Home Theatre Inputs/Outputs All In A Convenient Location...

Submitted 6 years ago

Some audio-visual gadgets are big and noisy and you probably want them and all those cables behind a cupboard door, but what if you want to plug in a memory stick or camera or headphones or play a CD/DVD/etc? So how about a slim small (less than 10 inches across) box that can be located wherever you like, that can accept a CD/DVD/Bluray disk (perhaps SACD or DVD-A too?) and/or several USB ports (with enough spacing between them, and the type that can accept plugs either way up), plus a few analog audio inputs and headphone outputs, and an IR remote control receiver (which could become an InfrRed extender with optional USB-to-IR output add-ons). It should allow output to HDMI and analog and optical audio outputs at the same time, but could also be plugged into a PC (in which case it could act as a remote disk drive, screen and soundcard as far as the PC is concerned).

Main advantages: Convenience for connecting stuff and the fact that fashions in input/output standards keep changing so you could have a HTPC or HDD Recorder setup that you don't need to change for a long time, but a small input-output unit that you update to take whatever you come to need as requirements change or connectors or disk drives wear out.