THE MEDIA ROOM (continued)

Greg installed a custom pull-out rotating shelf for the receiver because I need to access the inputs and outputs in back quite frequently, but I had to screw on those hoopty-looking brackets to prevent the shelf from sliding forward on its own (the rat’s nest of cables in the back push it out).

The IR emitters attached to the DVD player, satellite tuner, and the A/V receiver are connected to a Niles Audio RCA-HT Remote Control Anywhere Kit (left). The master IR sensor (right) glued to the cabinet is barely noticeable (right).

CABLE SNARL
It’s difficult to see for all the cables in this photo (speaking of a rat's nest), but there are jacks for 14 speakers (the media room has front left and right, surround left and right, rear left and right, center, and a subwoofer, and there are two speakers each in the dining room, great room, master bedroom, and enclosed patio).

The bedroom speakers and the rear channels are currently not in use. There is also a phone jack, a coaxial jack, and four Ethernet jacks here. The satellite tuner is plugged into the phone jack and one of the Ethernet ports; the Sonos uses one Ethernet port and the other two are available for product testing (media streamers and such). The HDMI connector is connected to a ceiling-mounted video projector.

If you build or remodel, I can't overemphasize the importance of communicating with your contractor or installer and visting the job site frequently. We had to drill holes in the interior sides of the cabinets because Allen thought the speakers were going in the other side. I had also intended to have this patch panel up higher in the cabinet, so that it would be out of sight. But since I was usually at the job site only on weekends, I didn't notice what was going on. This isn't Allen's fault, it was just a matter of a communications breakdown between him and me.

(Yes, my cable management sucks, but I change out gear so frequently that it just doesn’t make sense to keep everything neat and tidy.)

SPIN CYCLE
Greg installed these rotating slide-out racks for the front speakers (left), so that I could pull them out from their niches and rotate them. It also makes it easy to access the patch bay on the wall behind it. The racks were designed for mounting tube TVs, so Greg got a great price on them because so few people are buying tube TVs these days.

I had power and an HDMI port installed in the ceiling to accommodate an Epson Powerllite Cinema 500 video projector, but I goofed in not installing the infrastructure for a ceiling-mounted screen in front of the entertainment center. I'm using Epson's Accolade Duet tripod screen for the time being.

Page 1: Introduction 

Page 2: The Media Room

Page 3: The Media Room: Wiring and Video 

Page 4: The Media Room: Audio

Page 5: The Home Office and the Home Run

Page 6: The Kitchen and the Video Surveillance System

Page 7: The Garage

Page 8: The Solar Power System