Remote Control question

[chewie]

So...its me again. I have been thinking about my plans for centralizing my A/V gear and found a hole in the plan. I am looking at putting my cable box, PS3, XBox and HTPC in a closet, using a HDMI matrix switch to send the signal to all my TVs and us Global Cache to control the gear right?

My question is this: What remote can I use that will send TCP/IP signals up to the GC-100 and still turn on/off the TVs and control their volume using the normal IR signals? It seems that a touchpad will do the TCP portion, but not the IR portion. And vice versa for the IR remote.

What are you other folks doing for remotes when centralizing your gear?

[Michael McSharry]

I believe the typical scenario is a IR receiver in your A/V location that is wired to the IR input of the GC. If you cannot wire it then something like a powermind used to send it via RF. I dont have a GC, but my impression is that the IP is used to communicate with the computer and you can send commands from computer to GC to set IR outputs.

If your setup is all controlled with an IR remote then there is no need for GC, but just an expansion/amplification block to take the receiver input and route it to multiple pieces of equipment.

[chewie]

Michael, I think that I was possibly not clear in my initial post. I am going to put my stuff in the A/V closet and wire it to the GC-100, which would allow me to use a TCP/IP remote to control the stuff in the A/V closet. The issue is that I will still have the TVs around the house that are potentially far away and I would probably still use the IR to power them on and off and set the volume on them.

Although, now that I really think about it, if I am going to go this route I suppose I could just hook all the TVs up to the GC-100 as well and send the IR signals over one of the Cat 5s to the TVs which would let me use my TCP IP remote or Homeseer to control everything right?

[heatvent]

What is a TCP/IP remote? Do you have a link?

What I am doing (I don't control TV's in a remote location) is to use the current IR technology as much as possible to avoid having to do a lot of programming if IR signals in HS or some other application as well as I want my TV still working if HS goes down.

I use a Logitech 880 remote and one of these http://www.smarthome.com/83608/Chann...IR-5000/p.aspx to control all my equipment behind the wall the TV is mounted on. Nothing goes through HS. I do have a USB-UIRT that I plan to use so HS can control equipment (mostly turn on or off).

[chewie]

Heatvent, I think I was being dumb and not thinking this all the way through before posting.

I am planning on using the GC to perform my IR management and control it with HS. So what I will end up doing is creating Remote screen in HSTouch and using those to control my gear, and for the TVs in remote areas of the house I will still have Cat5E run so I will use that to transmit the IR from the GC to the TV. This should allow me to use HS to control everything and create the scenes/setups that I want.

Have I finally gotten this thought through and am I thinking correctly here?

[Rupp]

Heatvent, I think I was being dumb and not thinking this all the way through before posting.

I am planning on using the GC to perform my IR management and control it with HS. So what I will end up doing is creating Remote screen in HSTouch and using those to control my gear, and for the TVs in remote areas of the house I will still have Cat5E run so I will use that to transmit the IR from the GC to the TV. This should allow me to use HS to control everything and create the scenes/setups that I want.

Have I finally gotten this thought through and am I thinking correctly here?

This will work just fine.

[chewie]

This will work just fine.

\o/ Yay! Lead the horse to water and all that...thanks guys!