Greenfield site - how to distribute

[dan101smith]

Looking at what to put in the new house.

Currently have a SkyHD box, a Sky+ box, a couple of TVs and that's about it.

Will want Sky to 4x TVs in the new house, 2 downstairs, 2 upstairs, and the 2 downstairs TVs to be on separate boxes (on MultiRoom). So, thinking of running co-ax cable between the boxes downstairs and the TVs upstairs, with Magic Eyes attached. Is there a better way of distributing this around the house?

Then there's how to stream music - will be using HomePlugs as well as wireless, and have a large MP3/WMA collection on my PC. This needs to have 2x zones downstairs, 1 upstairs and 1 in the garage. Previously looked at Sonos, is this the best option?

The idea is to get all this installation done before decorating, so cables can be hidden in walls etc.

Any thoughts on how best to set this up? And ballpark costs would be handy, too!

Ta.

[dan101smith]

Right, I've started reading a bit about this, and like the idea of having a central rack of equipment and then distributing from there - Cat5e looks like an option?

ETA - something like ::this:: perhaps?

Edited by dan101smith on Sunday 29th March 10:23

[cjs]

That looks good but you're looking at £5K just for the distribution kit. Coax is a lot cheaper!

[dan101smith]

Can't see anything that'll chuck HD down coax though.

[VEX]

The sort of industry standard it to run 2 cat5e's and 2 coaxes to every tv point. This will cover you for Sky & Sky + type local functions as well as centralised distribution.

Our current two favourite boxes for a full HD Video matrix to do this is either the AVAtrix you have listed and one of Plotlosses favourites Smarte.

For audio you can either stream stuff around the house using Sonos, which is a great solution, but a little costly as it is designed as a retro-fit solution. While you have a chance to get cables in there are others that fit your requirements and could work out cheaper.

Have a look at www.nuvotechnologies.com and both Plotloss and I can help you out if you need more info, support or an install.

V.

[oola]

I'm another fan of the AVAtrix as its an 'all in one' package which will also control each source. You do really need to seek professional advice when looking at distributing HD around a house as there are a number of options. You need a converter for the back of the Sky HD box ... something like the HD fury 2 which converts the HDMI signal (if you have a newer Sky HD box with HDMI out instead of an older box with HDMI and component) to a component signal which is how the signal from the AVAtrix is distributed.

I would suggest using Cat6 for Video distribution to cover yourself if you need to send/receive larger amounts over teh TV network in the future. You can still get signal degredation over longer runs with Cat5 although more so when used on a DLP projector.

Intellex do a similar system with built in IR's and starts with a 4 x 4 system, meaning 4 sources (2 Sky HD and 2 Blu Ray players for instance) to 4 zones. This uses HDMI over Cat6 and converts the signal with baluns so you just need to run HDMI from your wall plate to your TV's in each room.

[dan101smith]

Thanks for the info.

So, I think I've got my head around how to distribute the sound and video in a single feed to each zone.

But...

If I wanted to run an amp for the lounge but have that in the rack, how does that complicate things?

Also, the idea of using Cat6 makes me nervous.

[oola]

dan101smith said:

Thanks for the info.

So, I think I've got my head around how to distribute the sound and video in a single feed to each zone.

But...

If I wanted to run an amp for the lounge but have that in the rack, how does that complicate things?

Also, the idea of using Cat6 makes me nervous.

Well it is possible if you run one of the above systems with IR control. However, I would locate the amp locally as you will have more control over the amp itself ... unless you have a large budget for control. If it in the rack and you used an AVAtrix, you would need to have a component cable from the amp to the TV and speaker cables to that room from the amp.

Cat6 allows more bandwidth than Cat5 .... although termination is crucial otherwise you end you end up with the same bandwidth as Cat5 ...

[VEX]

You need to watch the use of Cat6 cable and some of the HD video matrix switchers as the twist rates* are different to Cat5e. This can effect the speed at which the video signals travel down the cable which could result in the problems with digital signals.

FYI each of the cable pairs in a data cable twist around each other at different rates which help them reject a lot of noise.

V.

[dan101smith]

I won't use Cat6 - it's too delicate, and had too many problems with it in office installations.

Plus I'm fairly sure I won't need more than 1Gb of bandwidth for a while.

[VEX]

That's why we don't use it either, but some clients insist.