Hi

I am new to this Home Automation stuff but have been doing a fair bit or reading on the net. We are in the middle of completely renovating our house and having an extension built so all of the floors are up and the walls will be re-plastered - a perfect time to run wires for home automation. I don't want to go to the extremes but just have multi-room audio-visual, ability to plug in phones or computers etc in any room and we may wire the lights up in the structured format.

I was planning to run the usual Cat5e/6 wires and coaxial to every room from where node zero will ultimately go. I was planning to run a couple of CT100 co-ax cables to each room - can someone confirm that these are better than RG6.

The main issue I then have is what about using component cables for the Visual side of the equation (I have read that HD cables are only any good over relatively short distances). Is it worth running these to the main living room and master bedroom where the plasmas will go or will the cat5e/6 cables and co-ax be just as good? How long can you make component cables without a noticeable reduction in quality?

I have not yet decided on what equipment etc I plan to use but just want to get all the wires in and leave myself plenty of options and upgrade potential at the end. This will probably be an evolving project over the coming years.

[Saltrock]

I'd be interested in some replies to this as i'm doint a similar kind of thing.

Many thanks

[Suggers]

Next door have just finished (last year) a complete renovation of their house - put Cat5 cable everywhere - before plastering - they've just told me they don't need it, they've gone wireless.... who knows what's round the corner.
Can tell you, I've never regretted hard-wiring this house - especially speaker cable into the bathrooms - nothing better than a good old soak in a hot bath with a gin & tonic, with your favourite toons thundering out from those hidden built in spkrs.....
Good luck... and think ahead...

[Oscarp]

Wireless may be good for streaming MP3s around the house, but if you want to stream DVDs / HD WMV videos around the house from a NAS / mediaPC then Cat5e/Cat6 is the only way to go...

OscarP

[neilball]

Originally Posted by ATC

Hi

I am new to this Home Automation stuff but have been doing a fair bit or reading on the net. We are in the middle of completely renovating our house and having an extension built so all of the floors are up and the walls will be re-plastered - a perfect time to run wires for home automation. I don't want to go to the extremes but just have multi-room audio-visual, ability to plug in phones or computers etc in any room and we may wire the lights up in the structured format.

I was planning to run the usual Cat5e/6 wires and coaxial to every room from where node zero will ultimately go. I was planning to run a couple of CT100 co-ax cables to each room - can someone confirm that these are better than RG6.

The main issue I then have is what about using component cables for the Visual side of the equation (I have read that HD cables are only any good over relatively short distances). Is it worth running these to the main living room and master bedroom where the plasmas will go or will the cat5e/6 cables and co-ax be just as good? How long can you make component cables without a noticeable reduction in quality?

I have not yet decided on what equipment etc I plan to use but just want to get all the wires in and leave myself plenty of options and upgrade potential at the end. This will probably be an evolving project over the coming years.

You cang get 5 core mini coax cable that works very well for component or other video signals over the distances you are going to have. You can use 3 of the 5 for component and the other two for S-vid etc. Well worth putting in for the main screens if you want to hide all of the black boxes away.

If you only put in Cat5e then you will have to use some kid of interace or baluns to send the signals over Cat5e. These can be more expensive than the 5 core.