[Paul_GPvR]

Hello,

I'm hoping some of you experts can help me out as this is all new to me .

I'm in the position of purchasing a new house, the house needs a full electrical rewire so i thought it would be a good time to put some cable in to distribute the Audio & Video from the lounge around the house etc..

I've done a bit of research and it seems like CAT5 is the most effective and cost efficient system to use within my small budget, correct??

I've been looking at the bluedelta milestone system http://www.bluedelta.co.uk/milestone_system.htm

as well as Madnat
http://www.madnat.com/default.asp

and Kat5
http://www.kat5.tv/

They all seem very similar to.

I'm thinking of running cat5 cable to most rooms just for AV at the moment but putting extra cables in to future proof a little, as you can see in the pics:-

3 cables to the Master Bedroom,
3 cables to Bedroom 2,
3 cables to Bedroom 3,
3 cables to the Bathroom, - Just want audio to ceiling speakers ATM.
3 cables to the Kitchen,
3 cables to the Dining Room,
3 cables to the Garage,
3 cables for CCTV, - No idea how this is going to work, maybe 3 cams?
6 cables to the Lounge, - As this is the main source area.

Does this amount sound ok? These would all go to faceplates in each room and then to the tv via scart, expect the bathrooms faceplate would be left in the loft above it.

As you can see from the loft diagram, ive decided that the loft would be a good place for all the cables to meet and be distributed around, but please advise?!? I've no idea how to wire networks so I’m assuming all the face plates from each room will meet in the loft in a big switch which is sourced from the lounge tv via CAT5???

I'd really appreciate it if you could all sanity check and look what i'm doing, just so i know that i'm doing everything correctly and the best way from your experiences.

Thanks again, look forward to your replies.

Paul

[baldrick]

Originally Posted by Paul_GPvR

Hello,

I'm hoping some of you experts can help me out as this is all new to me .

I'm in the position of purchasing a new house, the house needs a full electrical rewire so i thought it would be a good time to put some cable in to distribute the Audio & Video from the lounge around the house etc..

I've done a bit of research and it seems like CAT5 is the most effective and cost efficient system to use within my small budget, correct??

I've been looking at the bluedelta milestone system http://www.bluedelta.co.uk/milestone_system.htm

as well as Madnat
http://www.madnat.com/default.asp

and Kat5
http://www.kat5.tv/

They all seem very similar to.

I'm thinking of running cat5 cable to most rooms just for AV at the moment but putting extra cables in to future proof a little, as you can see in the pics:-

3 cables to the Master Bedroom,
3 cables to Bedroom 2,
3 cables to Bedroom 3,
3 cables to the Bathroom, - Just want audio to ceiling speakers ATM.
3 cables to the Kitchen,
3 cables to the Dining Room,
3 cables to the Garage,
3 cables for CCTV, - No idea how this is going to work, maybe 3 cams?
6 cables to the Lounge, - As this is the main source area.

Does this amount sound ok? These would all go to faceplates in each room and then to the tv via scart, expect the bathrooms faceplate would be left in the loft above it.

As you can see from the loft diagram, ive decided that the loft would be a good place for all the cables to meet and be distributed around, but please advise?!? I've no idea how to wire networks so I’m assuming all the face plates from each room will meet in the loft in a big switch which is sourced from the lounge tv via CAT5???

I'd really appreciate it if you could all sanity check and look what i'm doing, just so i know that i'm doing everything correctly and the best way from your experiences.

Thanks again, look forward to your replies.

Paul

Firstly RJ45 faceplates tend to come as 2s or 4s so you'd be as well to run an extra cable....

Cat 5 can be used for a lot of things but I believe there are still issues regarding quality with S-Video being the best you can get from a Cat 5 based multi-room system.

An ex-colleague of mine started his own A/V installation company but focussing in on HTPC based systems. If you have a server with all your music on then you can access that music using Media Center Extenders or dedicated MP3 players like the Squeezebox or Soundbridge.

Similarly if you have an HTPC you can access all of the content on it using an X Box 360 or another extender!

This type of system gives you the ability to watch/listen to what you want where you want.

You can get active in ceiling speakers but these then need a power supply along with a music feed so you may be best using passive speakers running back to a central amplifier? Sherbourne make a 12 or 16ch (6 or 8 stereo pairs) amplifier for this sort of work.

If you go the Cat5 route then you would have wall sockets in the rooms and at the hub you'd have an appropriately size patch panel which is basically lots of RJ45 sockets in a single 19" x 4" panel.

Hopefully there's some useful info in there?

[hornz]

As baldrick said you'll need to terminate the Cat5 from each RJ45 wall socket back to a central point - a standard 19" patch panel (the number of ports are usually multiples of 8). Companies like Krone offer a wide variety along with rackmount cabinets for this purpose. Network gear isn't cheap

You can send component video down cat5 with the correct black boxes on either end. The same black box wil also send co-axial digital audio and IR in the opposite direction.

[baldrick]

Originally Posted by C_S_C

You can send component video down cat5 with the correct black boxes on either end. The same black box wil also send co-axial digital audio and IR in the opposite direction.

But that's just a method for using CAT5 in the place of component cables etc... There are few if any Cat5 based multi-room systems that go above S-Video...

[neilball]

Actually there are a few matrix switchers that can send all signals upto and including component HD over Cat5e including Crestron & Scion. They also cost serious money too!

[Paul_GPvR]

Hi,

Thanks for all your replies.

I’ve redone my design (see attached pics) following your advice. So each room has 4 cat5’s and the lounge has 8.

I’ve also been recommended to put aerial cable (ct100) to every room and a return feed from the lounge as well to a loft box.

As you can see I’ve drawn in the wiring for the loftbox ok, but I’ve no idea how a patch panel would be wired, like this 48 port one below.

What goes where? ! ?

http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/...29873&ts=28637

What is the best way to get all my Sources onto the cat5 network?

I was initially thinking of connecting to cat5 from the scart off the back of the LCD tv in the lounge as that would be fed directly but mainly from the AV amp. But i'd have to have the lounge TV on at all times to view in the other room?!

I'm getting a bit confussed with all this now. I know how many cables i need and want but not idea how they all talk to each other and what i can and cant watch in each room.

Thanks very much for all your help so far.

Paul

[stu_69]

This is an interesting thread. I will be buying a house later this year and I will be looking to do something similar so I am going to keep an eye on this thread for some ideas.

[baldrick]

We're building a house and I have wired the A/V side. Each room has a minimum of 4 Cat5 feeds and 2 CT100s.

The sitting room will have 5.1 from in wall/ceiling speakers and a wall mounted screen. The primary source will be an HTPC located in the media hub on the 2nd floor along with the amplifer.

I have installed component video send and returns to the sitting room from the hub using Canare L5CFB cable which faciliates a 'local' DVD player.

There are speakers in the kitchen, master bedroom suite, dining room, 4th bedroom/gym and family bathroom and each of these rooms features a line level connection so a Soundbridge/Squeezebox can be located centrally. Equally we could use Sonos zoneplayers in the hub and just have the Sonos remote(s) in the rooms...

There will be a media server to store all of the MP3s and movies and therefore Media Centre Extenders can be used to expand the system as and where...

This makes the system far more flexible than a real hard wired multi-room system...

[Oscarp]

Hi,
I'm looking at something similar as well
Have you looked at the Kat5 http://www.kat5.tv/index1.html for using Cat5 cables to distribute AV / audio / IR signals...
OscarP

[rich1231]

I've just had my new place fitted with a Smart-e system, it takes 8 inputs and distributes them to any of 8 outputs. Its also Hi-Def compatible and will be pushing Sky HD around my place soon. When cabling, put in loads more than you initially planned. I promise that at some point you will want another service of some sort.

Rumours of a 1080p upgrade soon as well.

The company that installed it for me is www.intelligent-living.co.uk
No connection with the co, just really happy with the advice received.

[Paul_GPvR]

Originally Posted by rich1231

I've just had my new place fitted with a Smart-e system, it takes 8 inputs and distributes them to any of 8 outputs. Its also Hi-Def compatible and will be pushing Sky HD around my place soon. When cabling, put in loads more than you initially planned. I promise that at some point you will want another service of some sort.

Rumours of a 1080p upgrade soon as well.

The company that installed it for me is www.intelligent-living.co.uk
No connection with the co, just really happy with the advice received.

Cheers, sounds interesting, does that use CAT5 cabling do you know?

Have you got a rough guide price to what you paid for that? PM if you like.

[stu_69]

Originally Posted by rich1231

I've just had my new place fitted with a Smart-e system, it takes 8 inputs and distributes them to any of 8 outputs. Its also Hi-Def compatible and will be pushing Sky HD around my place soon. When cabling, put in loads more than you initially planned. I promise that at some point you will want another service of some sort.

Rumours of a 1080p upgrade soon as well.

The company that installed it for me is www.intelligent-living.co.uk
No connection with the co, just really happy with the advice received.

How much did that cost you?

[rich1231]

Originally Posted by Paul_GPvR

Cheers, sounds interesting, does that use CAT5 cabling do you know?

Have you got a rough guide price to what you paid for that? PM if you like.

it uses cat 5... i think the FTP stuff... dont quote me on it.

Was about £7k all in but it was part of a quite a comprehensive install so i cant remember the individual price.

Thats all the kit though..

the main switchy thing.
The 8 timy boxes that sit behind each screen
8 ir receivers
8 ir blasters
and 8 remotes

I'm in the process of buying a house and have the same challenge.

Essentially I want to be able to consume audio (multi-room / multi-channel) in 5 different rooms in the home and video in a subset of three of them.

One of the solutions I've come across is that instead of using CAT5e to use CAT8 like that offered by http://www.singlepointnetworks.co.uk/, which runs at 1.2GHz + the kit.

Budget of around £8k.

Any thoughts?