I have a good deal of legacy equipment and will need to use many IR taps. I searched the Forum and remain confused as to exactly how to pull off using Roomie to control my home theater. Here’s the equipment I have:
- Pioneer VSX-94TXH - Amp
- Motorola DCH-3416 - Cable Box
- JVC RS-1 - Projector
- Sony BDP-s570 - Bluray
- Sony CDP-C445 - CD Player
- Luxman DZ-121 - CD Player
- Sony STR-DE897 - Amp
I'm probably missed 1 or 2... but clearly I need a lot of IR. My equipment is housed in two large side-by-side custom build racks (approximately 5 feet tall with 5-6 shelves) each with a hinged glass door concealing everything. From what I've gleaned from the discussion here the Roomie Blaster ethernet version can support 4 discrete devices (2 per port) + 1 IR Blaster; however, it can forward signals to a Xantach amplified breakout box. I believe a special cable is needed to connect the Roomie Blaster to the Xantech device.
In a large vertical rack I’m not believing the IR Blaster could hit enough devices to make the difference so I’m better off using IR bugs on these devices. I currently use a Logitech 1000 to control everything and it works pretty well (always had trouble with IR timing and battery problems); but the device is on its last legs and it’s time to upgrade.
So… if I order a Roomie Blaster Ethernet kit, a 10 device license, a Xantech Compatibility Cable, and a Xantech 791-44 will I be good to go? How exactly does the Roomie 3 port adapter interface with the Xantech device? - hook the compatibility cable to a port and connect as input to the Xantech? Do I need Roomie IR bugs or can I use the box full or red IR bugs I have (IR is IR, right)?
I have remotes for all the devices listed above except the Luxman… that might make like interesting (would hate to give this device up).
I appreciate any guidance you can provide as I dive into this project.
Cheers - TY
You might be pleasantly surprised by the coverage you can get from the blaster.
i mounted my wifi Itach unit on top of my projector. I ran a single emitter to the front of the projector and mounted my blaster on the side of my projector and aimed it to cover my receiver, DVD player, bluray and ATv that are about 8-10 feet to the side.
I have a fairly large theater room (32x28) with a vaulted ceiling and my projector sits in projection booth so I have no way to blast IR to my rack (see attached pics). I also keep the doors closed and they are darkly tinted - I tried to shoot through them once and had no reliable luck. I thought about mounting a blaster inside the cabinet and tried that with a Xantech unit I have, but again I couldn’t reliably hit everything I needed to.
You will be surprised how good the blasters are.
I actually have a blaster in a bedroom BEHIND a TV, taped to the top of the tv, where it works perfectly controlling the tv with an IR rcvr in the front and a receiver NEXT to tv, with receiver in its front too.
I have a receiver in another ROOM, but line of site from the doorways of the bedroom and office. If I am not standing in the doorway, the blaster reaches the receiver in the office reliably too! It is 25 ft away!
This is with Global Cache eqpt. FYI.
I used the GC-CGX converter cable to a Xantech 789-44 and it works like a charm. Somewhere I read to run the 789 in passive mode with no power supply- THAT IS BOGUS. The 789 needs to be powered to work; once I did that it all worked beautifully.