[Dominic]

hello.
not sure of the best place to post, mods, move it if you want to.
my brother in law is building his own house, quite a fair size, with the "family room / kitchen on the back, and a lounge on the front. I have been asked to look at what needs to go in, thee is a major problem in that the electrician is in there this week, and the dry liners go in from next week

So he needs network and coax, i can deal with that, all cabled back to a dedicated media cupboard, about halfway between both rooms, the issue i have is in the kitchen/family room the requirement is 50" plasma/lcd ( tbd) on the wall, but no kit on display, no skybox, no amp / no cd/dvd.
My thoughts are that i put an upscaling receiver in the media cupboard (onkyo 606?) and use a single hdmi ( over 2 x cat6) to the display, i can get the electrician to run speaker wires from there into the room too.

Question time.

1. whats the best way to control all the kit from the kitchen/family room, maybe over RF, or possible cat6 or coax?
2. any ideas on the best way to connect games consoles into this setup ? (wii mainly) xbox360 would still work if installed in the media cupboard, the wireless controllers are pretty good
3. can i run a sub phono cable about 30m without loss of quality to get the .1 in the 5.1 setup in the kitchen/back room?

any help would be welcome. i just need to work out cable runs and what needs to go in this week.
i should get some drawings to add some clarity too.

thanks.

[davepuma]

1. RF Controller e.g. Logitech Harmony 895 etc. You can also get wireless IR extenders e.g. marmitek (although it looks like you're looking for all equipment to be hidden) or wired IR extender (Keene.co.uk)
2. Connect to the Receiver and it should upconvert from analogue e.g. component video from wii and older non HDMI premium Xbox 360. Obviously HDMI consoles will simply switch via the receiver.
3. With that length, you're looking at good quality cabling. I would speak to markgrant or bluejeanscables, they offer custom length coax cables and should be able to sort you out with good quality, well shielded cable suitable for in-wall installation.

The installers and cables forum should be your next port of call. Do a search and obviously check the DIY forums for inspiration.

How many systems / receivers are you installing? You mention two rooms but only one amp.

[Dominic]

thanks Davepuma,

looking at 2 systems, the focus is the kitchen/family room, which will be controlled remotely, with the amp and sky freeview etc, in the media cupboard and all the cabling for the entire house will terminate there. Might look at a 2 zone amp to maybe extend to outdoor zone at some point..

The lounge will be more traditional with TV and 6 or 7.1 with the kit controlled and connected locally, but making use of the network and phone/ coax distribution from the media cupboard...

thanks for the pointers on calbing and suppliers, will take a look.

[Dominic]

another question,

can i used one of theseAudio Video over Cat5e / Cat6 Balun Set - For Av / Cctv Lindy 32535 Only £64.99 at TVCables

to get the audio for a subwoofer over the stuctured cabling, the electrician has been in this week and put 1 coax and 1 cat6 per room, and before the room gets dry linned in the next 10days i need to see about getting the right balance of cabling in. So i wondered about the sub in the 5.1 setup, as the receiver is going to be in a patch cabinet i need to get the sub pre out over the strucutred cabling, has oneone tried this? or would i be better off spending on a screened 30m phono ( not my favourite option as it means up front spend and delivery timescales which might not fit in)
thanks.

Dom

[Dominic]

another question:

just seen one of these
Browse for Products | CPC
has anyone used these yet, if so could you post experiances / opinions....

not sure whether to go for the plate types of maybe the external balun types, but i do need to repeat some IR, so this could be good.


thanks