I tried to search for the “Tavern” board but couldn’t find it so hope you guys don’t mind if I post this here. In our new house we have a nice fireplace with two cabinets/bookshelves on either side (see half of this area in pic below). My builder is a big techie so he has speakers all over our house and all the guts of this stuff (speaker cable, internet, phone, blah, blah, blah) feed into the right side of the cabinet.
My challenge (aside from not understanding how half of this stuff works) is that we have a lot of electronic “stuff” in this cabinet that can’t be accessed by remotes. With a t.v. on top of the cabinet, and not a deep enough bookshelf above to place all this stuff (and my wife would freak if all the electronic stuff & wires were out in open view), we have to put it all in the cabinet underneath. But in order to change channels on the cable box for instance, we have to leave the cabinet doors open. Not an ideal situation. Our builder did put a couple “repeaters” in the cabinet and tried to tie them to the “eye” on the wall that controls the tuner/speakers. For a while it seemed to work, though it was odd to have to point the remote at the wall behind you to change the channel. Additionally I think we’ve now added so many components that the repeaters don’t work for everything. I’d just like to be able to pick up one of my six (?) remotes, point it at the t.v. area and have it work instantly. I don’t want to point things at the wall, I don’t want to open the cabinet doors, etc.
What would you guys recommend? Should I just have the two door panels replaced with glass (again, envisioning my wife freaking out because it wouldn’t look like the other doors), or is there some other solution?
I’ll tell you right now that if you’re going to propose a technical solution please talk to me like you’re speaking to your seven year old child….because that’s about all I care to know about this stuff. If it requires a real technical solution I’ll probably just hire it out. But I’m seeking the simplest solution that will still keep my wife happy by not putting “junk” in view of all our guests.
Thanks guys,
Rob
Replies
Sorry guys. Here's the pic...
- Rob
There are lots of options.You can get repeaters where the emitter is stuck on each device.And you can put the receiver by the TV so it is more natural.Or get a universal remote that has RF as well as IR.Then you need a RF receiver with IR output.Here is one place to start.http://www.smarthome.com/prodindex.asp?catid=257Here is a good place to get suggestions on remotes and I suspect on RF/IR/repeaters.http://www.remotecentral.com/
Thanks guys. I'll check it out.
One more stupid question. Does someone make a dvd/cd player that will randomly shuffle music tracks among cd's? I just bought a nice 5 disc dvd/cd player that only shuffles tracks on one cd at a time. I was kind of thinking it would shuffle among all cd's.
- Rob
Good lord! Our maybe 18-year-old first-generation Sony changer will shuffle between disks.--------------
No electrons were harmed in the making of this post.
(Probably it has something to do with the changer mechanisms, and whether the changes do DVDs as well. The carousel change in our old unit changes much faster than more compact schemes, and it gets a disk ready to read several times faster than our new Sony DVD player.)--------------
No electrons were harmed in the making of this post.
What kind is it? If there's an on-screen display of the mode you're going to e.g., shuffle, repeat, etc, you may notice that it has OFF, once and continuous as the options. Press the shuffle button twice and see what happens. If it's a Denon, it should shuffle between discs. It takes a lot more time between songs in this mode, so if you want continuous music, maybe it would be better to burn some MP-3 discs and shuffle the songs on those.Not all brands will do this, you have to ask about it before you buy one.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
I actually read the directions and, nope, it does not shuffle between cd's. Only within one cd. I called Best Buy, where we purchased it, and they said they don't carry any cd-dvd players that have the function I want.
Maybe they make cd players ONLY (with no dvd capability) that do this?
Are there any online sites where I could search for a dvd-cd player that has the random shuffle function?
Thanks,
Rob
I suspect that the "media players" might offer such a feature.Those copy 100's of CD to harddrive and play off the harddrive.But I really don't know.
Media servers are basically just computers with software that organizes the media. The same thing can be done with a laptop or desktop and RealPlayer, Music Match, Windows Media Player or whatever version you like. If you want a dedicated server without giving up a lot of space, Audio Request is a rack-mountable unit that has removeable hard drives and uses internet protocol so it can be controlled by a PC from anywhere. It also comes with an IR remote control.There are multi-disc DVD players that will shuffle between discs, but it takes much more time.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
As I said before, I think Denon players do this. Check out the DVM-1815.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Get an I-pod. Its incredible the amount cd's you can load. It has a shuffle feature that randomly selects between all the cd's. It fits in the palm of you hand.
I got a 4 gig and I have 40 plus cd's loaded and it got a gig left
Edited 10/29/2005 9:30 pm ET by curley
IR repeaters can work better than you're describing. I've used them in big entertainment centers, and even in a multi-room installation. You should be able to put the sensor near the TV and run the cables to emitters fastened to each controlled electronc component. I think of installing them as a DIY job, but if you'd rather hire it done, look for somebody who installs home theater systems.
There are remotes, as mentioned before, that use RF(radio frequency) as well as IR(Infra-red) transmission. The Home Theater Master MX-850 is one of them and it works great. It has an RF receiver that gets the codes for whatever is hidden and still sends out codes for the things you have in the open. Given the choice, if the cabinet isn't big enough to hold all of the equipment and still provide adequate cooling for the amplifier, you can put the receiver someplace else(like the basement, right below the other equipment) and use a repeater to control it. Denon receivers have an on-screen display for the setup menu and this helps when inputs and outputs are accidentally set wrong. However, since the newest equipment is controlled by sending a specific code for whatever you want it to do, it isn't much of a problem. This means that you can turn the TV and system on by pressing the button for the MAIN page, then power, then TV and all of the switching is taken care of automatically. You then have access to the controls you would normally use while watching TV. To change to DVD, you would press MAIN, then DVD. All of the switching will be done and you can just enjoy whatever you will be viewing. Also, above a certain model, Denon's receivers up-convert the video signal. This means that if the TV you have has component video input, you can use that ONE input to watch all of your sources(DVD, VCR, Laser Disc, video games, Cable, etc) without having to mess with the TV's input settings.
If your other components have a 1/8" jack on the back that shows IR control, you don't need to have any IR emitters(the little things that usually fall off after you settle down to watch something interesting, but you can't because you can't control some important piece of equipment). Another reason I don't like the emitters is that the wires are too thin and fragile. This leads to failures at the worst possible time(remember Murphy's Law and O'Toole's corollary to Murphy's Law).