Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Wiring advice thread

OK, I'm opening this decision process to my fellow Axiomites. But not sure if I'll get feedback, you folks don't really express your opinions freely.

I'm in the somewhat painful process of a roof replacement/remodel. To those who are paying attention, yes, I'm in the SF Bay Area. And yes, we had the first BIG storm on Monday. And YES, our roof in process had about 7 leaks that caused my contractor to visit twice in one day to fix 'em...

I live in an Eichler, which is a flat roof structure. Looks great but hard to modify because of the lack of crawl space or attic. For a brief period, I have the option of running any and all wires I want before the roof is closed again. As a result, I'm running lighting, electrical, network, and speaker wires all throughout the house, many terminating into a network rack that I will terminate myself (ugh) in my garage.

I have a dedicated media/TV room where I watch TV. In this room, I have my HT setup, including my AV rack, located in AV Rack #1 in the picture below. I'm trying to figure how best to minimize the amount/size of the equipment in the room so I can make the room fell less cramped, which includes 'shrinking' my AV rack. Currently, my AV rack consists of the following:

PS3 with wired ethernet
Wii with wired ethernet
Slingbox with wired ethernet
Tivo S3 with wired ethernet
Denon 2200 DVD player
Pioneer Elite 45TX AVR
Monoprice 3 to 1 HDMI switch

In the garage, I will have a full network closet built to house a bunch of my computer/networking gear, including gear to support multi-room audio/video and a solar panel monitoring computer in the future. This rack is close to my media room and I have the option of putting a majority of my AV equipment in here. That would allow me to shrink my AV rack #1 to only include equipment that requires a disc. This would include

Wii
PS3
extra connections for a 3rd console like an Xbox 360
extra connections for another HD source, like a DV camera
4 port ethernet switch

Then AV Rack #2 can hold the remaining equipment. That would allow me to distribute Tivo to multiple rooms from the same box and use the multizone feature of an AVR to distribute audio throughout the house. (I don't need a full mutizone system, an AVR w/ a bunch of Airport Expresses is enough for me.)

Here's my Pros/Cons list, maybe you folks can poke holes in this and I can see if there's anything I missed. Thanks!

PRO
Less equipment in the room
Less noise generated by equipment (Tivo is LOUD, though not as much as PS3)
Modified rack will allow me to better vent PS3 to eliminate fan noise
Can use the AVR for dual purpose, main HT control and multizone
Allows AVR Rack #1 position to be torn down for future bathroom expansion

CON
Can't see screen on AVR
Can't see screen on Tivo
Requires wiring to 2 equipment locations instead of 1

Additional items/issues
New AVR: I will be getting a new AVR. It will need to have multizone and at least 3 HDMI inputs. I don't see ever going to 7.1, the room is too small. One MAJOR need is to have the onscreen display via HDMI, then I can rely on the screen for the receiver status.
Wiring: I am considering planning for both options. This means I have to run wires to both AV rack positions, allowing me put equipment in either place and wire 'patch' cables to allow moving the equipment from media room to garage.

Just make sure to run the wiring through a conduit in the walls or ceiling to allow for future changes in wire as it becomes necessary.

Yup, as long as you have a conduit *WITH A PULL ROPE* inside - :), you should be fine. I don't know what type of network cable you're going to pull, but get one that can push gigabit speeds.

Also, if you have the luxury, make sure you account for multiple subs (luxury for sure, but you never know).

Pull rope? That is what fish tape is for

And gorilla glue is for...?

The animal kingdom does what it can for our projects, but even with such great products, it's hard to combat the part of the project named after humans: human error.

Ahhhh fish tape.... just used some this weekend to pull the speaker wire feeding the QS8's up through the wall and into the attic. Makes for such a cleaner look with the speakers just hanging there on the wall with nothing coming out of the top, bottom or sides. Almost like they're wireless or something!