AV help - rewiring & kit for new system

[ladypickers]

We bought a wreck of a house 4 years ago which we have been trying to extend and renovate. Unfortunately the builder went bust and we lost a substantial part of our budget and he left us living in a building site which was not even water tight. After a year and us now living in a caravan we at last have new builders who are hoping to get is in by Christmas. The reason for coming back to AV is that we need advice with the av system etc

We orignally wanted to partially automate the house, TV, music, lighting, closing blinds etc and we were originally planning to put CAT5 in every room to try to future proof and prep rooms. Currently the house is a shell, no subfloors and no wiring but this week the internal work starts, steels stud etc so it is a complete blank canvas

Obviously we have little money left but still want to try to at least get it cabled up ready, basically get the guts in ready which I will do myself in order to save money.

Can anyone help and advise us of what to do, we are sorry to ask but we cannot afford to bring in someone to advice and set this up for us. If we can at least get the house fully wired up ready while all the stud work is going in and before plastering we at least will be in a position to as the hardware later.


This is what we need help on

Cabling

1. Should we run CAT5, 6 or 7 to all rooms anyway or is this a waste of money.What cabling will we need for the skyhd boxes to work in multple rooms.
2. What cabling will we need to run the TV's, dvds,videos etc when purchased
3. What cabling will we need to run ceiling speakers
4. Wall plates - I have seen numerous wall plates on the market which run various lead such as Sky, hdmi coax etc such as in the link below should I be putting on of these behind the place where the TVs will go with cables linking to another wall plate where the sky, dvd, video etc will live to that the two plates are cabled tohether and then all you do is plug in the various pieces of equipment http://avwallplates.co.uk/acatalog/A...all_Plate.html

Sky
We already have a Sky dish currently disconnected but wanted to change to Skyhd multi room with the option of keeping both the skyboxes together in the utility room if possible and being able to switch which rooms had which skybox. We also have two old skyboxes - can these be used or will they requires subsciptions or should we ebay those. We need Sky in the living room, kitchen, bedroom 1 & possibly the study. I have been told I might need a switching box and CAt5 splitter and also that the sky dish will have to be changed as it cannot deal with 'splitters'. In the other bedrooms Freeview will probably be the best way forward.

Hardware
We have a Pioneer PDP-LX5090 with speaker & stand part paid for which was going to be our living room TV above the fireplace.
We also have a dvd player, video, sky etc. We will buy the addtioanl TV etc when we can afford them
Is there anything else we will actually need to run everything, such as an amp etc
We are also looking in the future to be able to stream films and music, again I am not sure how this is done exactly, we have an ipod and computer, but someone suggested a Sonus to us.

Speakers
When I was a member previously AV members recommended Canton speakers as being very good and very reasonable. We are looking at putting ceiling speakers in the living room, kitchen, possibly the dining room, will we need a separete sub woofer (perhaps just for the living room). And are Canton still good or would you recommend any other manufacturers now. The living room is approx 8.5m x 5m, kitchen breakfast room is a little smaller

Streaming Music & Films
Can anyone offer assistance on how this is achieved

Sorry for the long list - I just need to be pointed in the right direction so we can understand what we need to do and get underway while the builders are constructing the inside

[Andyjc]

hi,
sorry to hear about your rotten bad luck with the last builders. Hopefully the new ones will work out well for you.

im in a similar position in that ive renovated the house, but cant currently afford the type of system i'd like!

so in terms of future proofing - members of this forum recommended running 4xcat5 and 2x sat grade co-ax from every room back to a central place (your utility)

2 pairs of speaker cable from each ceiling location back to the utility



if you're thinking about 5.1 or 7.1 home theatre in your main living room, you'll also need to run the speaker wire, power cable for where the projector will go etc, hdmi cable from projector back to utility. also an hdmi cable from your main tv in your living room back to the utility, so that you at least have that from the get go.

a good quality av receiver, where you can plug in your various sky box, dvd etc


best bit of advice i can give you is - sit down and plan (in an ideal world) where you would want all your speakers, tv, projector etc and then make sure you run more than enough cable to cover it all.

good luck. i'll defer to the more clued up members of the forum to fill in the holes!

[ladypickers]

Hi Andyjc

thanks for the response, I do have a couple of questions for you in red below

so in terms of future proofing - members of this forum recommended running 4xcat5 and 2x sat grade co-ax from every room back to a central place (your utility). I understand why two co-ax are needed for sky, would a 3rd co-ax be needed for freeview / dab. Also why 4 Cat5 cables - what was the forum members reason for so many to each room.

Also in the rooms where you were not sure what is happening where did you run yours to in those rooms and did you just blank them off oconnect up to a wall plate

2 pairs of speaker cable from each ceiling location back to the utility

That makes sense - any particular type we should look at

if you're thinking about 5.1 or 7.1 home theatre in your main living room, you'll also need to run the speaker wire, power cable for where the projector will go etc, hdmi cable from projector back to utility. also an hdmi cable from your main tv in your living room back to the utility, so that you at least have that from the get go. I am a little confused here as we dont have a projector are you saying here that basically all the cables and wires that come out of the back of the TV need to feed into the wall. If so could we hard wire hdmi's, cat5's, coax from a wall plate behind the TV into a wall plate in the utility and thenjust plug in the plasma into the wall plate and everything else such the the receiver plug into the wall plate in the utility. how many cables of each should we run down internal tunking which we will bury into the walls

a good quality av receiver, where you can plug in your various sky box, dvd etc


best bit of advice i can give you is - sit down and plan (in an ideal world) where you would want all your speakers, tv, projector etc and then make sure you run more than enough cable to cover it all. We pretty much know where we want everything except the the bedrooms.

good luck. i'll defer to the more clued up members of the forum to fill in the holes! Does anyone know of a good book or magazine that gives details of cabling options - just so we definately get this right and dont forget anything

thanks Andyjc

[deansocial]

i am guessing 4 cat 5 cables as it takes 2 for a hdmi signal i think and cat 5 is cheap so always good to have extra as the are versatile

[mark_curd]

Hey there,

I'm just in the middle of sorting out first fix cable runs in our house we are just renovating.

You are best of making a plan of your system and it's worth having as much detail as you can about what type of setup you want.

Are you going to have a central location for your equipment or are you going for separate setup in each room?

I have tried to make a plan as I want to have a projector mounted ceiling height and multi-room video and audio feeds all which goes back to a central system in our lounge. On top of the video and audio side of things we are installing the cabling for lighting automation etc, don't forget you need to also make sure you have enough power outlets for your type of system.

To give you an idea, here is my planned system and what cables I'm putting in, some of which is not finalized and I maybe adding additional.

Lounge to include central system setup, comprising of av receiver or separate amp/processor, multiroom audio distribution unit. Supports 7.1, multi-room video and audio and will also have necessary inputs for all my equipment and at least 2 hdmi outputs.

Inputs connected will be

Dvd player (hdmi)
Bluray player (hdmi)
Sky HD (hdmi, 4 sat 2 in 2 out, 4 cat5 for ir and video/audio distribution)
Mac htpc (hdmi, toslink, 2 cat5)
Games consoles x2 (hdmi/component)
Any additional (hdmi/component/composite/etc)

Outputs

7.1 setup in lounge (7 pairs of twin speaker cables, sub cable)
projector (hdmi, 2 cat5 for control etc)
2 speakers in each other room (2 pairs of twin speaker cable, 2 cat5 for volume/control)
video feed from lounge to other rooms and separate sky feeds (2 cat5 video, 2 cat5 sound/ir, 2 sat if require multiple sky boxes)

I'm still changing things about and have included a few extra cables that may not be required but better safe than sorry.

Hope this gives you some idea

[big john 1983]

Hi,

I'm just rennovating my house at the minute. I really wanted to distribute everything around the house, but it was just too costly.

I did some research and found a 'loftbox'. This basically allows a central aerial point and from this you can distribute Sky to every room. Granted it's not perfect, but it'll work and is only about £50 + cable.

I also wanted Sky HD in my bedroom, therefore I found that the earlier Sky+ HD boxes had comp and HDMI output, therefore simultaneously allowing viewing of the same HD source.

I hope this helps,

John

[ladypickers]

thanks for the replies although I am still not sure what to do as it is difficult to know exactly what we will need or can buy when we have the money. Is there not a sort of standard cabling set up which will cover most setups So far I have gleened that each room will require

Cabling
4 x Cat 5 or 6 from each room back to the utility
2 x Coaxial for Sky+ or HD (sky dish) from each room back to the utility
1 x Coaxial for Freeview (roof aerial) from each room back to the utility

And what ever cables come out of my Pioneer and other TV's back to the uility


As we are running out time I guess I will have get someone out to advise us or does anyone know of any good books or websites on wiring up you house for AV or home automation

[fancyabrew]

I’m in a similar boat, but I only want to distribute SkyHD to one other room (bedroom) In our current house I just use a video sender to send Sky from the living room to our bedroom (right above the living room) now this works ok, obviously not HD but I don’t really care about that as we only have a 26” LCD in the bedroom and a nice 500A in the living room ;o).

I have recently started to renovate my late mothers house which I have inherited, it’s old (about 1820’s) and is long and thin, measures about 4m wide by 16m long. We’ve gutted it so far and are probably going to do first fit electrics in the new year along with underfloor heating downstairs (any tips on this would be nice, as an aside) Downstairs is going to be open plan with one long room measuring around 4m by 11.5m which will have a kitchen a dining area and a living area. My AV gubbins (Onkyo 705, SkyHD, Oppo Blueray and 500A) will all be down the far end of this room but our bedroom will be the other end of the house (probably around a good 10m away and up a floor) now I think a video sender is going to struggle with this distance so I need another solution. Basically all I’m looking to do is distribute Sky from the living room to bedroom and to be able to control the Sky box, change channels etc

And I'm not going to buy bleedy Sky multiroom!

[ladypickers]

Its a mindfield - I think I will have to resort to getting someone out to advise us as we are fast running out of time as first fix is starting late next week

[fancyabrew]

I think I'm just going to use a loftbox and coax. I don't really care about viewing HD anywhere else apart from the lounge. So a loft box and a few sky magic eyes will do me. I can use it to pipe sky and TV to a few rooms and thats good enough. What I might do is get the sparky to fit some conduit behind the plasterboard running up to the loft and down to each room so it will be easy in the future to run CAT5e should I want to do so

[Andyjc]

Originally Posted by ladypickers

Its a mindfield - I think I will have to resort to getting someone out to advise us as we are fast running out of time as first fix is starting late next week

think you're there, but it would probably be prudent to take some advice at this stage, as the pro's will be able to ask all the right questions to make sure you've covered everything off - especially if you are also considering lighting etc to be integrated.

if you post in the Custom Installations and Installers forum I'm sure you'll get a very quick response from the guys who can provide you with a plan for a price! I've always found Vex to be very helpful (from wired life)

[ladypickers]

Originally Posted by Andyjc

think you're there, but it would probably be prudent to take some advice at this stage, as the pro's will be able to ask all the right questions to make sure you've covered everything off - especially if you are also considering lighting etc to be integrated.

if you post in the Custom Installations and Installers forum I'm sure you'll get a very quick response from the guys who can provide you with a plan for a price! I've always found Vex to be very helpful (from wired life)

thanks Andyjc I totally agree I have someone coming out to give us some advice.
I was actually thinking about posting in the custom installs but I thought it was a private forum. I'll see how I get on this week once I've had the meeting. Obviously we have to get it right otherwise it could end up being a waste of money.

[gareth_alien]

Originally Posted by ladypickers

...keeping both the skyboxes together in the utility room if possible...

As far as I was aware, sky boxes all use the same IR codes. If this is the case then you don't want them together as any signal you send will control both boxes at the same time.
Of course I don't have sky, and the sky HD boxes may use different codes, but it's worth checking before hand.

[ladypickers]

Originally Posted by gareth_alien

As far as I was aware, sky boxes all use the same IR codes. If this is the case then you don't want them together as any signal you send will control both boxes at the same time.
Of course I don't have sky, and the sky HD boxes may use different codes, but it's worth checking before hand.

I dont think they do as my remotes dont work on the wrong box but I will check thx for that