You almost had the image posting right - just needed to have a web address ("http://.....") for the images. Of course, a link like that also works.

That's a nice big equipment closet. Will the rear of the rack face into the closet (with the gear fronts visible from the main room), or will the gear face into the closet? I'm guessing that it's going to face into the closet, since you're also storing the media in there.

My IR sensor is a small black box sitting on top of the TV. In a case like yours, though, you could go with a flush mount "button" sensor in the wall above the TV (so that it'll pick up when people reflexively aim the remote at the TV). You could also go with a remote like the MX-850 , which uses RF to broadcast the commands to a base station that then sends out IR to the equipment. There are several other remotes from Universal Remote that cost a bit less and do the same thing (the MX-800, MX-650, MX-600, and MX-350 all support it, as do the URC-100, 200, and 300). In that case, you could eliminate the Niles entirely and just use the RF base station to feed IR to your gear, and you wouldn't have to worry about people aiming at the IR sensor.