Connecting a PC to an Entertainment center from a distance

bgibbz · June 12, 2016

Hi all,

So essential, on the second floor of my house in my bedroom i have my entire gaming PC setup. Directly below me in the basement of my house (so down 2 floors) I have an entertainment system/ home theater that i had built into my basement featuring a 70" 1080P tv and 7.1 surround audio. I planned ahead for a home theater PC by having display and audio routed through the wall to a desk thats in the basement where i used to have an iMac. Essentially, there was a wall jack with a vga and 3.5mm audio connectors that i could connect to my tv. I would like to connect my PC to this tv to use as a media PC and to play games couch style using my Xbox controller. My original plan when put my gaming PC into my bedroom was to use Steam in home streaming in order to accomplish this, essentially i planned on streaming to the iMac, but unfortunately because the Xbox 1 controllers are built into windows, i would be unable to use my controller. Also, the latency of the streaming bother me more than i expected, and it almost seemed like the resolution was worse. At this point, I'm thinking that the best way of connecting the two systems would be optical thunderbolt. Obviously, this solution is quite expensive. 90$ for the thunderbolt card, 230$ for the dock, and 240$ for the 30M optical thunderbolt cable. 600$ is far to much money for me to spend on this project, so i am wondering if there is any cheaper alternatives. My motherboard has usb 3.1 type C built in, is it possible to make use of that somehow? Also, my plan for connecting the system was to drill a hole in my wall and route it outside, so would Optical thunderbolt or a usb type C cable even be able to stand the extreme hot and colds of Chicago? My only requirements for connecting the PC to the entertainment center is route HDMI for video and audio and 3 USB ports, so is there any other options to do that with? Worst case scenario, I would consider moving my entire PC onto the desktop in the basement, but personally i would rather not do that. If i did end up doing that, what would be the best interface to replace the VGA, as I would rather use a more powerful interface. The distance is over 5M, so would i need to still use optical thunderbolt, or is there a cheaper solution?

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Mira Yurizaki · June 12, 2016

You could get a USB repeater cable: https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=usb+active+repeater+cable&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=102961499069&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13822225665247131520&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_1n3i2nthub_b_p12

I don't know how these actually work in practice, but supposedly for USB 3.0, active repeaters extend the range to about 18m. You could also get a USB to ethernet adapter (it just changes which cable the USB signals run over passively), but I think this only works for USB 2.0

bgibbz · June 12, 2016

3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

You could get a USB repeater cable:

I don't know how these actually work in practice, but supposedly for USB 3.0, active repeaters extend the range to about 18m.

Never heard of those, good suggestion. That should work for the USB, but what about display?

Mira Yurizaki · June 12, 2016

1 minute ago, bgibbz said:

Never heard of those, good suggestion. That should work for the USB, but what about display?

HDMI is rated for a maximum of 50 feet. Though the most you'll find is 25 feet or about 8m. The catch is that it needs to be high quality. Otherwise you can also find repeaters.

bgibbz · June 12, 2016

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

HDMI is rated for a maximum of 50 feet. Though the most you'll find is 25 feet or about 8m. The catch is that it needs to be high quality. Otherwise you can also find repeaters.

Ok, thanks again!