So, I'm in the process of planning out my media closet. Help me please.

How far away is the closet?
What peripherals are you trying to connect?
Why do you want optical audio?
What's your sound system/receiver?
What is your planned control of devices in the closet? (Universal RF remote? WiDi/WiFi app control? IR receiver, exteder/blasters? IR over HDMI?)

ETA: and what's your planned use of USB?



I ask because most of this could be done with investing in a nice receiver and running one HDMI cable (assuming you have ARC on the TV + receiver...I'll look it up in a second to see if it does) + ethernet and USB on the receiver.

Alright. So your TV's HDMI 2 has "ARC." That means, with the right receiver, you can use your TV's remote to control your audio. If you use optical audio, you lose this feature and need another remote to control your sound separate from your TV.

Further, as far as I understand, HDMI supports Dolby True HD and DTS HD Audio while optical does not. How important is that? These are frequently your "blu Ray audio" types. If your sound system isn't high-end though, it probably doesn't matter too much.

Given that you're planning on running cable, it makes sense to go ahead and go all out, running more than you need. A nice receiver, though, will:
1) have all the hdmi inputs you need
2) have ethernet capability
3) take audio from the sources via HDMI, analog, or optical with a much shorter cable run, tossing the video over a single cable to the TV and the sound to as nice a system as your heart desires.
4) have a USB port (or more)

You can wind up with much less cabling this way. You'll have fewer visible cables behind the TV, too.


Cons?
Well, cost of the receiver vs cost of your cable run (I don't know the numbers here without specifics, but the receiver is probably more costly. I would say it's prettier, too, though)
It actually won't do away with your needing the receiver remote to switch inputs. It doesn't solve accessing the receiver or the things inside the closet. There are several RF adapters/blasters, but I don't think there are any natively RF-receivers with blasters or control for HDMI.


So, I don't know that it makes it cheaper or better if you don't think like me, but I think "one cable going through the wall is better than more than one cable going through the wall if they don't actually add any more capability that the receiver doesn't already have." That said, your TV having ethernet probably does more than a receiver having it. You would have to research specific brands, but a lot of networked receivers are geared toward local network stuff rather than web stuff. In the end, a non-networked receiver with ARC + HDMI and Ethernet (now, there are HDMI cables that support Ethernet over HDMI, but don't ask me how they work or how to inject or pull Ethernet off of them, but consider it a jumping off point for further research if it interests you) could conceivably cost you less than a basic receiver with ARC and USB and single long HDMI run. Now, going non-networked on the receiver will cost you the ability to have smartphone/tablet control of it, which may or may not be exciting or worrisome to you.


I have rambled, but I think I have hit all the points I was trying to make. I qualify as a "barely enthusiast" much more so than an expert, so when someone smarter comes along and explains that I'm an idiot (or you think so yourself), they're (you're) probably right. I will answer anything you have a question about or clarify my musings that are unclear.

For my setup, there is one HDMI from the TV to the receiver in the closet. I also ran Ethernet to the TV, which also terminates in the closet, but only for future needs. If you have access to the wall behind the TV, I would suggest installing a removable panel that makes it a little easier to change out cables in the future. I would also recommend 1-1.5" PVC through the wall for easier cable access, but that may not be doable at this point.

In my closet, the HDMI from the TV terminates to an older Yamaha receiver with 4-5 HDMI inputs. These run my Satellile, Apple TV and Bluray player. I also put my wireless router and cable modem within the closet, to keep everything centralized within the house and provide dedicated connections to the Apple TV and Bluray player. As you now understand, the Ethernet from the TV isn't even hooked up as I really don't find it necessary at this point.

Also within the closet are my Sonos receivers which control the surround speakers via my receiver and other ancillary speakers throughout the house. You have no idea how awesome it is to play music from your phone on your patio without doing anything to your devices. I highly recommend this system, and I have previous posts that describe how I have set this up.

To control everything, I started off with a Logitech Harmony One remote that was strictly an IR universal remote. It may have just been the devices I had, but the lag from that remote's signal to the devices in the closet was horrible, but I made it work. About a year ago, I accidentallly dropped it and broke the screen, so for the replacement, I picked up a Harmony 900 off eBay. This is an IR and RF remote and it works perfectly. I would highly suggest one of these over any newer Harmony remotes as they are cheaper, have a better design (IMO) and offer a dedicated remote that doesn't rely on a smart phone or anything to operate.

Just my two cents, if you have any further questions I'll be around.

Oh, and as for USB, my guess is that if you are using it to watch photos/videos you can do that with your blu-ray player instead, so to me that is kind of useless (but if it's easy enough to do now it may be worth it just in case we're missing something).

I would do HDMI, LAN, Coax and Optical and call it a day.

quote:

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I remembered to run the coax but forgot to run the optical out

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So in your setup, have you considered using a digital TV converted box with an HDMI output?

Wow, lots to ingest here. Haha. I think I need to do a lot more planning. I think framing will start in a month so I have about that long to decide what I want to do. Thanks guys

So a receiver like this?
LINK

Also, wife wants to put ceiling speakers throughout the house so she can listen to Pandora or spotify while doing housework, etc. What's the best way to achieve that? Would I have to get a amp for those speakers and then connect somehow to the receiver?

If your wife wants that setup, then that's probably not your ideal receiver. They have receivers with multi-zone audio, so you hardwire the, say kitchen, speakers all the way to that media closet. You can send any audio from the receiver to those speakers.

Is a second zone not enough (ie: you want bedroom, kids room, kitchen, bathrooms, outside, etc)? If not, there are "multi zone amps" (Dayton Audio is a well regarded brand that makes one). Most only play stereo (possible con) to any given zone. I've seen them with two distinct control methods. One is directly from the amp. The other is from installed wall plates (many of which have remotes) that allow you to change the source and the volume. You could do something like receiver---1--> main sound --2--> source for multi channel amp so you can have better than 2.0 sound at your TV. Some people enjoy purely 2.0 sound, and with as little as about $250 in stereo speakers (unpowered, not including amp, source, etc) you can outperform many home theaters in a box even with their 5.1 and 7.1 setups and, from a quality standpoint, be much more impressed with good sound vs surround sound. For home theatre, though, the center channel is pretty important, so maybe 2.0 won't cut it for you. Specifically if you are going in-ceiling for your main viewing room, you'll be underwhelmed. For listening to pandora around the house, I think 2-speaker in ceiling should be fine.

Now, a much less expensive and much more limited option is a Zone 2 Receiver with a Speaker Selector switch. Now, I'm rocking a student-worthy poor man's setup. This would not be my setup with more money to invest, but it's highly functional. I actually use a speaker selector directly from my main receiver (Sony STR-DH720)'s front L/R--> selector (monoprice 4 speaker selector)--a--> stereo speakers (B&W 803m) --b--> outdoor speakers. I like the quality of the switch just fine. On a Zone 2 setup, it would probably work much better. The way I have it set up, I really can't use both at the same time because the volumes between the two speakers are too different. If it's loud enough for outside, inside will blow your ears out (so a dampening volume know wouldn't be useful outside. Assuming you run 4-room in-ceiling stereo setups, you could either run it off of the 2nd zone or a dedicated amp, like a little Tripath Lepai LP-2020a+ (like a $15 amp, but man is it good), which has plain-old RCA L/R connectors, so you'd need either a receiver with line-level/RCA output or to split analog output from your source. The most control you could get that way is to put a volume knob in each room, though. You couldn't change sources or up the volume past where the amp is set without physically being there.



I don't know what "the best" receiver or in-ceiling speaker is, so I'll refrain from recommending specific ones. The selector switch from monoprice is down in the $20-30ish range I think. They make one with more channels, I think it's 8 channels for $90 or so. Throw in a volume slider/knob for each room, and you're up another $10-15/room. You won't find a multi-zone amp for under $400 (if you do, let me know!). Things like wall plates that would give you multi-input, multi-output ("matrix") will cost more.


There are lots of options, and lots of good options. So many that it makes it somewhat difficult to choose, actually.

I'm not seeing a "Zone 2" on there. Maybe I am looking in the wrong place. Assuming that it does, the setup you have drawn below will drive 2 speakers and no more. Check out this overview of wiring multi room sound systems. You would need a selector switch behind that setup. It's a good option, and selector switches are cheap. Again, I really am not the best to comment on how good one receiver is vs another. I can tell you the features to look for (and you've got most of them there), but as far as brand recognition and quality vs price, longevity, repair prices, etc, I'm no good. I do think that VABuckeye and a few others have some sort of hand in either sales or installation of home theatre equipment, so they probably know a fair bit more in terms of having laid eyes on the products rather than just read reviews about them.


Now, as far as the network and streaming stuff is concerned, I don't know whether you'll be able to control that via the app that controls the receiver or not. Even if you can't, it supports bluetooth, so you could actually just use the pandora app on your phone and throw the bluetooth output to the receiver, giving you the same amount of control you would have on the native app. On the same hang, integrated Bluetooth in the receiver is pretty cool. But adapters that do the same thing usually run $10-20. In other words, if that's the deciding feature between two receivers, I wouldn't (personal decision. You may be different) spend $50-100 extra if that's the only difference. You've also already got a device (AppleTV) that is a streaming media player attached, so consider how much adding pandora to the receiver does for you vs using pandora on the AppleTV. Specifically, if you're an iPhone user, you can already Airplay the pandora output to the AppleTV--> receiver--> zone 2--> (in your current set up as drawn) the second set of stereo speakers with the phone's app. And you can control the app with your phone.