The above photo represents a technique used by very few but, sadly, one I encounter far too often.
This Project was part of a complete home remodel, in a very high-end neighborhood. To be perfectly clear, it was located in one of the most desirable communities on the planet, which is to say that budgetary restrictions were definitely not the issue with this deployment.
The design anticipated locating all of the home's Cable Boxes in a dedicated Equipment Closet. This highly desirable design approach helps to keep room clutter to a minimum. The stated goal was achieved but the resulting deployment left much to be desired. Mr. CableBoy employed an unusal skillset and one can easily see and appreciate the pride in workmanship exhibited with his efforts.
To be fair, the "Interference Fit" was not Mr. CableBoy's fault but rather the custom cabinet folks. Hard to imagine what manner of Measuring Stick was used to make these critical measurements? Perhaps it was a yet another case of mixing Metric with English standards?
Even More Goodness:
The White cable is connected to the Blue cable, which is connected to the Black cable...
This is a photo of the business end of a professional AV Equipment Rack, located in another high-end country club neighborhood.
This home was sold and we were asked to move the new buyer's existing AV equipment to the new home site and make everything shine! In the course of our initial review, we discovered three pressing issues:
None of the existing Touch Panels functioned. Impossible to determine what other areas might also be impacted
The Video Distribution was completed utilizing the older, and now abondoned, Component Video Distribution model
The cable deployment was obviously first rate and quite easy to understand
To be perfectly clear, this job was deployed by the least talented of the Three Little Pigs and any involvement, on our part, would likely be the equivalent of jumping into a veritable snake pit.
For these reasons, we could not provide this client with any reasonably accurate pricing guidlines to complete the tasks at hand. Obviously, he wasn't too thrilled with moving forward with a project that might turn out to be a money pit. Totally understandable. We had other fish to fry so, regrettably, we had to move on.
More-Better Approach:
This photo represents some of our work and is arguably a more-better way to deploy a professional AV Rack. In this example, every cable is clearly labelled as is the individual amplifier landings. All cables are neatly routed to provide an easy inspection path. While it does require more upfront effort, the long term benefits are manifest on multiple levels. First, it saves trouble shooting time and second, even the Village Idiot could come in behind us and have little difficulty in figuring out what was what. Clearly, this is not the case in the other photo(s).
The points I'm hoping to make are fairly simple:
Doing professional work is its own reward but also pays off in spades in the long run.
Proper advance planning does take more time. The same is true for proper or professwional execution.
Future Upgrades will be far easier to complete and will take less time, effort and head scratching!
Choose your AV vendor wisely as your future happiness depends on it.
