AV & Media Room Design

Consider a "Server Rack"; used in network closets.

This site** has a three step click and buy (only a pointer link).

**Server Racks Online's rack configurator lets you "Click & Design" server racks from leading manufacturers. Build a rack to your specific requirements, and we'll ship the rack you designed!

-- Oren

..through the use of electrical or duct tape, achieve the configuration in the photo..

I hate to say it, because I usually like to design and build stuff myself, but it sure sounds to me like this is the time in life for you where it might be best to consult an A/V design specialist. A good one will take your requirements (space, access, expandability) and create a plan you can follow for the build.

If you find a good one, it'll well be worth the few hundred dollars for the consult.

You might want to look at this site for some getting started info:

It cost me $100.00 for a "certified " specialist for an in home evaluation . I received a detailed folder, including the design, statement of work, itemized material, cost, etc.

The certification escapes me right now...

-- Oren

..through the use of electrical or duct tape, achieve the configuration in the photo..

You might try the AVS Forums. Here is a link to the "Dedicated Theater Design & Construction" forum:

It's takes a while to get your bearings on the AVS Forums because there is so much information there.

Scroll down to the bottom and change the screen color from AVS Dark Theater to AVS White and it will be easier on your eyes.

Try something like this. Find a house that has a room with a large closet, with the closet on a wall that is shared with a room that would be an acceptable room for watching TV.

If your TV is a plasma or LCD that you can hang on the wall, hang it in the viewing room on the shared wall, and put the equipment in the closet, and connect through the wall.

If the TV is one that you can't hang on the wall, put it in the closet, facing the wall, and cut a viewport in the wall. As above, put your gear in the closet.

If your gear needs access from the viewing room (e.g., to insert DVDs into the DVD player), you can cut more holes in the wall, and build shelves that hold the equipment such that the front panels are in the viewing room but the backs are in the closet.

You only have to give up a closet this way.

For anything you need other than the viewing room (e.g., music for the bedroom), run the connections from the AV closet up through the attic, to the destination, and down.

An active Usenet group is _alt.home-theater.misc_

-- Oren

..through the use of electrical or duct tape, achieve the configuration in the photo..

Bedroom-sized? Assuming you place everything within reach of a wheel chair bound person, you could install 56" tall (32-space) racks for everything. Install cooling fan inserts in the lowest 2 spaces. Place a 2-space vent at the top of each rack. Here's an example from Middle Atlantic, one of our vendors:

leaves you with better 28 spaces (49") for gear in each rack. They also make several "residential" cooling solutions: are better suited for listening room racks.

Middle Atlantic makes custom rackshelves which are precisely cut to fit the fronts of your A/V gear. They have an extensive library of cut-outs for thousands of models. If your unit isn't in the library they will make the face to your specifications. They don't charge for custom fitting. The finished look is much slicker than the typical rack since all the gear looks as though it was made to fit.

I've installed media racks (mostly Middle Atlantic) in numerous homes, including my own, over the years. In a home theater environment I like to install the racks in a side wall or, if the front wall is wide enough, on either side of the screen. Done right the effect is attractive and the system is easy to use. If you can afford to buy enough A/V gear to fill a bedroom, make the front of your home theater wide enough for two side-by-side racks on each side of the screen. This would give you 112 spaces (16'4") of usable rack. With most components using between 3 and 5 spaces (both of my HT receivers need eight spaces) you'd have room for enough gear to provide a large home with entertainment throughout.

You can install an IR pickup on the ceiling to trigger a sequence that opens the curtain, powers up the projector and sets the lighting. Here's an example of a low profile IR receiver from Xantech, another of our vendors:

That would be a bit of overkill don't you think?

One easy method is a closet with access to both front and back. How you decide to accomplish this is up to you. Doors on both sides, door front and open back, open front and back, door front and removable panel on back, open front and hang a black blanket on the back, the possibilities are endless.

I remember one house with bypass doors on front and back. This allowed a bunch of equipment (6' wide) and the bypass doors can be removed easily when major work is required.

One home we did in CT quite a few years ago had a large, unfinished basement. They built the HT room in the middle 1/3, leaving about

1/3 for utility space and another 1/3 for bathroom, guest room and a small kitchenette.

I had a reveal made to cover the bottom of the RPTV (a 50" Mitsubishi) which fit into an opening in the wall between the HT and utility area. We built custom in-wall and in-ceiling speakers for effects channels, used a pair of Martin-Logan towers for the mains and built a matched pair of

12" subs to fit into the wall behind each of the main speakers.

There was a closet in the plans for the theater but I convinced the homeowners to let me take it over. I had the carpenter frame a "window" in one wall of the closet. The opening was nearly floor to ceiling, designed to exactly fit a standard rack (they come in 1.75" increments). IIRC, the rack was 48 spaces (7') high. We installed Middle Atlantic custom rackshelves (cf. earlier post to this thread) for his Yamaha receiver, two dual mono-block amps, power controller and source gear.

There were channels being built on the ceiling to hide HVAC ducts. I had those built a few inches wider to accommodate conduit for the HT system, whole-house audio, alarm, intercom and phone cables (this was before structured cabling became a household word).

That single, 7-foot tall rack held all the A/V gear he needed for a 4-story (basement + 3 floors) home. If I were doing the same thing today we'd need a bit of space for a couple of media servers. Other than that, I'd have done it pretty much the same way.

By all means make sure the equipment is mounted such that you can get to both the front and the back without a lot of hassle. This means an open back to the rack or one that 'moves'. Middle Atlantic makes racks that are designed to pivot out from the wall. These aren't cheap but they do the job. Or you can go with a rack on wheels and patch cables from wiring terminated on a nearby wall. As in, do not pull wire straight from inside the walls into a movable rack. Pull the in-wall wiring to a patch panel and then use pluggable cabling from there to the rack. This will save you from pulling a whole new wire again WHEN it gets frayed/broken due to movement of the rack. Even if it's a fixed rack you still want to consider a patch panel to avoid breakage. It's a little less of an issue with a fixed rack, just keep it in mind.

Or, since drywall and 2x4s are relatively cheap, just look for a space that won't be terribly expensive to remodel to suit your actual needs. Always factor in repainting the place, this will make drywalling less painful too.

All too often a great deal of time and money gets wasted trying to shoehorn the wrong stuff into the wrong spaces. Like not rearranging a wall and jamming expensive gear into a tiny closet and having it get wrecked by overheating. Or trying to reuse existing gear not well suited for the new installation.

Another consideration is lighting in the rack closet. Rather than a standard ceiling fixture I installed fluorescent lights. Since there are heavy items like amps and receivers going in there, use protected fixtures. I've used "under-cabinet" fixtures, mounted vertically on each side, to light my racks.

Some folks like gooseneck fixtures (a few rack makers offer 19" rack-mounted power supplies with goose neck lamps attached). I find fluorescents give more even lighting.

Thanks, Oren. Since asking that question here and elsewhere, I've come up with a DIY approach with double slotted heavy duty shelving that I think will serve my needs.

I'm going to put the "servers" - by which I mean PC's, DVD jukeboxes, etc. in the basement. I've decided to put all of the equipment in an "island" configuration the way some kitchens are designed. That way, there should be "wheel around" access to all the components. This design appealed to me because all the wires could be routed to conduits and wouldn't be lying on the floor where they would interfere with powerchair wheels. Since I've gotten a few floor cleaning bots, cords on the floor are a real show-stopper.

The issue I am facing now is the length limits on all the new cable schemes like HDMI and USB. If the server room is just below the living room, I'll be able to route the HDMI and USB cables directly. The plan is to have very little "artifact" in the living room. Right now I envision a remote control, an external single disk DVD player - perhaps even a "slot load" drive that can be built into the wall or into some furniture. With PC based music and video servers, it should be possible to operate nearly everything remotely. The upstairs DVD player could be used to play rental DVDs and disks friends bring over. After fussing with a number of DVD and Tivo-like stand-alone recorders I've given up on them and will build my own video server.

Thanks for your input,

-- Bobby G.

You guys *are* my consultants! (-: I've looked at swing-out commercial racks and a number of other solutions and have decided to "roll my own" for now. I just haven't been impressed by the "bang for the buck" I get from commercial designs. While they make more sense in industrial and business environments, they're a little too pricey for the size setup I envision.

What I've decided to do is go the "island" route. I WAS going to drop some

2 x 4's from the basement ceiling and mount them to the floor but I found out that might be against code. I'll have to talk to my local inspector first. If it's OK, I'll run industrial strength dual-slot steel shelving standards along the length of the 2x4's. Since the shelves will be floating (not backed against a wall) I should be able to access the front or back with ease, as long as I take the powerchair's turning radius and clearances into consideration.

If money were no object, what I would really like is some sort of hydraulic lift that would enable to access several shelves' worth of equipment from the wheelchair. If I find some sort of heavy duty lift mechanism that I can adopt that can raise and lower the shelves the way some fancy legal filing cabinets work, I'd be ecstatic! Dad's powerchair has a lifting center column, but the bad part is that it only extends a paltry 6 inches. Better than nothing but darn close to it!

I find it never hurts to ask on the web first about anything because it at least helps me insure I've covered the basics and learned the lingo. I've already come up with a dozen modifications to my original plans, just seeing the way other people do things.

One gentlemen's approach (John W., if memory serves) was to mount equipment at waist height between stud bays and cover the openings with vent panels. Ten bucks worth of super neodymium magnets make it removable without tools and accessible from a wheelchair. BruceR. used long outlet strips to provide good ventiliation and access to all the wall "wart" power transformers that power a lot of home A/V gear.

It may turn out that a consultation will provide me with even more ideas and clue me into local building code issues. I'll probably get good wiring diagrams out of the process, too, so it's something I will seriously consider.

As for mounting gear hidden in stud bays, my only concern would be a potential heat buildup but that problem can be assessed by initial monitoring with a good recording thermometer. Thermal protections could also be built into the enclosure just to be on the safe side. I can also add fan cooling and fan rotation monitoring so I can shut down the gear if the fan fails. Cheap PC 3-wire fans generate a signal that corresponds to their RPM so it's simple to tell if they've failed. A simple clothes-dryer type thermostatic switch could be used to shut off system power and sound an alarm with a few simple components and a relay.

Thanks for the input, Abe, I appreciate it.

-- Bobby G.

Thanks! Sorry for the long delay in responding. That's an excellent resource. Your comment is quite accurate. It's a very information-dense site. Nice to know that there's a dedicated forum. I'll scan there for some ideas.

Ah yes. I noticed that there are a number of viewing options that make things easier. I chose the "print" view because the clutter of the regular view is for a younger generation!

I've been thinking about putting in ventilation that would capture the heat from the equipment in the winter but vent it externally in the summer and picked up some ideas here:

I might even look at using a heat exchanger so I wouldn't upset the humidity balance in the house with a low-tech dryer vent sort of arrangement.

Thanks again for the URL.

-- Bobby G.

That's an interesting idea. Since one of the goals was to reduce the heat load in the viewing room by moving all the electronics outside the room, even a partial "removal" might be helpful. It might even be possible to put remotely operated sliding doors in the viewing room that expose the gear when access is needed. That would also address another goal - to make the living room still look like a living room and not a Best Buy showroom!

I'm beginning to wonder if new houses shouldn't be built like old horror movie castles with passageways between each room. The number of wires associated with PC's and home theater just seems to be growing exponentially but I've haven't seen any solutions that I really like.

Thanks, Tim, for the suggestions.

-- Bobby G.

Thanks! I looked on Usenet and all I found was the rather moribund:

_alt.home-theater_ which only had 10 or so posts a month. Sometimes the hierarchies don't seem to make much sense. I'll go take a look now . . .

-- Bobby G.

Good idea. I saw some wear and tear on cables that I had plugged into a stack of equipment mounted on a turntable so I could access the back panels easily. If I use Lewis' closet idea, I'm not sure how I'd bring the cable in since almost all the vertical surfaces would be taken up by bi-fold doors. Since I expect the room to be in the basement, I could make an angled panel above the equipment that wouldn't be as hard to reach as a horizontal one and that would take up a little less space than a vertical one.

-- Bobby G.