AV and CAT6 round the house - bit of noddy education please
Discussion
I've been looking at the same for my place Tonker and think I'm going to put in a HDBaseT system such as http://www.hdanywhere.co.uk/ this allows you to have 4 sources connected to upto 4 outputs (or 8 and 8 like I could really do with but its bloody expensive). So all you need to each location is one run of CAT 6 (this will do HD video, audio and LAN) plus a telephone line if you need it and maybe a co-ax so that you can get Freeview on the TV.
Multiroom audio I am probably going to do with Sonos which is wireless in any case.
Would be worth having a look at this for you as well I'd think.
Multiroom audio I am probably going to do with Sonos which is wireless in any case.
Would be worth having a look at this for you as well I'd think.
Morning Tonks.
Ok if I have got this right, your discription of the separate tv and data networks is correct. Coax for TV, satellite and Cable services is various different guises. Cat6 for data, telephone and you could call it 'digital media'
So, a main living plate, as per you first MK link needs 3 coaxes and a telephone/cat5/6 cable. This would allow you to base you sky box here, local to the main tv and still 'back-feed' it to the house amp for sharing around the rest of the house. As you mentioned, this would still leave you without any data points, so at least a pair of Cat5/6 cables would be needed. However for this type of main point I would advocate 4x Cat6's to cover yourself for future requirements. You can easily get all of this configured into two double sockets.
In the less important rooms there is no need for this level of connection. As standard I would usually wire a pair coax cables and then two or three cat6's. This can all fit into a double gang plate, so nice and neat. This will still allow you to add a local sky box, but still maintain network and telephone options as well.
For really low use rooms, or if you see yourself using the HDbaseT stuff that has been linked to (you don't have to buy these mail order ;-) ) then you can strip it down even further and just have a single gang plate with a single coax and data point in it. This is a recognised basic standard from our trade body and I have actually used it in an annex and bedroom application.
Now the one fly in the ointment! Your Virgin cable requirement!
It wires slightly differently to the satellite tv requirement. It is not designed to 'back-feed' straight out of the box, however there are several add on boxes that will allow you to view and control the cable tv box. However the rest of the house will either need cable tv boxes for each of the other tv's in the house (but this would prevent back-feeding) or a separate tv aerial system so that they could still view freeview and the 'back-feed' cable tv channel.
If you are considering this option at all, then you need to create a little patch panel for the coax connections, usually F or Satellite type connectors. This will allow you to mix and match, simply by moving cables around on the patch panel rather than have to ferret about with the tv amp around the back of the rack every time.
One final option, which plays into the HDAnywhere idea would be to move your multiple sky or cable tv boxes back in the central rack and use the HD matrix to allow each room in dependant choice and control of the centralised boxes. This would use one of the Cat5/6 cables at each of the tv points and being HDBT (HDbaseT) it should be ok working through patch panels and wall plates. None HDBT ones are not happy with this type of patch panel configuration.
One word of caution, make sure then matrix has a good infra-red(IR) route back through the system. Especially 'target' or 'routed' IR so that only the box your are watching is getting the IR signals. In the case of sky this is easy to work around, however in the case of cable tv boxes it is a right royal pain in the arse!
Hopefully a useful post, if a little Llllloooooooonnnnnnggggg
V.
Ok if I have got this right, your discription of the separate tv and data networks is correct. Coax for TV, satellite and Cable services is various different guises. Cat6 for data, telephone and you could call it 'digital media'
So, a main living plate, as per you first MK link needs 3 coaxes and a telephone/cat5/6 cable. This would allow you to base you sky box here, local to the main tv and still 'back-feed' it to the house amp for sharing around the rest of the house. As you mentioned, this would still leave you without any data points, so at least a pair of Cat5/6 cables would be needed. However for this type of main point I would advocate 4x Cat6's to cover yourself for future requirements. You can easily get all of this configured into two double sockets.
In the less important rooms there is no need for this level of connection. As standard I would usually wire a pair coax cables and then two or three cat6's. This can all fit into a double gang plate, so nice and neat. This will still allow you to add a local sky box, but still maintain network and telephone options as well.
For really low use rooms, or if you see yourself using the HDbaseT stuff that has been linked to (you don't have to buy these mail order ;-) ) then you can strip it down even further and just have a single gang plate with a single coax and data point in it. This is a recognised basic standard from our trade body and I have actually used it in an annex and bedroom application.
Now the one fly in the ointment! Your Virgin cable requirement!
It wires slightly differently to the satellite tv requirement. It is not designed to 'back-feed' straight out of the box, however there are several add on boxes that will allow you to view and control the cable tv box. However the rest of the house will either need cable tv boxes for each of the other tv's in the house (but this would prevent back-feeding) or a separate tv aerial system so that they could still view freeview and the 'back-feed' cable tv channel.
If you are considering this option at all, then you need to create a little patch panel for the coax connections, usually F or Satellite type connectors. This will allow you to mix and match, simply by moving cables around on the patch panel rather than have to ferret about with the tv amp around the back of the rack every time.
One final option, which plays into the HDAnywhere idea would be to move your multiple sky or cable tv boxes back in the central rack and use the HD matrix to allow each room in dependant choice and control of the centralised boxes. This would use one of the Cat5/6 cables at each of the tv points and being HDBT (HDbaseT) it should be ok working through patch panels and wall plates. None HDBT ones are not happy with this type of patch panel configuration.
One word of caution, make sure then matrix has a good infra-red(IR) route back through the system. Especially 'target' or 'routed' IR so that only the box your are watching is getting the IR signals. In the case of sky this is easy to work around, however in the case of cable tv boxes it is a right royal pain in the arse!
Hopefully a useful post, if a little Llllloooooooonnnnnnggggg
V.
Edited by VEX on Sunday 2nd June 11:41
papercup said:
Very interested in this topic. Doing a house renovation and re-wire from scratch and would love to know what to put, and where. Had already decided shielded CAT6 everywhere, but wasnt sure what else...
Noooooooooo!Unless it is for heating, please don't use shielded cable. Far more trouble than it is worth and can cause more problems than it solves!
V.
Ok.
Some are for services we don't know about yet.
But consider this.
TV now needs network connection.
Some BluRay disks have web based stuff, so the player needs a connection.
Sky needs a telephone and a network connection for all its services.
So that is 4 used up straight away.
If you add Sonos, that's a fifth one or wire tv, bluray & sky all off one connection via a little switch and then leave Sonos on its own direct connection to maintain streaming speed.
Then, alternatively if you are using a central matrix, that's one port used, smart tv's still need a network connection and that leaves one spare for future use.
And NO, wireless won't do all that, think of the amount of streaming that lot uses. Little known fact, every doubling of wifi hardware results in a halving of connection speed. This is ok on email and interest surfing but streaming content is going to start to suffer.
So we alway advocate hardwiring the fixed position stuff and leave wifi for the true wireless stuff that floats around the house.
Only difference to that is Sonos which builds its own wifi network and can be a little confused with 100% wifi strength and a network connection. Recommendation is leave clumps of them wireless.
Does that help?
V.
Some are for services we don't know about yet.
But consider this.
TV now needs network connection.
Some BluRay disks have web based stuff, so the player needs a connection.
Sky needs a telephone and a network connection for all its services.
So that is 4 used up straight away.
If you add Sonos, that's a fifth one or wire tv, bluray & sky all off one connection via a little switch and then leave Sonos on its own direct connection to maintain streaming speed.
Then, alternatively if you are using a central matrix, that's one port used, smart tv's still need a network connection and that leaves one spare for future use.
And NO, wireless won't do all that, think of the amount of streaming that lot uses. Little known fact, every doubling of wifi hardware results in a halving of connection speed. This is ok on email and interest surfing but streaming content is going to start to suffer.
So we alway advocate hardwiring the fixed position stuff and leave wifi for the true wireless stuff that floats around the house.
Only difference to that is Sonos which builds its own wifi network and can be a little confused with 100% wifi strength and a network connection. Recommendation is leave clumps of them wireless.
Does that help?
V.
How deep are your pockets? Hehe.
Seriously, for me it depends on the project. It is not usually the doing and installing, it is the support afterwards that becomes a pain.
I am off to Salcombe on Wednesday for a three hour site meeting (8 hours of driving, shame I don't have a vx220 on the drive anymore)
V.
Seriously, for me it depends on the project. It is not usually the doing and installing, it is the support afterwards that becomes a pain.
I am off to Salcombe on Wednesday for a three hour site meeting (8 hours of driving, shame I don't have a vx220 on the drive anymore)
V.
I do this kind of thing in broadcast. FWIW I wouldn't bother with cat6 for domestic use, it is more difficult (expensive) to terminate properly and over relatively short runs won't offer any real benefit over cat 5e. 6 is probably more 'sparky friendly' with its heavier construction, but tell him to take it easy when cable pulling!
Re coax personally I'd use all sat. It is better screened and you may end up using it for its intended use anyway.
You mention socketed HDMI - don't know what you intend to do with this, but you don't want to be sending it further than 15m.
Supplier (I have no affiliation) but TLC direct (who have a lot of trade counters) have a reasonable range of faceplates, RJ45 patch panels, 19" rack cabinets
and are reasonably priced. Have a look at their catalogue online
HTH
Re coax personally I'd use all sat. It is better screened and you may end up using it for its intended use anyway.
You mention socketed HDMI - don't know what you intend to do with this, but you don't want to be sending it further than 15m.
Supplier (I have no affiliation) but TLC direct (who have a lot of trade counters) have a reasonable range of faceplates, RJ45 patch panels, 19" rack cabinets
and are reasonably priced. Have a look at their catalogue online
HTH
VEX said:
How deep are your pockets? Hehe.
Seriously, for me it depends on the project. It is not usually the doing and installing, it is the support afterwards that becomes a pain.
I am off to Salcombe on Wednesday for a three hour site meeting (8 hours of driving, shame I don't have a vx220 on the drive anymore)
V.
Lucky bugger, wish I was there !Seriously, for me it depends on the project. It is not usually the doing and installing, it is the support afterwards that becomes a pain.
I am off to Salcombe on Wednesday for a three hour site meeting (8 hours of driving, shame I don't have a vx220 on the drive anymore)
V.
VEX said:
papercup said:
Very interested in this topic. Doing a house renovation and re-wire from scratch and would love to know what to put, and where. Had already decided shielded CAT6 everywhere, but wasnt sure what else...
Noooooooooo!Unless it is for heating, please don't use shielded cable. Far more trouble than it is worth and can cause more problems than it solves!
V.
cheers
JDFR said:
To use Cat6 shielded properly it would need to be grounded and often this isn't possible. Stick with normal Cat6.
If we run CAT6 Shielded cable and just don't earth the sockets or patch bay, and in fact just use normal CAT6 sockets, will the shielded cable just drop back to normal CAT6 speeds?In the future, if I needed the shielding properties, I could change those sockets I need to, and earth the pacth bay?
I only want to do this once, so if I can future-proof by running the 'top' cable 'just in case', I'd like to...
papercup said:
If we run CAT6 Shielded cable and just don't earth the sockets or patch bay, and in fact just use normal CAT6 sockets, will the shielded cable just drop back to normal CAT6 speeds?
In the future, if I needed the shielding properties, I could change those sockets I need to, and earth the pacth bay?
I only want to do this once, so if I can future-proof by running the 'top' cable 'just in case', I'd like to...
There is no speed difference between Cat6 and Cat6 shielded.In the future, if I needed the shielding properties, I could change those sockets I need to, and earth the pacth bay?
I only want to do this once, so if I can future-proof by running the 'top' cable 'just in case', I'd like to...
All the shielding does is prevent electromagnetic interference, which you are almost never likely to suffer from in a house. As long as you are sensible with where you run your wires and cross electric cables at 90 degrees, you will be fine.
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