Home Theater Installation Made Simple With C2G

Challenge

RapidRun is the most complete audio/video cabling system–built to save installation time, accommodate changes, and reduce the likelihood of return service calls due to faulty field terminations. Just ask Mark Crumbacher of Custom Connections–who saved hours of installation time and avoided unnecessary problems while working on a new construction project.

The Ryan family was upgrading to a new home and decided to build. Custom Connections was contracted to outfit several rooms in the new house. In their living room, the Ryan family wanted their TV housed in a large entertainment center, which would also hold all of the A/V components. But in the basement, they wanted their plasma TV to hang above the bookshelf. There was no room to hide all of the A/V equipment, so the family settled on an empty closet about 30 feet away.

Solution

Unlike in the living room, where the main home theater system would reside, the Ryan's were unsure of the kind of equipment they would be willing to invest in at the time of installation. To cover all the bases, Custom Connections installed a conduit that ran from the equipment closet to the plasma TV, and two 50 foot RapidRun Runners, a blue Multimedia Runner and a Red Digital Runner.

The family decided to use the older DVD player and cable box from their previous home—the DVD player was using Component Video while the cable box was limited to S-Video. This could have presented a challenge, but RapidRuns flexibility allowed Mark to simply select the appropriate ends to finish configuring the system. What typically would have taken hours only took minutes to complete freeing Mark's time.

Several months later, the Ryan family purchased a new DVD player with the capability to output an HDMI signal. To maximize their plasma television, they wanted to put this DVD player in the basement. Custom Connections was called upon again for installation. The challenge here was the distance the HDMI signal had to travel from the DVD player to the TV. Unlike analog signals, the HDMI signal has a much shorter length limitation and often doesn't work over long distances without the use of an amplifier. Mark chose to use the RapidRun Digital system for this job. The Runner was easily pulled through the existing conduit and termination took only a few seconds. Mark and his team were able to complete the entire installation in less than 30 minutes.

Results

By using RapidRun during the pre-wire stage, Custom Connections was able to cover all signal requirements, saving hours of installation time. Once the Ryan home was complete and they were able to easily upgrade the infrastructure to accommodate the latest equipment.