Have I been doing this the expensive way for no reason?

[TannerMcCoolman]

Putting your PC in another room makes so much sense. Why suffer through the noise and heat your gaming rig puts off when you could just…not? But getting peripherals to work from an entirely different part of the house is prohibitively expensive. Or is it? We take a look at some of the much more budget-friendly options available to getting USB working in a completely different room.
 

Buy an Ezcoo 165ft 4-Port USB Extender: https://geni.us/Lt4Bp

Buy a Monoprice USB Extender: https://lmg.gg/oHtfT

Buy a SABRENT 16 Port Powered USB 3.0 Hub: https://geni.us/nTjGG

Buy a Jackery Explorer 500W Portable Power Station: https://lmg.gg/ETf7B

Buy a Corning Optical Cable: https://geni.us/HJsM

Buy an Icron Raven 3104 Extender System: https://geni.us/LjAZ8u

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

[Crunchy Dragon]

Short answer: "yes, because it's Linus"....?

[Deses]

What about the screens? How do you pass that? This video only tackled half of the problem

 

The dream would be an affordable ethernet kvm with USB 3.0 or better, two DisplayPorts and audio jacks. I've seen some but they go for $700 and they were just USB 2.0 and had a serial port. It was clearly designed for use in some enterprise or factory. 

[AnonymousGuy]

So I've actually *done* this and fiber USB is a better solution.  The usb over ethernet has glitchy issues with power delivery, even with a powered hub.     Then the whole hub layering thing makes it so a LOT of hubs don't want to work with the dongle because windows will complain you've gone too deep.  I couldn't get any USB 3 hubs to work with it.  Had to go back to a really old USB 2 hub.  Then I'd get random devices that don't want to work with it...like my Stream Deck would not want to initialize half the time.

 

Youtube comments also being stupid asking about latency as if it matters over a copper wire.

[tenfootgiant]

I'm sure it's in a video or something, but what case is he using for the PC with the handle?

[AnonymousGuy]

15 minutes ago, Deses said:

What about the screens? How do you pass that? This video only tackled half of the problem

 

The dream would be an affordable ethernet kvm with USB 3.0 or better, two DisplayPorts and audio jacks. I've seen some but they go for $700 and they were just USB 2.0 and had a serial port. It was clearly designed for use in some enterprise or factory. 

Fiber displayport.  You're going to pay at least $150 per screen though and some of the fiber tranceivers are shittier than the others.  If you only have one screen and don't need gsync it's cheaper to run fiber HDMI.

 

Audio you either do with optical SPDIF or a USB DAC to a USB hub, running over USB fiber. 

 

KVMs are more of a thing if you need to access a lab system from your desk in an office building where the KVM is basically a mini computer.  They know you're probably using it to make money too so that's why they're expensive AF.

[ThousandBlade]

Interesting title for this video.

No way to tell what the video is about, and clickbaity as hell.

[power666]

I'm surprised that the awesomeness that is the Icron 2304GE-LAN was not brought up.  This encapsulates USB data into Ethernet packets that be transmitted over the network.  The two gotchas are that speeds are only USB 2.0 and there is a discrete latency maximum for the delay between the two end points.  This isn't just purely the cable run limited but you have to factor in any switch hops that are involved.  Now the huge benefit of this is that you can now do dynamic routing of devices on the network.  The vanilla Icron 2304GE-LAN pairs a single host end point (USB-B)  with a single device end point (USB-A). However the 2304S model is a specialized host end point (USB-B) that can receive multiple network streams from different 2304GE-LAN device endpoints.  This make the network function as a multi-device hub. 

So what are the use cases?  There is the obvious KVM over the network where you can switch between USB devices that way.  Or the review where have a single system that you'd like to directly access form different locations.  And yes, if you want to with the 2304S model you can have the multiple locations simultaneously active much like plugging into two keyboards/mice into a single system.   A more unique use case for these system was a hardware authentication key for some enterprise software that was running in a VM on a server.  This permitted the VM to migrate to a set of physical hardware as long as the VM host also had an Icron unit attached.

It should also be pointed out that Icron is the major OEM for USB extender with many other companies rebranding their products or using their IO board inside other products.   If all you need is USB HID functionality (keyboards, mice etc.) the 3rd parties even have a software solution for a host computer that'll pair with the device end but limits everything to a mundane 1.0 Mbit speed but is not as latency sensitive.  Thus the only hardware you'd pay for would the 2304GE-LAN device side.  Crestron's NUX solution is wholly rebranded Icron gear with a vendor flag set.  The Icron protocols are also included on the USB ports of their NVX video over network extenders for a single box solution that'll put video, audio and USB over the network.

I've gotten a set of the 2304GE-LAN models for about ~$360, though I haven't looked into the pricing of the newer 2304S or 2304PoE models.

[power666]

22 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

So I've actually *done* this and fiber USB is a better solution.  The usb over ethernet has glitchy issues with power delivery, even with a powered hub.     Then the whole hub layering thing makes it so a LOT of hubs don't want to work with the dongle because windows will complain you've gone too deep.  I couldn't get any USB 3 hubs to work with it.  Had to go back to a really old USB 2 hub.  Then I'd get random devices that don't want to work with it...like my Stream Deck would not want to initialize half the time.

 

Youtube comments also being stupid asking about latency as if it matters over a copper wire.

Latency absolutely matters for USB over network transport, especially for USB 3.0 speeds.  The USB protocols themselves dictate a maximum response time for a device to respond to a host request.  Most of the time this is doesn't matters as most of the time users have the USB devices attached locally making the latency more dependent on the device being compliant than anything.  Toss in a network switch (or several) and you can actually exceed the latency governed by the USB spec.  Ditto if half of the USB extender is part of another product (see Creston's NVX solution).

[power666]

31 minutes ago, Deses said:

What about the screens? How do you pass that? This video only tackled half of the problem

 

The dream would be an affordable ethernet kvm with USB 3.0 or better, two DisplayPorts and audio jacks. I've seen some but they go for $700 and they were just USB 2.0 and had a serial port. It was clearly designed for use in some enterprise or factory. 

 

There are various AV over IP solutions that'll do transmission over a network but right now every big vendor is going a proprietary route.  While some of them are arguably 'good' in terms of features and quality, I'd still wait it out for an true interoperable standard to emerge:  any money spend now on it for a wide deployment will like need to be replaced down the line when the real standard arrives.  It is the future, just not today due to corporate shenanigans.   I will say that UHD/4K@60 hz resolutions over 1 Gbit links aren't the greatest as my eyes can tell that there is some compress going on.  (1080p60 on 1 gig is fine though.)  Newer solutions that are using 2.5 Gbit or 10 Gbit links look far superior at UHD/4K@60 Hz.  If you want more than 60 Hz for gaming, you'll definitely have to look around.  Similarly while the network encoders are fast (and use tons of bandwidth), there is still a bit of latency added due the encoding process and network transmission, making them less than ideal for hyper fast gaming.

If you just need a point-to-point solution HDbaseT is your best solution.  It is a defined well support standard.  Some displays (though few consumer unit) have a slot to add an HDbaseT input.  There are several compromises here as there is only 18 Gbit max bandwidth though DSC is support.  Thus UHD/4K@120 Hz is possible but at the very edge of that HDbaseT 3.0 can do.  On the flip side, HDbaseT as this is more of a signal conversion than a full re-encode and the signal is point-to-point, there is no latency penalty here.

 

[Ultraforce]

I think an interesting future similar video would maybe mix the talk of display and discussing the solution from the earlier version of it, which was using Thunderbolt which I can say as someone who is currently using it is probably the worst choice for solution for the simple reason that the max distance is 3 meters which isn't super far away(personally using 2 meters.)

[AnonymousGuy]

29 minutes ago, power666 said:

Latency absolutely matters for USB over network transport, especially for USB 3.0 speeds.  The USB protocols themselves dictate a maximum response time for a device to respond to a host request.  Most of the time this is doesn't matters as most of the time users have the USB devices attached locally making the latency more dependent on the device being compliant than anything.  Toss in a network switch (or several) and you can actually exceed the latency governed by the USB spec.  Ditto if half of the USB extender is part of another product (see Creston's NVX solution).

The video is talking about USB over ethernet, not USB over IP which is incredibly niche to where I can't think of any scenario a normal user would want that.   VNC-like software probably dominates most every place it could be contemplated.

[TempestCatto]

1 hour ago, AnonymousGuy said:

The usb over ethernet has glitchy issues with power delivery

For me, the issue was both transmitter and receiver needed to be plugged into its own socket in an outlet and not into a powerstrip. But even then, the China specials you get on Amazon don't usually hold up, they tend to drop out here and there and eventually just stop working. At least the few I've used.

[AnonymousGuy]

48 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

For me, the issue was both transmitter and receiver needed to be plugged into its own socket in an outlet and not into a powerstrip. But even then, the China specials you get on Amazon don't usually hold up, they tend to drop out here and there and eventually just stop working. At least the few I've used.

Ya it was a weird dance combo of having a powered hub but not powering the receiver itself.  And getting ground loop noise if I powered the receiver and the hub but the hub wouldn't work if it wasn't powered.

 

And then I came to the conclusion there's probably only 1 chinese silicon chip that all these "brands" put in a plastic box.  Similar deal with the USB hub chips where I had to go through like 5 of them before I found one that worked and figuring that even within the motherboard by itself there's like 3 layers of hubs baked in as it goes through the chipset through something else where it splits front panel and rear panel, through something else and then it ends up on the back of the motherboard.

[power666]

1 hour ago, AnonymousGuy said:

The video is talking about USB over ethernet, not USB over IP which is incredibly niche to where I can't think of any scenario a normal user would want that.   VNC-like software probably dominates most every place it could be contemplated.

Most of the solutions don't use Ethernet, rather they're point-to-point using CAT cabling.  Plugging several of the solutions offered in the video into an Ethernet switch could actually damage it.

The Icrons 2304GE-LAN family is genuinely Ethernet but oddly, they don't have an IP address.  Rather everything runs over Layer 2 and routing is done via a ZeroConf/Bonjour protocol using MAC addresses.  And it is USB so you can plug devices like webcams, conferencing gear and audio interfaces into it.  It comes in hand when you only have one CAT drop at a location but you can fan it out via a local switch to perform several other functions.

[Altefier]

2 hours ago, ThousandBlade said:

Interesting title for this video.

No way to tell what the video is about, and clickbaity as hell.

Most of their videos are like that, unfortunately

Thankfully the description perfectly explained what it was about, otherwise I wouldn't have watched it

[baiyibai]

Excellent video LTT and @TannerMcCoolman! I may have alternative avenue for connecting USB HID devices the labs team might want to pursue based on a project I finished a few days ago. I've been working on getting a Raspberry Pi Pico W, USB Host, a USB numpad, MQTT, Wi-Fi, and Home Assistant working together. I've posted my project on GitLab: Pico W USB Host MQTT Numpad.

Based on my experience, I think that it should be possible to use the USB Host function of an RPI Pico running the Pico-PIO-USB Arduino library, to pass the state of a connected USB HID device (mouse, keyboard, and/or gamepad) to other interfaces (i2c, UART, or Wi-Fi), and have it be received by other RPI Picos plugged into target PC's USB ports. If it were working for one pair of Picos, it should not be too difficult to be able to connect to more Picos plugged into more PCs, thereby creating a wireless USB switch. So, the end 'product' would not only be a wireless USB mouse/keyboard extender, but also a USB switch. It might also be possible to add features such as USB broadcast, allowing the state of one mouse and keyboard to be passed to multiple PCs.

There are several issues with the proof of concept I cobbled together (based on code from others). It hooks in at a 'higher level', and only works on key presses, rather than releases. This thread Raspberry Pi Forums: TinyUSB I need key up/down reports for all keys explains the bitstream received from USB devices. I'm not sure how this is exposed in the Arduino code.

I initially got interested in this because I was inspired by LTT's 7 gamers, 1 PC video. I run a single Unraid system with multiple PCIe USB controllers and 1030GT GPUs since I need to run multiple VMs simultaneously. I found an FJGEAR USB switch, but the biggest problem is that changing inputs is not instantaneous in all operating systems. In Debian, it takes about two seconds for new USB HID devices to register. Windows is faster and BIOS/UEFI is even faster. However, having an always-connected USB endpoint would beat these solutions. Another advantage is that compared to OS-based network peripheral sharing, this works at the USB level, so it would work in PC BIOSes.

[ThousandBlade]

28 minutes ago, Altefier said:

Most of their videos are like that, unfortunately

Thankfully the description perfectly explained what it was about, otherwise I wouldn't have watched it

It wasn't always like this. there was a time not so long ago where you could tell what the video is about with just title and thumbnail.

 

I've gotten into a habit of not watching any thing with these kinds of title and thumbnail. 

It really cuts down the time spent on watching random stuff, huge productivity boost.

 

[Uttamattamakin]

This managed to surprise me.  I would've thought for sure we were going to see some new optical Thunderbolt 4 method of doing this.  

[ZexMaxwell]

I was looking at this stuff a few months ago and its still kinda the same answer. you can use USBs over ethernet/fiber but you can't get gaming quality display port speeds at the same range. since heat was the main issue for me, I just opted to run water tubes from my PC to a car radiator in my basement instead. nearly the same cost without the dumb software/hardware short comings that the market has currently.

[Shagon]

So is there an all-in-one solution to have a gaming PC in another room? This is awesome for USB, however how do we get 2 displays or something from one room to another, lets say 20m away?

[Senzelian]

1 minute ago, Shagon said:

So is there an all-in-one solution to have a gaming PC in another room? This is awesome for USB, however how do we get 2 displays or something from one room to another, lets say 20m away?

The best all-in-one solution would be a optical TB3 (Thunderbolt 3) cable. However, that's quite expensive as you also need a TB3 dock and a motherboard that supports TB3.

 

For "short" distances of 20m and less I suggest you simply run copper HDMI. Really good quality cables can do up to 20m, even at 4K 60Hz in my own testing.

You can also do DisplayPort, but only up to DP1.2 at 20m. If you require more bandwith, you'll have to use optical cables.

And with USB, you just use that little $60 box they showed in the video or something similar.

[Deses]

5 hours ago, Altefier said:

Most of their videos are like that, unfortunately

Thankfully the description perfectly explained what it was about, otherwise I wouldn't have watched it

If you see the thumbnail and know enough LTT lore (you have to know that the things in the trash are the fiber thunderbolt extenders) you know right away that the video is about a cheaper solution to have a pc in a different room. 

[Greenytica]

 

I'm trying to move my external HDD's that I back up to every day down to the shed. 2 x 16TB HDD, USB 3.0 and they cop up to 100-200gb changes. Just measured it at 40m at a minimum but lets say 50m to be safe. Is there anything that could convert with full speed that isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg?

[WildW_UK]

You guys have got different rooms!? I mean, one that isn't someone else's room or something.