thinking of moving av gear to cupboard

RobTi · 24 Jan 2019 at 09:47

Hi so my av units are now full and I was thinking of moving everything to a cupboard in the back room. So basics, I move everything into the cupboard which has power and a single ethernet cable from a switch connected to the router, I can drop the aerial feed down and the motorised satellite feeds down so I am hoping that I will be able to have everything connected and working at this point, so how do I control the equipment (currently using harmony elite) and how do I get the signals to the tv's ?
Thanks

p.s. just thought about my speakers in the main room (5.1.2), do I need to run all the cables to the cupboard

lucid · 24 Jan 2019 at 11:03

Speaker cables, sub cable.

An IR repeater relay system will work for live control, but with your macros from the Harmony you probably want something a little more reliable. Harmony and other remotes do wireless link. It doesn't matter then which direction the remote is pointing when you click to start the bigger macros.

You should give some thought to the length of the HDMI cable from the comms cupboard to the TV. For 1080P, theres no problem running anything up to 15m from bog standard High Speed HDMI cable. It works and it's relatively cheap. That's not going to be the case with 4K UHD though.

Sending UHD over distance is expensive right now, and folk are finding that a lot of the cheaper cables (and some of the expensive ones too!) don't do what they promise.

In the short term, keep any 4K sources close to the TV and use HDMI ARC or the TVs optical out to carry audio signals to the amp. Also, when you're installing, put in a decent-sized conduit tunnel so that you can pull new cable easily when the need arises.

It's going to take a few years before we see long 4K-UHD-capable HDMI cables operate reliably and with pricing at a similar level to today's 1080p cables. So, you either have to bite the bullet on price and take a gamble that a £100-£250 10m cable works, or plan for the day that they're £40-£50 and use some work-arounds.

hornetstinger · 24 Jan 2019 at 15:34

Or you could leave it where it is and buy bigger AV rack. Or simplyfi it. Ie instead of having 11 krell monoblocs get a 7 and 4 channel power amp. You will need to have longer cables, also what about amps that have hard switch not standby/ ir on?

Yucca · 27 Jan 2019 at 22:07

lucid said:
Speaker cables, sub cable.

An IR repeater relay system will work for live control, but with your macros from the Harmony you probably want something a little more reliable. Harmony and other remotes do wireless link. It doesn't matter then which direction the remote is pointing when you click to start the bigger macros.

You should give some thought to the length of the HDMI cable from the comms cupboard to the TV. For 1080P, theres no problem running anything up to 15m from bog standard High Speed HDMI cable. It works and it's relatively cheap. That's not going to be the case with 4K UHD though.

Sending UHD over distance is expensive right now, and folk are finding that a lot of the cheaper cables (and some of the expensive ones too!) don't do what they promise.

In the short term, keep any 4K sources close to the TV and use HDMI ARC or the TVs optical out to carry audio signals to the amp. Also, when you're installing, put in a decent-sized conduit tunnel so that you can pull new cable easily when the need arises.

It's going to take a few years before we see long 4K-UHD-capable HDMI cables operate reliably and with pricing at a similar level to today's 1080p cables. So, you either have to bite the bullet on price and take a gamble that a £100-£250 10m cable works, or plan for the day that they're £40-£50 and use some work-arounds.

Cant you send 4k over cat 6 rather than HDMI?

SimonR · 28 Jan 2019 at 14:50

You cant currently send 'full fat' 18GB/s 4k over HDBaseT. I have just installed a 10m RuiPro hybrid fibre HDMI cable as I wanted 4k from my AV amp in my kitchen to the TV at the other end. For reference it was £201 for 10m. I ran the RuiPro in 32mm flexible duct so that it can be swapped our (not necessarily easily) if it ever fails.

RoyMi6 · 28 Jan 2019 at 15:23

Is the Harmony Elite the one that comes with a Harmony Hub? If so, the Harmony Hub has two IR outputs on the back. They're just regular old 2.5mm mono jacks.

When I had my AV equipment in another room I just bought a 5m long 3.5mm stereo extension cable for a couple of quid (cheaper than a 2.5mm one because they're rarer) then bought converters for both ends.

So, at the TV I had the IR repeater that came with the harmony hub
That was plugged into a 2.5mm to 3.5mm stereo converter
That was plugged into a 5m long 3.5mm stereo cable
Which was plugged into a 3.5mm to 2.5mm stereo converter
that was plugged into the harmony hub.

Worked perfectly.

So you can just run that cable from your AV cupboard to your TV alongside your HDMI cable that you'll need to run.

whitecrook · 28 Jan 2019 at 15:52

Great thread. I too would like to put all my kit in one place and control it from any room. So the 'usual/typical' solution to remote control of devices in a remote place is the IR repeaters hooked into a harmony hub ? Is there any other options ? Anything a bit less... proprietary ? Can you get standard IR repeaters, that can work over switched ethernet ?

Is the 'pro' solution to have all your kit talk rs232 or similar and build a small serial control box ?

hornetstinger · 28 Jan 2019 at 19:57

whitecrook said:
Great thread. I too would like to put all my kit in one place and control it from any room. So the 'usual/typical' solution to remote control of devices in a remote place is the IR repeaters hooked into a harmony hub ? Is there any other options ? Anything a bit less... proprietary ? Can you get standard IR repeaters, that can work over switched ethernet ?

Is the 'pro' solution to have all your kit talk rs232 or similar and build a small serial control box ?

Yeah creston. Expensive.

Ir repeaters aren't expensive nor proprietary.