Single HC300 2+ Rooms

[jboeckler]

Hello Everyone,

I'm somewhat new to the forum but since I finished my house in October I've been slowly coming up to speed on what control4 can do for my A/V control needs. When I built my house I centrally ran everything and I think I'm ready to set everything up. At this point I think I have most everything figured out from reading past posts but I wanted ask a few questions just to be sure.

So here is what I'm currently thinking:

Living Room (LR)

Plasma TV

Living Room Closet (LRC)

DVD Player

Master Bedroom (MB)

Plasma TV

DVD Player

Theater Closet (TC)

Component Switch

HC300

HD Cable Box #1

HD Cable Box #2

Other Sources

---

So with that being said I'm going to initially try to utilize a single HC300 centrally located. So I will run the following based on abbreviations above:

- Run 5RGB from Component Switch into each remote display (BR-TV, LR-TV)

- Run 5RGB from HC300 into Component Switch

- Run 5RGB from All other Vid. Sources into Component Switch

- Run IR from HC300 into Component Switch, all other Vid Sources

- Run IR from HC300 into LR-TV, LRC-DVD, BR-TV/DVD

Questions:

1) Is this all that I currently need to connect or am I missing something?

2) Do I need to have any special IR components or can I splice a 3.5mm jack into Cat5 directly from the HC300 and then back out to a 3.5mm jack into an emitter on the output side?

3) I can use 2 different C4 remotes for each room right?

4) What are the limitations of the version of Composer that comes with the HC300?

5) With the HC300 am I limited to only 6 IR devices to control or can I somehow extend that?

6) With the HC300 I see it only has 1 relay and 1 contact what exactly are these used for...automation control for blinds...etc?

Is there anything else that I'm forgetting?

Thanks for your time!

Justin

[thecodeman]

1) I think you have your bases covered

2) You can splice into cat5

3) yes

4) Are you talking about the shipping version installed on the controller or are you talking about Composer Home Edition (no software comes with the controller by default unless your dealer includes it as a package)

5) You can extend it if you want, there are a couple different ways but you might run into IR issues, but it greatly depends on your scenario

6) You're right, or garage doors or sprinklers or....

[jboeckler]

thecodeman: Thanks a ton for your assistance....I think I just had to hear someone who knows more than I do confirm that I was on the right track.

re #4, I was under the incorrect assumption that the HC300 came with HE composer, although maybe you are right my dealer said he would provide it or something? Anyways as I understand it I should be able to configure the system I want with HE...as long as I don't need customer drivers built or get into crazy stuff I should be ok. What I mean to ask is will I be able to setup what I've described with HE composer or are there some sort of limitations that will cause me issues.

Thanks,

Justin

[thecodeman]

You wont be able to create the initial project, your dealer will have to set everything up for you as far as adding device drivers, rooms, etc. After the system is working, you can edit media scenes, lighting, programming events, etc with Composer HE.

http://www.control4.com/products/software/

[neckyboater]

I would not recommend trying to share one HC300 with multiple displays, unless you live by yourself. It can be very confusing for anyone using your system, not to mention having remote wars between rooms.

[royalbluesigma]

I use 1 HC300 with 7 tvs, a video switch and 4 sources, with 3 people in the house. For the most part, we only use the on screen navigator to select movies from the changer and sometimes rhapsody. Everything else is done via remote or touch screen and we have never had an issue with the navigator being up in one room and then being hijacked by another. Can't even remember the last time I pulled it up.

[ILoveC4]

I use one navigator with 4 TV's and have never had an issue. It isn't like people use the onscreen GUI for more than about 3 seconds. We hardly ever use the onscreen GUI anymore, we just use it for selecting videos as everything else is done with touch panels and custom buttons.

[pharmdsmith]

I third that, we have never had a problem with that and we have 4 tv's and 3 people accessing them. The screen on the remote is what I use over half the time, unless pulling up a dvd.