[crooked fingers]

I'm (hopefully) moving into a new house in the next few months and it's at the electrics stage. I'd like to allow for running a signal from my dvd player and sky box etc. (video and stereo sound would do) to a bedroom just above the sitting room and I'm wondering what's the best way of doing this?

As a kind of follow on question, what else should I allow for, as it's much easier to run cables around the house now than after it's plastered and painted! Any suggestions would be appreciated as I'm sure there's plenty of you out there wishing you'd thought of something a bit earlier.

Cheers,
crooked fingers

[StooMonster]

A dedicated consumer unit, with dedicated spurs for your AV equipment.

StooMonster

[RAMiAM]

I think "crooked fingers" meant how to get the signal from the equipment downstairs to the room directly above, not how to wire them in.

If you want the same signal in both rooms, possibly at the same time then you could look at distribution units from manufacturers such as Kramer or Extron, or possibly even Lektropacks or Keene may do them. Basically you would output the signal from Sky, say RGBS once to a dsitribution unit (scart to RCA) that would then distribute the signal to two outputs without degrading the signal.

I'm currently using an Extron Crosspoint Matrix switcher that has 12 inputs with stereo that will take any format (Component, RGB and flavours, S-Video, etc.) and distribute it to up to 8 different outputs. I find it very useful as I now own both a CRT projector and a Plasma display and would like to run all my components (Sky, DVD, PC, TiVO, Laserdisc, xBox, etc.) to both displays without haveing to switch leads etc.

Food for thought!

[steev]

This site may be useful

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/artic...id=31&slashSes

Basic advice is to run more cable than you think you need. In our new house I've run CAT-5 (network) and coax to every room from a single point. Lots of extra cable to where the TV etc will be.

There a system here http://www.kat5.tv/ that lets you send audio and video over CAT-5.

--
Steve
www.bagofspoons.net

[StooMonster]

Originally posted by RAMiAM
I think "crooked fingers" meant how to get the signal from the equipment downstairs to the room directly above, not how to wire them in.

I think he said any other suggestions (other than how to run signal from one room to another) for cabling before plaster and painting.

Originally posted by crooked fingers
As a kind of follow on question, what else should I allow for, as it's much easier to run cables around the house now than after it's plastered and painted! Any suggestions would be appreciated as I'm sure there's plenty of you out there wishing you'd thought of something a bit earlier.

Coax and CAT5 and telephone and alarm cables are definately good too, as well as my suggestion of dedicated power for AV equipment.

StooMonster

[steev]

I didn't go for dedicated mains just for the AV, but there is a ring just for the dining and living rooms, so there shouldn't bee too much else on it.

What about a dedicated earth? I know Russ Andrews goes on about this. They even do braided earth cable. I could run some heavy earth cable to a spike outside if it was going to make a difference.

[boltoa]

If you're distributing Sky, perhaps consider using the TV Link system. Wire aerial points to as many rooms as you can, wire coax back from where Sky box will be to a distribution point (loft?), and get yourself a TV Link compatible amplifier (passes the 9v control signal, which normal aerial amps won't). Terrestrial aerial and dish signal goes to Sky box, TV out on Sky goes to amp, then you can add a TV Link eye on all other TVs and control the Sky box remotely from there. We've got 4 TVs in our house connected this way and it's extremely useful.

Won't help with distributing DVD of course, but when I decided to go this way, I thought that if I wanted to watch a DVD, I'd almost certainly want to watch it on the main TV with good sound anyway.

Andrew

id get the sparkys to put in 3 x 25mm condiuts from the living room to the bedroom above with a single outlet box on each end (at the same height as the sockets) ,then another 3 conduits from the bedroom boxes into the loft,you could also get them to run a couple of conduits and boxes into the other bedrooms,then you can install wot you like when you likem without having to worry about missing a cable at this stage
it would be worth while getting a 6mm cable run in from the fuse board to a couple of sockets were your planning the a.v kit,if olny so you dont run out of sockets
if the house is part of a larger development it may work out cheaper is you aproach the sparky who's doing the installation directly instead of going through the site agent /electrical contractors and youll be able to show him exatly what you want,