New Project on a New Build

[DUVET]

Hi everyone.

I'm planning on wall mounting a plasma (50") above my gas flueless fire with a tilting wall mount due to the height. the property is a new build and is getting constructed at the min, i'm planning on tracking the wall behind the plasma up to cieling height where the roofspace is.(then plastered over to hide everything) I'm then going to run trunking in the roofspace to a store room where i will keep the following :-

sky+ box
dvd all in 1 home cinema system
also thats where the power point will be located.

i will purchase a HDMI cable for dvd to plamsa, sky has 1 cable to the tv,, power cable and room for a furture 2/3 cables.


what i need to know is, what size do i need to leave to get the cables up the wall ? into the roofspace and whats the best way to go about it, ie trunking etc ?

all opinions welcomed.

cheers
duvet

[DUVET]

Anyone ?

[Streetrod]

You can buy various sizes of trunking from you local DIY shop. The good ones have a snap on cover so making it eay to install you cables before you plaster over them. I would suggest you always go for the next size up over you current needs just in case you need to run extra cables in the future. Also run a length of strong string in the truncking which will allow you to pull cables through in the future. Some people say it is also a good idea to keep power cables and data cables separate so as to avoid interference.

Good luck

[martmiller]

Not done the plastering in yet, but am considering it.

But based on my experience of things like this I would say put in a large core of trunking as what you think you need now is going to be nothing to what you need in the future! Make it as easy as you can to feed new cables down.

Lay some strands of string down for making pulling extra cable through esier.

also, I have just started using cat5 baluns for video to other rooms and must say I am REALLY impressed.

I am using scart (composite) for sky+ (plan to use svideo, but not got round to it so far and the picture is MILES better than RF over coax)

I also use component and stereo over cat5 for xbox and sky HD, again really impressed.

So in my home build, I am putting cat5 all over the house for flexability.

If you are interested in the baluns, I got them from madnat.co.uk, he was very helpful and gave me loads of advice and good service. looking arround the prices were really good too.

Cheers

mart

[Techpigmy]

Mart,

Are you distributing your AV signals over Cat5?

I am planning a new build and need to design a wiring scheme. I was told I need to flood wire both Cat5 and Coax, but if you can send HD signals over Cat 5, I don't really understand why I would need the Coax.

Anyone have a view on this?

[martmiller]

Originally Posted by Techpigmy

Mart,

Are you distributing your AV signals over Cat5?

I am planning a new build and need to design a wiring scheme. I was told I need to flood wire both Cat5 and Coax, but if you can send HD signals over Cat 5, I don't really understand why I would need the Coax.

Anyone have a view on this?

Hi,

Yes I am using video and audio baluns from the site mentioned to send scart (sky) and hd (xbox360) to a second TV.

I do have coax to the second tv for terestrial signal and for the sky tvlink magic eye remote control.

I am interested in other views too as I will be looking to do a new build in the future.

I personally would wire at least 4 cat5 runs and a single coax run for each tv and wire it all back to a patch panel, if it was me. As well as cat5 data ports to rooms for computers all back to the patch panel, that would give REAL flexability to wire all sorts of things all over the place, computers, printers, security cameras, music what ever you could think of!

currently I have a single cat 5 running composite video and stereo

1 cat5 running component for HD and 1 cat 5 (well 2 pairs) for the stereo part of the HD signal.

I am planning to put a component switch at the AV end to switch between SkYHD, XBox360 and DVD.

Really impressed with the results.

it is also the flexability of the whole thing too.

you can also send the sky remote controll back over the cat5, but that seemed really expensive compared to good old tvlink.

mart

[nick.ballard]

I found this thread while searching on Google and am interested in using my existing CAT5 home network to pipe Sky to other TVs in the house. My existing network is based around a router/hub in the loft that has my ADSL routing into it... I then have 5 points around the house for pugging in PC's. The reason I started this search is because I have been using coax for TV with a Sky HD in the sitting room and a Sky + in the loft but am frustrated because I can't get the IR remote return to consistantly work so I get pictures but can't change the channel.

If I can get the HD box to network via CAT5 with IR remote that would be a good start... Can you advise of possibilities kit needed and cost?

Cheers Nick

[martmiller]

Originally Posted by nick.ballard

I found this thread while searching on Google and am interested in using my existing CAT5 home network to pipe Sky to other TVs in the house. My existing network is based around a router/hub in the loft that has my ADSL routing into it... I then have 5 points around the house for plugging in PC's. The reason I started this search is because I have been using coax for TV with a Sky HD in the sitting room and a Sky + in the loft but am frustrated because I can't get the IR remote return to consistently work so I get pictures but can't change the channel.

If I can get the HD box to network via CAT5 with IR remote that would be a good start... Can you advise of possibilities kit needed and cost?

Cheers Nick

Hi,

yes you can do SKY + composite or svideo over cat5 and skyHD with the same or component over cat5, or even hdmi over cat5.

you can get remote control aware cat5 kit from here:-

http://www.madnat.com/prodtype.asp?PT_ID=87

not used this solution myself, but drop them an email explaining what you are trying to do and they are usually very helpful.

the one thing I have noticed in your description of your network is the mention of router/hub. the balun solution is not Ethernet or IP aware so you cannot use hubs or routers on the same physical cable.

Cheers

Mart