RF or IR...direction required

drmax

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Jul 5, 2011
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What is a sure-fire IR or RF system. I've seen a suposed new gyration 4104 with dongle, which looks interesting. (ebay) I am wanting to control my PC, (windows 7 media center) which is in my basement. I just need to get into my hard drive for movies, then open VLC. So for simplicity sake, it could either be IR, which I'd need to run cat 5 to my bedroom (easy task) and have a repeater, or RF, which it'd only have to get though to under 30' of distance, through a floor and wall. (I have wireless router and cordless phones, as far a interference issues)
So, could someone recommend and I.R. system, and a RF system? I want current and available equiptment. I am not interested in a remote that controls numerous items, mainly for the expense. I have full access to running wiring in basement to my bedroom, so which unit makes the most sense, is what I need to go with. Thank you for your expertise!

(I say get into my hard drive....so this remote would have to act as a mouse, as far as clicking on things, is concerned. I will be new to windows 7 and the media center, so unsure how my movies will engage with WMC)
 

Rusting In Peace

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Thanks for the clarification.

I had a look at various controllers about a year ago and the Gyration models all seemed very nice.

However I ended up going for a Keysonic wireless keyboard. It's pretty comfortable, compact and the integrated trackpad is useful. At worse you'd need to run a USB up to your room. Hell you might want to do that anyway so you can have a USB hub in your room to connect USB keys / drives.
 

drmax

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ok, so i'll run a cat5 wire with my long high speed hdmi cable (50') and go from there. it just seems to me that RF is such a hit/miss deal and I don't want to go down the long road of trouble shooting. I'll look at the keysonic deal you got. Please advise of anything else. You know, because the gyration isn't even made anymore, leads me to believe there really ain't anything out there (RF wise) that really works!
 
Get a cheap tablet with WiFi and install remote software on it, logon to your PC with it. IR is line of sight so that is useless. RF is not too good through solid objects. USB cables when long are unreliable past 15 feet. You can probably use a KVM over Ethernet but that is about as pricy as a tablet.

Actually a bit confused here now that I looked at the posts again, are you trying to get a long range remote for the TV or for the computer?
 

drmax

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Just realized WiFi is the same as RF, which has already been hashed over. Unreliable through walls. I don't want to have a fight, or have to stand on my head to get some piece of equiptment to work. Will most likely be going with IR and run some extra wire and an extender. Take care
 
RF is not the same as WiFi. WiFi you don't connect directly to the computer, you have the PC on your network, you have the tablet on the WiFi part of the same network and you remote into the PC on the tablet. I don't think you are quite understanding how you'd use the tablet to control the PC. WiFi also has a much longer range and more tollerance for obsticales, it's a totally different technology.

I'm talking about this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt6xo2LZeLc look at about the 4 min mark, you are controlling your PC through the tablet, not just using it to click Play button or something.