My daughter is using an old dresser. The sections that the drawers slide into are completely enclosed so she removed one drawer to house the DVD player and stores her DVDs in the remaining drawers. She drilled a hole in the back of the drawer section to run the wires to the DVD player. Annie

Come on, can it be that simple? Is tehre a degradayion in sound? Someone was saying I need an A/B switch but that sounds easier....?

While it works best to have your modem, router, and patch panel all centrally located, if it helps solve your current problem, the modem could be "virtually located" in the mechanical room. In other words, if the modem is currently being fed it's signal in a particular room, and that room has a network jack, you could then send the internet connection down to the mechanical room and to the router. While you are not splitting the signal, in the traditional sense, and it does not weaken, you still have some limitations. The output from the modem goes into the router. The router then acts like a "traffic cop" directing information from the modem, to-and-from the individual ports on the router. The modem has an IP (internet protocol) address assigned to it from your ISP (internet service provider). The router then assigns IP addresses to each device connected to it, and carefully routes data from each port's address through the main IP address and back again - all using just a single connection. The limitation is in how much data each connected device is downloading, or uploading. I'm in a rural area with DSL that has about 1.5 Mbs download speed. To stream something like Netflix in standard definition, that connection speed is about the minimum you can get away with. Can two people watch two separate streams? No. Can four people browse the internet? Sure. We have three computers normally on-line, home security cameras, internet radio streaming and some misc equipment - and no problems. Download and upload speeds for residential service is almost always asynchronous, meaning you can usually only upload at a fraction of your download speed. This usually works well, since that's the way we normally use the internet. However, if you have something like home security cameras that can be viewed over the internet, you going to be uploading a lot of data and possibly slowing traffic on the download side of your internet connection. So, again the limitation is in the amount of data being received and sent. As a matter of fact, most 4 port routers usually allow a second router to daisy chain to it and create additional ports.

dennisgli, I'm really glad to hear that you have had a good experience with the DTVPal DVR. There is a need for recording terrestrial broadcast that almost all manufacturers have dropped the ball on. OTA (over the air) broadcast has been gaining ground again recently; between the economy & cost of competing services, the added sub-channels offered by DTV, and the fact that it is the only broadcast format (vs cable and satellite) that can offer true HDTV people have been watching again. I have not had any "first hand" experience with that particular product (but quite aware of it) since I primarily do engineering and design support for the IC manufacturers and the STB (set top box) manufacturers that include security features, copy protection, and DRM (digital rights management) that are not part of OTA broadcast in the US. I have worked with ST on many of their designs and know that their devices are very well designed... the microcode to run them though, as is true of all mfgs. can be very, very complex. Anyhow, I really hope that Channel Master can support the product and really make something more of it!