Hi Tom,
   One way to do it is to get what's called a KVM extender. There are
a few different manufacturers out there:

Gefen, Black Box, Minicom, Avocent... to name a few. Check out the web
sites.

There are different variations depending if you want to extend the
signal via CAT5 or fiber. Fiber extenders can extend
farther (10,000'!) and can be more expensive. Since you're using an
Apple monitor you'd have to make sure the extender
is compatible with the resolution of the Cinema display (it's DVI
right?). It also sounds like you're using a single keyboard/video/mouse
between 2 computers. I'm not sure if anybody makes a combination
extender/switcher.

I hope this helps.

Mark Shakarjian


On Dec 19, 2009, at 4:31 AM, Tom Fine wrote:

What are people with small studios (and budgets) doing if they want to
put a pair of PC's in another
room? Is there a wireless KVM solution or must you be wired for good
reliability? Is there a
networked (Ethernet) way to do it? Have they come up with a generation
of these devices that has low
or no latency between mouse move and movement on screen? I last looked
at this maybe 5 years ago and
didn't see any good solution for reasonable money.

My setup -- two Dell PC's running Windows XP, an Apple Cinema 32"
monitor, generic Dell keyboard
(USB) and Microsoft LED mouse (USB).

My wish -- to move the computers themselves to another room but to
have the mouse, keyboard and
monitor in the studio plus a USB/Firewire optical drive is that's
possible. The audio in and out of
the computers is balanced-line so no problem to wire that to the other
room, too.

As an alternative, I'd be OK having these across the studio room, and
could keep the optical drive
with the computers, so it would be back to a traditional long-line KVM
setup.

Any advice/recommendations appreciated!

-- Tom Fine