New House Extension, Best AV solution advice appreciated

Foster1984

Prominent Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2008
Messages
2,208
Reaction score
369
Points
466
Location
Barrow In Furness
I did not know which forum to post this in, as it is more about the design of my house wide AV solution than what the finished product looks like. But I didn't know if it should go into "Home Cinema Buying, Set-up and General Advice and Information", "Home Cinema Building DIY" or here in the "Members Gallery" as all three forums have threads of this nature in it. So moderators please feel free to move it to the correct forum. :lease:

Due to the expected arrival of a new family member in August, we are going to be extending the house with a loft conversion, and changing the layout of the kitchen and family room into 1 big open plan room. But this has also led to the realisation that the current house set-up of TV, aerial locations and other devices is just not upto the task of supporting the new family layout across the house (Fiance and I, Mother-in-Law, Sister-in-Law and my soon to arrive son or daughter).

Now I know how I would like to have it, however I am not sure if it is 100% possible or how is best to go about it, so figured I would ask people what the best possible solutions are.

Currently, the set-up is as follows (pictures are provided to aid in the descriptions):

Downstairs
Lounge
TV in corner connected to Sky+HD, BluRay player, Surround Amp, PS3 and Xbox360. These are all connected to an ethernet switcher, which is itself connected to the wireless router via home plugs. The router is connected to the master socket.

Family Room
TV wallmounted in corner connected to Nintendo Wii, this TV is also connected via magic eye to the Sky+ box in the conservatory.

Conservatory
TV in corner connected to Sky+ and a DVD player, this feed the Sky+ to the family room via a magic eye.

Upstairs
Bedrooms 1& 3
Non-freeview TVs with set-top boxes attached.

Bedroom 2
TV connected to DVD player, PS2, PS3 and Nintendo N64. PS3 is connected wirelessly to router.

Now when we have the work done, there are a number of things I would like to change/have done. So the wishlist is:

  1. A new aerial and sattelite dish will be put on the house, to be split across 6 rooms and 3 rooms respectively.
  2. The Sky Router would be replaced with a Sky HUB and would be better placed next to the AV equipment in lounge.
  3. The BluRay player in lounge will be replaced with a HTPC, with the BluRay player moving into the bedroom.
  4. An additional Sky+HD box will be added in the family room.
  5. All Sky boxes with run magic eyes into different bedrooms.
  6. Additional media servers (WDTV Lives, or the like) will be placed into 2 of the bedrooms.
  7. Ideally, I would like all the media streamers to be hard wired, rather than be wireless.
  8. A completely new TV solution will be placed in loft.
This would result in a new set-up ressembling the following:

Downstairs
Lounge
TV in corner connected to Sky+HD, HTPC, Surround Amp, PS3 and Xbox360. All connected directly to Sky HUB router. This TV would be connected via magic eye to the TV in Bedroom 1.

Family Room
TV wallmounted on chimney breast connected to Sky+HD and Nintendo Wii. This TV would be connected via magic eye to the TV in either Bedroom 2 or the loft.

Conservatory
TV in corner connected to Sky+ and a DVD player. This TV would be connected via magic eye to the TV in either Bedroom 2 or the loft.

Upstairs
Bedrooms 1
TV on chimney breast connected to BluRay player, Media streamer, PS3 and Nintendo N64. This TV would be connected via magic eye to the Sky+HD box in the lounge.

Bedroom 2
TV connected to DVD player,Media streamer and PS2. This TV would be connected via magic eye to the Sky box in either the family room or conservatory.

Nursery
Would no longer have a TV in it, however I would like to keep the aerial point, etc for when the child grows older.

Loft
Non-freeview TVs with set-top boxes attached. This TV would be connected via magic eye to the Sky box in either the family room or conservatory.

Now, all the equipment I will be using I am fine with, but the parts of this build which I am getting stuck on are:

  1. How best to run the aerial and sattelite cabling?
  2. How best to get the magic eyes working with their respective TVs?
  3. How best to best to run the hardware cables for the media streamers, and which cables to use?
  4. If/how I can move the router from where is it to next to the lounge AV equipment?
  5. How best to connect each Sky box to a phone socket, and internet signal for on demand use?
The aerial and sattelite cables can be done from scratch. As the sattelite dish will need to be replaced as it is quite rusted and does not have enough LNBs, and the aerial is currently in the loft so will need to be moved to outside the house.

The current plan for these is fairly simple. I would presume I can put the aerial and sattelite on the chimney, and then run the cables down the chimney into their respective rooms (as shown by the attached pictures).

I am guessing I can probably do the same with the media streamer cables, however I have no experience of media streamers and therefore have no idea what cables I would be using, or how to link them up. :rolleyes: Im guessing I would be using CAT5 cables running to and fro from the Sky HUB? But will bow to anyones knowledge on this subject.

For the Magic Eyes, will each TV and Sky box need it's own coaxial cable running to and from it, or will the signal be relayed via the TV splitter in the loft storage? If each does need it's own cable, I will probably just run those through the chimney as well.

Now one of the big sticking points I forsee is the moving of the router, and the connecting of the extra Sky boxes to a phone line and internet signal. The reason I say this, is because the router is currently attached to the house master socket and does not appear to work when connected to any other phone socket in the house (I have tried all other ones). So would I be able to get Openreach in to move the position of the master socket to next to the lounge AV equipment?

For the Sky box internet signals, would I be right in thinking I could run ethernet cables to them using the chimney, just as I plan to do for the media players? (Again, Im open to a better proposal).

How easy is it to have extra phone sockets put in for the extra Sky box in the family room? As the nearest phone socket is in the study, but this is in use by the conservatory Sky box, and would also mean running a cable across the floor to the floor to the chimney breast in family room to which the TV and Sky+HD box will be mounted to.

Any advice people can give me for this situation will be GREATLY appreciated, as it will be an expensive extension and room change, and want to get it right first time so I don't have to redo any work at a later date.

Thank you in advance, my apologises for the length of this post.
 

Attachments

  • Ground Floor (Before work).jpg
    Ground Floor (Before work).jpg
    41.5 KB · Views: 199
  • First Floor (Before work).jpg
    First Floor (Before work).jpg
    35.2 KB · Views: 162
  • Proposed Ground Floor.jpg
    Proposed Ground Floor.jpg
    38.4 KB · Views: 214
  • Propsed First Floor (After work).jpg
    Propsed First Floor (After work).jpg
    36.2 KB · Views: 138
  • New Loft Conversion (After work).jpg
    New Loft Conversion (After work).jpg
    30.5 KB · Views: 270
  • Chimney Layout.jpg
    Chimney Layout.jpg
    33.2 KB · Views: 250
Foster, I would give some one a call, you are spending a large amount on the extension, so a extra £5k to £7k on home automation would be worth it in the long run.

They both do control 4 and could have everything working like clock work for you - Ian also a electrician.

They would come in first fix and Second Fix.

Worth a chat - I have lights turning on and off at set times, sensors turning lights on/off when I leave a room, heating controlled and My Ipads/iPhone control everything - My wife is very happy with it !!!!!!!

I have nothing to do with either company - they have done work on my house.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom