How do I control power to my HTPC remotely?

[megsum]

Hi,

I'm halfway through renovating my house and pretty soon I'll be moving onto the lounge. I currently have an LCD, an Amp, 5 speakers, a HTPC, an Xbox and a Wii in there. The eventual plan is to hide the Xbox and the Wii away in a little cubby hole somewhere, and for the amp and HTPC to live up in the loft with the media server. I've already run CAT5, speaker cable, and HDMI cable around in preparation for moving it all.

So onto the problems. Hopefully easily resolved :-) Once the Amp and HTPC are up in the loft, all I'll be able to see in the lounge will be the TV. The question is how do I go about powering on the kit in the loft from the comfort of my sofa? I've read in a post somewhere about someone using a relay to control the power, but I'm not really up on electronics so although I've done some reading and I think I vaguely understand the concept, I'm not sure how to put it all together. Is a relay the method that most people use? I'm guessing that the relay could be used to power on the amp as well as the HTPC?

The second part is controlling the HPTC and Amp. Currently I use the MCE remote which is IR. Is this where I'd need to use an IR transmitter (is that what they're called?). If so that's more cable I need to run before I finalise too much and have to knock holes in things.

As an alternative, does anyone know if it would be possible to control the HTPC and Amp using something like Netremote? For the amp, I only really need to control the volume as I connect the amp and HTPC using SPDIF. Mostly it's ok as I can use the MCE remote to control the HTPC volume, but when playing DVDs the audio is passed through to the amp for decoding and I can only control the volume from the amp itself.

Hopefully it's all relatively simple stuff that someone can help me out with.

Much appreciated in advance :-)

Cheers,

Adam

[MitsiTurbo]

Check this out for IR distribution mate:

http://www.keene.co.uk/multi.php?mycode=IRBKIT

Its what ive got to control DVD etc from my remote locations (bedroom and kitchen) and is fantastic for the price

[megsum]

Hi,

the IR distribution looks fairly simple. I'm guessing the IR wands stick to the front of the device you want to control somehow? How close do they need to be to not intefere with each other?

Also I'd be slightly worried that it stops working randomly for some reason. Maybe the IR wands move (no I'm not sure how either!) or cause inteference with each other. As this stuff is in the loft, I don't fancy having to run up and down the stairs to check it all. I'm guessing as you've been using this kit for some time that it's proved to be reliable?

My other thought was that I'm going to be using NetRemote on a PDA to control music from the server. Does anyone know if it's possible to use NetRemote to control VMC? I think you can probably use Girder and USB-UIRT to control VMC? Alternatively is it possible to control VMC directly from NetRemote somehow Maybe over IP or something?

Using NetRemote means I only have one remote control lying around. One of the things I also need to do is control inputs on the Amp every so often so if I went down the IR distribution route I'd be looking at a Harmony anyway I expect.

Cheers,

Adam