Cabling + Wires

[crschmidt]

What cables does every geek need?

For the first time since we moved, I'm not totally broke. All the little things I've been putting off purchasing -- the wireless antenna for signal boosting, USB connectors, stuff like that -- are going to be purchased relatively soon.

But I'm sure there's some esoteric things that would come in handy if I knew about them, or that I haven't thought of. Stereo to Mini-stereo headphone adapters, female to emale RCA extender dealies, and the like.

I'm not a quality-phile in this respect: I've never bought Monster cables, and I'm not ever likely to, but I'd like to create a system that's relatively decent and without dragging wires all over the place.

So, what do you think I would need to solve some or all of the following problems:

* Computer in living room. Has power, but not wireless receiver of any kind. How do I get it online? Current router is 2 floors up in opposite corner of house, so running cat5 to the location is not an option
* Computer in living room is in corner. Would like to use as media-ish device (can swap cables if needed), but don't want to have it right next to the TV: Wireless transmission of audio+video possible? suggested? Non-LOS pretty much neccesary given its location.
* Stereo in bedroom. Would like to be able to transmit tunes (when playing music) or other system audio (ie watching movies) to bed or desk. Max Distance is about 15-20 feet. Possible? Suggested?

I'm msure there's a few things I'm not mentioning - the fact that I lost my DVI->Video cable for the mac mini, for example, so I'll be buying a new one of those, but this gives you a general idea of the kind of things that I'm looking for. So, if you can think of something that I need but probably don't have, or that I might need someday that I could play with then forget about, I'd love to hear about it.

Comments

[twid.livejournal.com]

* Computer in living room.

A Linksys WET11 (http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=wet11&btnG=Search+Froogle) or similar wireless to ethernet bridge would seem to make sense. About $70.

However, a Powerline (http://froogle.google.com/froogle?client=safari&rls=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wf&q=powerline+&btnG=Search+Froogle) system is an interesting alternative, especially for that two-floor-run. Never tried it though.

* Computer in living room is in corner. Would like to use as media-ish device (can swap cables if needed), but don't want to have it right next to the TV: Wireless transmission of audio+video possible? suggested? Non-LOS pretty much neccesary given its location.

Video over wireless is pretty horrid, especially if you do anything above broadcast (even 480p). Music over wireless is easy, especially w/airport express, but still might get choppy over ethernet if you use your wireless for large torrents and such.

S-Video can go up to 50 feet or so, and RCA cables for audio can go a long way too, so if you don't mind the cables you can just run them along the floor. Even cheap video cards now have s-video out. An s video/RCA audio-video switch (http://froogle.google.com/froogle?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&tab=wf&q=s+video+switch&btnG=Search+Froogle) is dirt cheap.

* Stereo in bedroom

Flat cables (https://www.ebizenterprise.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=42370) and an RF remote? (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/airclick/index.php)

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

* Stereo in bedroom
In this case, I'm running from the powerbook (mini-stereo) to the stereo's RCA inputs -- right now I'm just using a 10 foot mini-stereo to rca adapter. I think I need to set up cables along the walls linking a point:
1. By the bed and
2. By the desk

is neccesary, then get a multi-way switch to choose between them. However, I'm not sure how many directions you can get relatively cheap input switches for... nor where to get them, really. Ah! This looks perfect... oh, and you linked that in your post, heh.

Fucking Christ, I'd forgotten how expensive Monster cabling is -- Just bumped into a $100, 4 foot Component video cable. At least the gold version is only $30.

I'll run cables rather than doing wireless, but man, there's simply nothing out there over 12 feet (in the US: apparently 10M cable lengths for RCA/S-Video are very common in the UK. Amazon.co.uk sells em for less than 10 GBP, but Amazon.com says 50 USD.

Ridiculous.

[twid.livejournal.com]

here's a 50' audio/video rca for $30. These guys are just down the street from Apple, awesome little store.

http://www.hometech.com/video/av.html

Yeah, monster is a total ripoff, their margins are insane. Unless you have a > $5000 stereo system, it's just not worth it.

[catyak]

You should have got a house that fits the cables you have available :-) We're in a single-storey house so it's easy to run cables across the roof and down through the ceilings. You might be able to manage something like that if you've got floorboards that are easily removeable and have at least one cat-5 point per room.

D

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

Sadly, "easily removable floorboards" are not here (We're all carpet), and wiring anything through the walls in this place seems as if it would be very iffy if even possible.

This is all assuming I could even get the cables in the first place, which I don't seem to be able to without making my own, something I don't have the time, skills, or patience for.