I'm sure I remember a post on this board about someone who was looking at what I guess you'd call wired IR repeaters for use with out-of-sight home theater components. I remember it being a product that had a main IR receiver, then had little wires going to each component, covering the components IR sensor with its own.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

There are several of these. The one that comes to mind is the Terk Remote Control Extender (LF-IRX). I think that X10 makes one, too.

Edit: Yeah. Here's the X10 one.

Those are also sometimes useful for what I need, but they're IR extenders, more useful if the HT components are in another room or something.

The device I'm looking for had a wired repeater you could add for each device, which would plug into the IR receiver, then you put the other of each wire in front of the device's IR sensor. The main body of the device is then the only thing exposed.

Xantech gear will do what you want but it's not cheap