Easy to hide IR extender for HD theater? Or maybe RF?

[kbyrd]

I don't so much like the look of the new HD Theater. From the pictures, it doesn't look hometheater-y. But it is amazing small, so I bet I can hide it somewhere out of the way. The problem then is how to feed the HD200 IR signals. Assume I don't have a cabinet full of gear to hide this in. Just a TV mounted on a wall. I'm thinking I can hide the extender in the space between a flat panel and the wall. There's plenty of room. But, the IR receiver on the HD200 won't see the remote from there.

Ideally, I could plug in an RF USB dongle like the Gyration 3101. I bet that won't work though. How about a simple IR or RF extender solution which has a really small receiver? Any ideas or tips?

[QueOnda]

Cheap fix: you could position small mirror. LOL

More expensive:

1) I have a harmony 890 (880 control with a rf dongle). The dongle gets RF form the remote and sends IR out. You have little wires from the dongle going to the box.

2) There are some IR repeaters you can look into.

[kbyrd]

Originally Posted by QueOnda

1) I have a harmony 890 (880 control with a rf dongle). The dongle gets RF form the remote and sends IR out. You have little wires from the dongle going to the box.

2) There are some IR repeaters you can look into.

So I could hide the harmony RF thing next to the Sage box. I'll look into that.
Are there passive IR repeaters? It seems that you could do something like an IR sensor, a wire, and an IR flasher without powering any of it and that might work for really short runs of a couple of feet.

[QueOnda]

Don't know if this will help. http://www.uei.com/category.php?page...ed_product=113

Don't know anything about the product, just came up in a search.

[kbyrd]

I'm looking for smaller. I just found this:

http://www.hometech.com/hts/products...cks/index.html

Then I buy the receiver and emitter of my choice. Thinking about this though, why does it require power? It seems like it should be possible to construct a cable with a receiver on one end and an emitter on the other with nothing but copper wire in between. Sure, there would be loss, but would it be enough to matter if the wire length was on the order of 3 or 6 feet?

[bjkiller]

I use buffalo as repeater.

read about my experience with this repeater


http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum...ead.php?t=7551

[sainswor99]

I use the HotLink Pro for IR repeating. Works very well, as long as you keep the eye positioned so that you don't get bleed from the TV.

I also used the Next Generation Remote Range Extender RF control; it worked great except for two things:

1. My cable box was on a different IR frequency than everything else; I had to buy a seperate IR extender for the cable box (which defeated the purpose of the RF extender), and

2. The RF convertor was a battery replacement. When my Harmony remote told my wife that the batteries needed replacing, she replaced them. What do you with dead batteries? That was the end of the RF control.

Stu

[bbwebb]

I use Xantech IR receivers and emitters in several places throughout my house. They work flawlessly and and are fairly reasonable. The receivers are the most expensive part at around ~$70-$100. The control block and the emitters are only a few bucks each.

http://www.xantech.com/

I buy all of my parts from Worthington Distribution. They have the best prices that I've found.

Bill

[dgeezer]

Just to say that it is possible to hide the unit..

My HD200 is mounted behind my 42" LCD TV. A bungee cord holds it against the bracket which is attached to the wall. The face of the unit is about 2" below and 4" behind the top edge of the TV. It has been working fine like this. I am using the Hauppauge remote from a PVR-150. I've noticed no difference in response from my couch about 12' away.

The unit is oriented vertically and faces the ceiling which is about 3 feet above the TV.

[kbyrd]

Originally Posted by dgeezer

Just to say that it is possible to hide the unit..

My HD200 is mounted behind my 42" LCD TV. A bungee cord holds it against the bracket which is attached to the wall. The face of the unit is about 2" below and 4" behind the top edge of the TV. It has been working fine like this. I am using the Hauppauge remote from a PVR-150. I've noticed no difference in response from my couch about 12' away.

The unit is oriented vertically and faces the ceiling which is about 3 feet above the TV.

That's great news! Ok. I'm going to buy an HD Theater.

[dgeezer]

I hope this will work for you. It certainly would not be a recommended mounting method. I tried it just on a hunch since I found that the extender would work (with reflected infrared?) with the wood cabinet door partially closed.

I played around a little more with various angles and it is pretty sensitive to where you are in the room, as you might imagine. The remote that is included with the HD200 actually works a little better. I can get good response up to 15' away whereas the remote from Hauppauge only works at 10 to 12 feet.