Empty house, cable install.

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Hi, Currently in the middle of renovating our house, it's practically back to bare brick and want to install some TV cabling before we plaster. (The house only has one cable entering the rear)

I want to move the incoming cable to the front of the house, then run one to three other rooms.
I plan to have Virgin media once the house is ready.

Can anyone advise the best method for doing this and what I will need? Do I just run a coaxial cable like a daisy chain through each room to an aerial socket?

Sorry if this seems a stupid post, I have no idea what I need to do and further research only leaves me more confused!
 
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Daisy chain is the method sparks use for wiring a consumer unit to lights or mains sockets. Most domestic video and audio doesn't work that way. So don't wire daisy chain otherwise your system will be useless for running multiple boxes.

Virgin media uses an upgraded version of satellite coax, but instead of double shielding it has a triple shield. The cable name is Webro HD100. The shielding is as much to do with preventing interference radiating out from the cable as it is to do with stopping external interference getting in. With the exception of its shielding quality, HD100 is a bit more lossy than Webro WF100 which is a very good satellite grade coax.If you want to pre-wire the house ready for the VM install then use WF100. Wire this in single runs from where the VM outdoor cable comes in to the house to each point where you expect to fit a VM box. Your VM installer will supply an appropriate splitter. He will also adjust the signal level coming in to the house to cope with the splitting losses.

Not all satellite cable is the same. The sheds sell aerial extension cable in kits. It is rubbish. You'll find a lot of Ebay sites sell RG6 or just don't bother spec'ing the cable they're selling. You might see it sold as some kind of "Low Loss" coax. You really need to give these cables a wide berth otherwise you'll end up ripping it out and redoing the job with the proper stuff you should have bought in the first place. Go to a supplier you can trust. The same supplier can also ensure you buy the correct size connectors and help you with the supplies of accessories to make the install go smoothly. Satcure has a good site for this.

The back of VM boxes use the same kind of screw-on connectors as satellite boxes. The connector is an F-type. Do not use ordinary aerial plugs and socket plates for connecting the VM signal leads. Use wall plates with a double-ended F-type barrel connector. Put a plug on the cable in the wall. Then screw that to the back of the outlet plate. make up a fly lead for going from the wall plate to the VM box. Alternatively you could just fit a brush plate and have the in-wall cable left long enough that it can reach where the VM box is to go. Electrically this is a better solution because it involves fewer connections. Mechanically it is kinder to the cable too as trying to fit terminated cable to the back of a wall plate often results in cables getting bent or crushed since insufficient free space is allowed for because it's harder work to chop out for really deep back boxes.

There are tricks such as using right angle F connectors, but you still need to accommodate the excess cable somewhere when the wall plate is screwed to the back box. If you're sensible and the structure of the house allows for it then you'll chop out for a run of box conduit from the socket down in the the floor void where the cable is coming up from. That will allow you to slide the excess cable back down and make the plates much easier to fit as well as avoiding cable damage.

rtang_5943.jpg
Image courtesy of the Satcure web site


You'll probably also have a VM cable modem fitted to give your computers and the like access to the web. Have a think about where you might want to locate that, and also about wiring up some network sockets around the house. Most of my clients automatically respond that they don't need network sockets, they'll use wireless. I don't have time to go into all the detail right now, but that's a really short-sighted approach particularly as the future of home entertainment is moving towards streaming and home servers and file sizes for that are getting bigger each year.
 
Not sure if you have wired everything already, but I did the same, wired WF100 back to central spot for the virgin install, and initally split it out to 2 rooms with the boxes in each room. However I now changed that to have both boxes at the central hub and send the hdmi signal over 2xcat6 cables to each room I had installed at same time. That way means I can use a hdmi splitter and get away with one box in the future, save the cost of that, or route the 2 boxes to more than 2 rooms in the future.
Just a thought, although still probably worth doing the coax for backup.
 
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Do not use ordinary aerial plugs and socket plates for connecting the VM signal leads. Use wall plates with a double-ended F-type barrel connector.
rtang_5943.jpg
Image courtesy of the Satcure web site

Don't use those either. VM outlet boxes/plates have an isolator in them to protect the network from 240v being sent back from faulty TVs or other equipment. They will also protect you from faults on their network or different earth potential issues. VM will supply these isolators.
 

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