Sky wiring

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Slugger

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#31190 8-Mar-2009 13:41

Hi all...ex wife uses this site and said it was very handy.

Just wondering if anyone can tell me how I need to wire my place for sky in every room.

Doing a bunch of renos right now so have some of the walls exposed.

I have run three cables from the roof cavity to the main point where the decoder will be plugged in.

I have run three cables so that one can be for the shy dish, another to a uhf/vhf aerial the third was to come from the decoder to a splitter. I think I am on the right track and intend to run one cable to each bedroom from the splitter.

Can anyone confirm that I am doing this right and if not anything I can change to make the idea work?

Regards

Tony

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#199902 8-Mar-2009 14:00

Your plan to distribute Sky via coax using the RF output is very much an obsolete way of distributing video around the house and offers the lowest possible picture quality available. Unless you're sending the video to small(ish) CRT TV's and have absolutely no plans of ever upgrading I'd strongly recommend aginst it.

Coax is still required if you want to distribute a VHF/UHF aerial and is required if you get TV's in future with Integrated Digital tuners that need a UHF aerial.

The best way to distribute video these days is to use cat5e network cable and fit baluns at each end. At the sky box end you can use component, svideo or composite outputs and then run this over the cat5e cable to a balun at the other end that plugs straight into the AV input of the TV. If you're running this to multiple TV's you will also need a distribution amplifier to split the composite/compoennt to multiple baluns.

At the end of the day however it all comes down to what you're happy with. Cheaper system that's not future proofed and offers minimal quality or a future proofed system using cat5e that allows for better picture quality and the ability to also run HDMI in the future (dual cat5e runs are required for HDMI) if you ugrade to something like MySky and have HDTV's.

Dingbatt

6756 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#199910 8-Mar-2009 15:52

Could I suggest something of a compromise between the basic coax network that you describe initially and the future proof approach the sbiddle talks about above.
While you have the walls open by all means run RG6 coax and maybe even a cat5 or two for data but alongside drill some holes in the nogs and run some decent diameter conduit, something that you can easily fit the head of an hdmi cable down, from above the ceiling batten level down to your outlet height. That way, come what may with future technologies you can run whatever you need. Any old pvc pipe will do. Leave some wire dangling down in it and the job of pulling through is even easier. Bung something in the top of it to stop vermin using it as a highway and you are set for the future (as long as the next generation tech doesn't go for plugs the size of SCART again).

There is an excellent guide by Cyril7 on wiring a house on geekzone.

Incidentally, the coax system you describe is what I have in my house, however having moved to HD TVs the coax is really only used on the bedroom CRT because as sbiddle commented it doesn't really cut the mustard on HD displays. I have used RG6 cables x3 with RCA connectors on the end over distances of 10m to transfer a composite video plus L/R audio to an HD display with reasonable results.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Slugger

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#199943 8-Mar-2009 18:25

Thanks very much for your advice everyone. will prob end up running the condute as suggested.