Audio/Visual Wiring

[eyeofthebeholder]

Hi Guys,

As part of the rewiring project, I will be also be installing CAT6 and AV cabling throughout the house. I have already aquired a floorstanding 40-ish-U comms cabinet, which will be used to hold all the bits I require.

I already know what I am doing with the networking, but am unsure of what product and cables etc are the best to use for the distribution of the others and if the signal quility will be reduced.

1. Sky Dish.
I want to be able to wire a single cable from the dish to the cabinet and distribute from there. Is this feasiable as I know that if you have multiroom, Sky installs the multiple cables direct from the sky dish? Are there any devices that you can use to distribute this easily?

2. Aerial Cable
I want to be able to do the same here also.

3. Has anyone played with/installed CAT6 distribution devices of SCART, HDMI, Aerial, Sky, such as:
http://www.onevideo.co.uk/hdmi-cat5-extreme-p-525.html
Do they provide a proper lossless signal?
Is it better to stick with high quility Aerial/Sky cable instead?

4. I have been told that as CAT6 cable is high quility, it can be used as a cheap alternative to the more expensive proper speaker cable. If you keep all the solid strands as + and stripped as - you will get better noise reduction. Does anyone have experience of this?
I don't think I want to goto this trouble for the interconnects though:
http://forums.audioholics.com/forum...1ef13a16893d01&attachmentid=2285&d=1133493740

Any comments or help greatfully received!

Thanks

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[CallEdsFirst]

Oooh an AV question!

0 - CAT6 really necessary? Gigabit network? Even that will run on some CAT5Es! CAT6 is also a pig to work with if your not a dab hand. A dodgy CAT6 install will probably test worse than a good CAT5! Its a bit more fussy. Know your NEXT from your Crosstalk from your Alien Next? Minimum bend radii?

1 - CT100 equivalent (CT100 is a brand name from a company that no longer exists, but people know what you mean, or, even better, WF100, the foam filled version. Sky plus and sky multiroom all require multiple runs from the dish. Depending on how many receivers you're gonna have in your shiny new cabinet (not that i'm jealous!) it might be worth running up to 8 runs as thats the highest number of outputs you'll get off one LNB (pointy bit on the front of the dish)

2 - CT100 is good for normal UHF frequencies too. There are some very high quality amps and even multi way switching matrices (ooh nice plural!) that do what you want to the nth degree. It all depends on how centralised your infrastructure will be.

3 - Cat 6 distribution of other signals - no experience but it does work to the best of my knowledge, its just very expensive and if you are running cables, why not run the correct ones for the job? Sending video over cat5 strikes me as a solution if you only have CAT5 in place! You can get great bundled cables that included everything you might need in one jacket if you are looking for simplicity.

4 - Again, speaker cable is best for speaker signals in my opinion! And it again depends on how centralised your "Node Zero" is. Will all your amplification be centralised too? Or will you be using active speakers, in which case you are distributing line level, not speaker level!

There are hundreds of websites out there on these topics. One of the best suppliers (may not supply you directly as they are trade only i believe) is SCC Distribution. No affiliation, although they used to be one of my customers.

http://www.sccdistribution.co.uk/

Its good for getting ideas of whats available though!

Any questions? For a small fee, or perhaps even just a few beers, I am available for hire as a consultant here! Depends where you are mind!

 

[eyeofthebeholder]

cheers for the reply.

I am thinking harder into what I actually want and where I want it.

Basic setup I want is to have the sky box in the lounge and distribute that to the study and bedroom and use the sky IR sender devices over the Aerial. I don't really want to use the Aerial for AV though as quality is rubbish - the reason why I want to send SCART over CAT5.

The other two bedrooms and lounge, I want coax from the Aerial in the loft installed. I need a decent distribution for this also.

Please view the diagram I mad awhile ago to kind of demostrate where I'm coming from...

Cheers

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[Chri5]

Loft box will cover all the Tv / sky / DVD stuff. red eye will resolve the remote issues.

Do consider that what ever the Sky does now won't change, so multiple access of different channel in different rooms at the same time can't be done cheaply.

Best you get with one Sky box

But you can have :-

Freeview all rooms via TV tuner or external box, terrestrial via existing TV tuners, access to centralised DVD, VHS and Sky. Red eye remotes to control channels, fwd / rewind etc..

I'd use 79 strand contract speaker cable which at £40 for 100m is £160 cheaper than some speaker cable makers (QED) 79 strand and is all but the same stuff.

Cat 5 all the way, buy a EoP hub and have CCTV without local power requirements

I'm useless at audio switching, room to room like your diagram requires , so I'll not make any comment other than suggesting a PA amp with multiple speaker switching. One with in room remotes is going to cost £££'s

Have you thought about IP and MS Media centre, because that seems to be getting very sophisticated re: iPOD and centralised music and media banks?

The thought of a 6'6" rital or other type of rack, in my house would fill me with horror. I'd keep the active stuff such as DVD, Sky and PC out on the floor and simply have a few panels of 48W sockets (2u each), the loft box, any modulators and a hub in your wiring centre and keep the space clear for other use. It's hardly attractive kit in a home and there's loads of Co's offering SoHo wiring centres and mini cabinets (google is our friend)- certainlty alternatives to 42u 800 x 800 tardis.

Don't forget to centralise your voice line for calls and broadband an if you think cable might come in to the street at some time, I'd plan for that as well.

 

[CallEdsFirst]

I get what it is you are trying to acchieve, and your diagram is lovely! You really are the MS Visioholic!

My point is, you can acchieve this in many ways, simplest being a normal household aerial amp, sky runnning through that, RF modulators doing the same and Sky magic eye type things at each aerial outlet, with a wireless LAN to back it all up.

Most expensive would be an HDMI/component capable CAT5/6 matrix switcher running to about £10k, client adaptors at every "media access node" and fibre running through the building for LAN, with a multizone audio system with speakers and a wallpad/remote in every room!

Pick a price point and jump in! And if the sky is going in the living room, but in the cabinet, does this mean you are gonna have a 42u "wardrobe" in your living room?

 

[CallEdsFirst]

Do consider that what ever the Sky does now won't change, so multiple access of different channel in different rooms at the same time can't be done cheaply.

errrrr:

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/New-Products/Sky-TVs-Multi-room-Multi-channel-HD-Server.html

 

[eyeofthebeholder]

Thanks for all your comments on this - it seems I am going to have to do a load on investigation on this before I start it

And if the sky is going in the living room, but in the cabinet, does this mean you are gonna have a 42u "wardrobe" in your living room?

On this I was wondering if it is was possible to run the cable from the dish to the comms cabinet and from there split it and run seperate cables to each of the rooms from there. This would enable me in the future to add Multiroom (eg having a sky box in the rooms I wanted) without have to run the cables direct from the dish.

ave you thought about IP and MS Media centre, because that seems to be getting very sophisticated re: iPOD and centralised music and media banks?

I will be having a media centre at some point - hense the PC box. I already have a huge MP3 collection which I can currently play from my server through the Xbox to the Amp.

The thought of a 6'6" rital or other type of rack, in my house would fill me with horror. I'd keep the active stuff such as DVD, Sky and PC out on the floor and simply have a few panels of 48W sockets (2u each), the loft box, any modulators and a hub in your wiring centre and keep the space clear for other use. It's hardly attractive kit in a home and there's loads of Co's offering SoHo wiring centres and mini cabinets (google is our friend)- certainlty alternatives to 42u 800 x 800 tardis.

The rack was free and therefore wasn't going to say no. It is the Garage so no-one is really going to see it. I will be installing CCTV about 4 or 5 cameras and will have a PC recording images using this software http://www.icode.co.uk/icatcher/index.html. Also will have a NAS (network attached Storage) in the rack, all the network cabling from around the house, UPS etc.

Don't forget to centralise your voice line for calls and broadband an if you think cable might come in to the street at some time, I'd plan for that as well.

I will be extending the main phone line in to the rack also. I have purchased a cheap SOHO 8port phone system which will be installed in the rack. Any room that will require a phone will connect through the CAT5 cabling and be patched in to the phone system in the rack. The Internet router is also installed here and serving the network through a switch.

I may have omitted that I am an IT Engineer so am up to speed on some of the stuff already - but there is still a looooong way to go before I investigate all avenues!

 

[CallEdsFirst]

IT Engineer how? Structured cabling or Software development?

Sky LNB feeds must go directly into a sky box because the box uses voltage back down the feed to switch the LNB polarity between H and V so you can't really distribute before decoding all that easily.

SOHO Voice rack? PABX or just a patch panel?

Free rack? any more going????

 

[eyeofthebeholder]

IT Engineer how? Structured cabling or Software development?

Neither - IT Support Engineer - go out an fixed those 'issues' the God Damn users cause!

Sky LNB feeds must go directly into a sky box because the box uses voltage back down the feed to switch the LNB polarity between H and V so you can't really distribute before decoding all that easily.

<BlackAdder>B u g g e r !</BlackAdder>

SOHO Voice rack? PABX or just a patch panel?

No - just a little PABX box, like this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1-LINE-x-8-EX...ryZ34165QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Free rack? any more going????

Hehe - Not at the mo - it was a one off where we ripped out all the old stuff and installed nice new shiny stuff! The customer would have had to pay us to dispose it, so I decided to 'acquire it' instead

 

[CallEdsFirst]

Support engineer? Not Hell Desk?!?!?!?!

That PABX is awesome. Does it work well? I am looking at an Asterisk server, VOIP PABX! woo

Ahh the old "i'll get rid of that for you, for a fee of course!"

 

[Chri5]

Do consider that what ever the Sky does now won't change, so multiple access of different channel in different rooms at the same time can't be done cheaply.

errrrr:

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/New-Products/Sky-TVs-Multi-room-Multi-channel-HD-Server.html[/QUOTE]

Cheeky- It's not out yet, and I couldn't have known Looks good mind, something for the future .

On the subject of loftboxes, they take all main signals- aerial, sky dish, DVD etc. Then you get a triplex / quad or whatever socket plate you need to open the signals back up.

So its all cables for all devices in to a centralised loft box and then 1 cable to the socket. Make the wiring sweeter, in as much as only one cable to each room.

see http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/loftbox.htm

 

[CallEdsFirst]

Lol, i wasnt expecting you to have heard of it! I just though it was funny!!!!

I don't know of a triplex that could cope with multiple LNB feeds as used by sky+ and sky HD.

 

[eyeofthebeholder]

Support engineer? Not Hell Desk?!?!?!?!

That PABX is awesome. Does it work well? I am looking at an Asterisk server, VOIP PABX! woo

Ahh the old "i'll get rid of that for you, for a fee of course!"

We do have Hell Desk - tried it and failed. I vowed never to sit at one of those desks again!

I haven't installed the PABX yet so dunno - it was very cheap from Hong Kong - so if don't work I haven't lost anything really

 

[eyeofthebeholder]

That loftbox looks extremely sweet and possible just what I am looking for.

Alarm bells ring at it's cheapness though!

Anyone know what the quality is like??

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[CallEdsFirst]

Its alright, nothing special, perhaps PROsumer. The fact is, it aint no good for anything but plain vanilla Sky. Multiroom Sky essentially negates the need for this, or at least runs in parallel to it in a different fashion.