Remote Workstations

We recently did some remodel work here at Sundog, and one of the unique aspects of our new space is our Studio department’s edit bays. They needed their rooms to be quiet and their Mac Pro’s to run cool. We set them up so the machines are all run remotely, meaning the keyboard, mouse, monitors, and sound equipment are all in the edit bays, while the machines are in a server room about 50 feet away. Here’s what we did to accomplish this.

First, let’s start with the monitors. In today’s LCD world, most monitors have DVI-D inputs. This is a white connector that’s wider than the old blue VGA connectors. They us a digital signal instead of analog. The thing about DVI-D is that it’s completely compatible with HDMI. And while longer DVI-D cables aren’t really hard to find, long HDMI cables are easier. But, if you’re trying to run the monitor’s signal more than, say, 15 feet, you’re going to need some sort of repeater, extended, or special cabling to boost that signal.

There are a few products that can assist you with this. For instance, you can purchase adapters or plates that send the HDMI signal over 2 CAT5e or CAT6 cables - the same kind of cable used for networking. There are also “active” and “passive” ends for multipurpose cable like CablesToGo RapidRun cabling. Lastly, there are repeater boxes that you can daisy chain every 15 or 20 feet that need to be plugged into an outlet for power. We’re making use of the RapidRun system to get the dual monitors going in our offices and it’s been working quite well.

Next, we have the keyboard and mouse, which happen to be USB. In the same way that the HDMI cable can be extended, so can USB. There are cables with built in repeaters in them that can be daisy chained to meet the length requirements. We’re making use of 30-foot extenders that plug into one port on the machine. They have a 7 port USB hub in their office so they can plug in not only their keyboad and mouse, but USB hard drives or anything else that could be useful, like a bluetooth adapter for, say, a bluetooth mouse.

Lastly are the sound and special video runs. For our Studios department, we needed a few different options when it came to audio. But luckily, audio and certain video signals don’t need repeaters or extenders. If the cable being used is a large enough gauge (lower number equals higher gauge), the signal will get through. There are charts online that tell exactly how far an audio or certain video signal (SGI for example) will go over a specified gauge of wire. Just run the wire and put on the ends you need to make it work. We’re using some RapidRun cables for our audio and regular RG6 cable (TV cable) for the video runs.

One important thing to remember when running remote is to research and plan everything you want to have access to remotely. Will you need FireWire 400 and 800 connection in your office, or will you be okay walking into the server room to plug in those things? (We ran extenders for those as well). How much do you use your DVD drive in your machine? Will you be able to convert that video signal coming from a certain cable into something you can plug into a TV? I suggest taking your time and do some testing before you start pulling the cable through your walls. Having to pull it out to pull in new cable is a real pain - trust me, I know first hand.