# Thoughts on A/V Closet Control



## Josh_C (Jan 28, 2010)

Hi everyone. I'm currently in the middle of a home theatre project (aren't we all) and going through the complicated thoughts of remote controlling the system. As I have very little knowledge of this I have been trawling the internet, gaining an insight into RF and IR repeaters and attempting to determine the type of system I would like. 
The plan is to place all the components into a closet (I am competing with a cat at the moment and losing the battle - the last straw, which has placed my Mirage front speakers into storage, was him deciding they are great to claw...grrrrr). Components are Pioneer VSX-D906S (dated but works perfectly for my app), the trusty pay TV box, Multi media box (Verbatim), a CD player (yet to be purchased), Ipod Dock and space for a few more (thinking PS3 etc). I will be controlling all these devices and my Panasonic projector, with the one controller...

My question is this, I have read about the Harmony 1's, and although they sound great and apparently will be able to control everything in the closet with the RF extender, I am trying to do this on a limited budget - the minister for war and finance reckons it should cost $0 to be worthwhile, I believe a few hundred should be realistic. I have the opportunity to purchase a second hand AMX remote control, which is both IR and RF - however - does anyone know whether I would be able to set this up so that I could control all my components and do so without line of sight??

Any help would be greatly appreciated as as far as I can determine, the AMX appears to be for computer LAN setup or the like...but I am hoping that I am very wrong!!

Also if anyone has setup a home theatre A/V Closet and has some experiences to share I would love to hear them.


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## lsiberian (Mar 24, 2009)

Josh_C said:


> Hi everyone. I'm currently in the middle of a home theatre project (aren't we all) and going through the complicated thoughts of remote controlling the system. As I have very little knowledge of this I have been trawling the internet, gaining an insight into RF and IR repeaters and attempting to determine the type of system I would like.
> The plan is to place all the components into a closet (I am competing with a cat at the moment and losing the battle - the last straw, which has placed my Mirage front speakers into storage, was him deciding they are great to claw...grrrrr). Components are Pioneer VSX-D906S (dated but works perfectly for my app), the trusty pay TV box, Multi media box (Verbatim), a CD player (yet to be purchased), Ipod Dock and space for a few more (thinking PS3 etc). I will be controlling all these devices and my Panasonic projector, with the one controller...
> 
> My question is this, I have read about the Harmony 1's, and although they sound great and apparently will be able to control everything in the closet with the RF extender, I am trying to do this on a limited budget - the minister for war and finance reckons it should cost $0 to be worthwhile, I believe a few hundred should be realistic. I have the opportunity to purchase a second hand AMX remote control, which is both IR and RF - however - does anyone know whether I would be able to set this up so that I could control all my components and do so without line of sight??
> ...


Putting stuff in a closet requires a good airflow system, but URC offers http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=13XP0KQ5BCVKEDKF8VST

This works extremely well and is generally better than harmony stuff. It's what the custom installers use that I know.

Now if you want and plan to not do the A/V closet harmony 660 controls 5 devices and costs less than 50 bucks at ecost.com. Setup is very easy. 

Is the cat clawing the grill? If so I suggest metal grills to cut that out.


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## dalto (May 24, 2009)

I have all my equipment(excluding the TV) in a closet. I use RF to control them.

My advice is that if you don't have the budget to get a quality RF system you are better off with a wired IR repeater. Cheap RF setups are more problems than you want to deal with.

For a good quality relatively inexpensive remote/RF combo I would recommend the URC MX-450/MRF-260.

You are probably not going to get the AMX system to work for you unless you have a way to program it and all the accessories needed.


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## knobert (Nov 9, 2009)

You could try these, I have one to control my main system (upstairs) from my outdoor deck (zone 2)
Its not awesome but it works

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10105&cs_id=1010503&p_id=5415&seq=1&format=2


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

knobert said:


> You could try these, I have one to control my main system (upstairs) from my outdoor deck (zone 2)
> Its not awesome but it works
> 
> http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10105&cs_id=1010503&p_id=5415&seq=1&format=2


That's all I use to control all my equipment which is in a separate room away from the theatre..
Works fine!


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