Looking for some help in cabling up for TV/Video. I want to do this once and not need to change it in the future as at the moment it can all be concealed under plaster and under floorboards. At least that is the plan. Currently installing: Loft mounted digital TV aerial and FM aerial both feeding a loft mounted 8-way amplifier diplexer. CT 100 cabling to each TV point, one in each bedroom and three in lounge. Digital cable TV comes into the house in the hall from where it can be joined to one or more cables feeding sockets in the lounge. No plans to run this to the bedrooms. At the moment I have no plans for satellite but would like to make provisions for cabling it since once the new floor is fitted I will not be able to make any changes. A satellite dish would have to be installed at the rear of the house since this is south-east facing. I am contemplating running this around to the front where it could enter at the same point as the cable to allow be to route one or the other to the sockets in the lounge. Is this a good plan? What is the total maximum length of cable that I should use, i.e. should I find a shorter route? An alternative may be to feed it into the diplexer/amp in the loft but at the loss of the normal aerial. I have also just found out that Sky+ requires two aerial leads so what should I do about this? I am new to all this dont even have a telly at the moment. Any help and advice gratefully received. Andrew
If I were you I would run 2 lengths from the dish position to the loft amp (in case) and 2 from the dish to your living room. Also, make sure you have a length of coax from living room to loft as you could send the signal from your main sky+ box around the house this way if needed. I guess this cabling may already be in place. You can use a fairly long lead with sat, not sure on the maximum. I use FT100 or better, FT125 from Maplin.
Running cable from the dish to the loft will be easy when the dish is installed. There is easy access to the loft. It is the cabling embedded in the walls and under the floor that I want to get done now before the room is replastered etc. Running Sky+ box output back up to the loft for distribution everywhere else is a good idea. There are already three cable runs in position that could be used for that, one next to each socket that might be used for the box connection. Running two lengths of cable to the lounge would not be too hard per se but I am trying to maintain some flexibility of positioning. This is why there are three cable sockets in different positions with three cables running back to the hall where one will be connected to the incoming signal cable. It occurs to me that one solution would be to double up on these three so that they could be used for satellite or cable TV as required. There is still the problem of getting the cables from the dish to this point but if long runs are acceptable that could be run around the outside of the house using CT150 or similar when/if the dish is installed. In reality I suspect that I will end up going the cable TV route if only because that will get me broadband Internet access as well. But, I would like to keep the option open. Thanks for the help. Andrew
I'm in the same boat as you, working on a barn conversion. I reckon, get as many cables in as you can. You never know and it's much harder to run them later. As long as they are all marked, you can just leave them behind sockets. I have Cat5 and coax from each room back to a central point with 2 sat, one FM/dab and one TV coax to there as well. Most will never get used but for the couple of hundred it has cost me I know I have options.
Sky + requires 2 feeds, if your trying to hide the cable run, there's always the 'dual' cable (1 cable but 2 feeds) I've read it's not supposed to be as good as 2 seperate cables, but I've got it, & I can't see any degradation over my old Sky. Coax isn't particularly flexible or easy to hide, 1 cable would probably be easier than 2 to hide. I can't think what the stuff's called, but I'm sure that its on here somewhere.
Hiding cable is no problem. It is either running under the floor or in conduit plastered into the walls. That is why I am trying to install everything now, while I still have the floor up and before replastering. One thing that occurs to me that I have not considered is the provision of DAB. I assume I could replace my FM aerial with a Band III one but then I would loose a decent FM signal and by a lot of reports I have heard some channels on FM can be better than DAB because of the low bit rates used. I wonder if it is possible to multiplex three aerials onto a single downlead? Andrew
an option for you which i have installed many times for people who cant decide where to put the main lounge tv would be a loftbox, global,labgear,triax and televes all make them all your signals go to the box first uhf,vhf,if,dab and cctv then you install 3 double sockets in your lounge wich has 2 sat,1 uhf, 1 vhf/dab, 1 sky return (if you had it) to play round house and 2 telephone sockets 1 for sky and 1 for phone then you install diplexed sockets in the rest of the house which carry uhf/sky/cctv on one socket and a vhf/dab on the other depending on which socket you use in the main lounge you go to the loft and swap over just one cable i put a sticker on each socket in the lounge and a coresponding sticker in the loft fir easy id you can get info and a system design on the televes web site and i think the global one www.televes.es