control the amp, or if you are lucky the matching Blu-ray player too. You still have to find a way to control the other sources and the device you use to distribute the signals to various rooms.

All of these are issues that can be overcome with careful planning and the right bits of kit of course. However, it's not going to be a couple of grand all-in if you want something with any degree of reliability and quality.

db2431 · 9 Aug 2013 at 18:15

Ash2097 said:
Also interested in this,

My girlfriends friends husband has got everything in their loft and just a projector hanging of the ceiling and speakers built into the walls. It's all controlled through a Logitech Harmony remove but how does IR work?

The new logitech harmony ultimate and smart hub works in this way, you press the remote , it sends the signal via radio waves to the hub, the hub which is near your devices converts the signal to ir and sends it to your devices.Alternatively you can just use your tablet or phone, sends the signal via wifi to the hub, which converts to ir to send to the device.

randal · 9 Aug 2013 at 19:04

Thanks for the amp insight Lucid, I'll probably keep it simple to start and just have the one zone for the lounge. If and when I do the other rooms I'll plan cabling infrastructure accordingly. Nice tips though, good to know.

Having a read up, are IR blasters the way to go with remotes?

I guess if the room is close enough to the kit I can use a long hdmi cable but if too long just run hdmi over cat 6 and cable the room with a couple of sockets for expansion?

If that's the case I just need to answer the console controllers question and speaker wiring...

randal · 10 Aug 2013 at 14:04

Think I've answered the HDMI/IR questions with this handy little gizmo:

http://www.tmfsolutions.co.uk/Octava_HDCATIR-UK.htm

So just need to run a load of CAT6 to the telly area (1x HDMI, 1x IR, 1x IP 1x spare) and use these to get the picture to the telly from the amp and then squirt the IR back down the line to the AV cab to control the gear. Wicked.

Console range I've tested to around 20-25ft through walls, and that seems to work pretty well so fairly confident about that. The speaker wires I'll probably just run around the skirting and up wall chases to the appropriate spots. Might even build a battoned partition to recess the telly and speakers into thinking about it.

For those wanting to Google and read up more, the term that a lot of forums use for a centralised AV setup (either for distribution to multiple, or a single room) is "node0". Search that then the thing you want to know and you'll find it easily enough.

Much happier about what I need to do in order to make this work, just need to work out the fun bits like AV racks, cabling infrastructure, socketing oh and I guess I should find us a house to live in too.