[ugli-stix]

Hi all,

I hope this is the correct forum to be posting this question - please advise if I'm in the wrong one!

I have a PC/HTPC in one room of my house and I would like to run a number of cables to my TV room. Both rooms are on the same side of the house and on the ground floor. They are about 5m apart but unfortunately we have concrete floor and so there's no hope of running under floorboards, etc. There is also a bathroom between the two rooms so I'd prefer not to run cables through this room. So my current plan is to take the cables outside and run along the exterior wall.

I have a few questions about the best type of cable and conduit/trunking for the job. First of all the cables I'm looking to run are a mixture of HDMI, Cat5e, and USB. I know that I can get "external grade" Cat5e - but not sure how the HDMI and USB will hold up to the elements... hence why I'm interested in getting some trunking. However I haven't found anything suitable that looks like it will be waterproof and I'm currently thinking of resorting to 40mm drainage pipe!

Any tips on cable types, trunking, and the best way of routing these cables in general will be greatly appreciated!

I've managed to find tidbits of information on external Cat5 and HDMI cables - but searching for "external USB cable" is proving to be a bit of a pain!

Thanks,
John

[whiterabbit]

Maybe armoured cable likethey use for running power cables outside ( i.e garden etc) not sure if that would be over kill tho...

[LINDY Chris]

Hi,

It may cost a bit more, but why not put USB and HDMI over CAT5 as well?

At over 5m your running in to the limits of USB cable anyway without an extender.

Best Regards

Chris

[ugli-stix]

I didn't realise that HDMI over cat5e was doable - but looking into it a bit further it seems to be quite affordable! The only problem now is the USB over cat5e... I can find a lot of inexpensive v1.1 extenders - but the v2 speed extenders are all >£100! is there anything cheaper than this? Otherwise I may have to resort to a long USB cable with an inline repeater.

Any recommendations on the trunking I should use?

[Kristian]

You could use something like this to provide some mechanical protection and run normal cables through it. The main problem will be getting the cables through the trunking as it will depend on the size of connectors on the end of the cables.

Kris.

[jagdeepp]

I'm going to get a lot of stick for this but i'll tell you how i've taken my cat5 externally... I've simply drilled holes into the respective walls and cable clipped standard cable to it. No fancy extra thick premium grade cable, just plain standard cat5e. It's been running along the wall for over 3 years now and touch wood its survived 3 seasons of winter, rain, storms and a couple of days of sun. No issues. If you have mice, cats or dogs running wild i'd be careful though.

[noshua]

We did the same before we had a re-arrangement, lasted well over a year and a half with no problems what so ever.

[Jason Bourne]

If it was me, I'd run standard Cat5 in a piece of trunking. You only need a bit of mechanical and UV light protection.

HDMI over CAT5, and one of these for the USB (assuming it's not something obscure)

Belkin : Network USB Hub

[Mr X]

Originally Posted by jagdeepp

I'm going to get a lot of stick for this but i'll tell you how i've taken my cat5 externally... I've simply drilled holes into the respective walls and cable clipped standard cable to it. No fancy extra thick premium grade cable, just plain standard cat5e. It's been running along the wall for over 3 years now and touch wood its survived 3 seasons of winter, rain, storms and a couple of days of sun. No issues. If you have mice, cats or dogs running wild i'd be careful though.

Did the same with a good quality 12m run of Chord HDMI cable ( although didn't need clips as it just rest on the floor hidden under a plinth from one room externally to another.

Never any issues even when we had all that heavy snow and HD content looks superb on second TV.