Re: AV & Media Room Design

["Bill Kearney" <wkearney-99@hot-mail-com>]

> I'll be looking at houses today and I thought I'd pick everyone's brain as
> to how best design an accessible AV center.

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.