New House Setup COAX or HDMI over Cat5/Cat6

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › New House Setup COAX or HDMI over Cat5/Cat6

reeco1

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#119056 18-May-2013 18:28

Hi all,

I am in need of some help with our new house which is currently getting built.

Its up to the stage of where its ready to be wired out.

However I'm a little bit unsure on how to run all my TV/Home Theater Setup.

For Starters

I am wanting to put my MYSKY Box, DVD Player and A/V Receiver all in a central cupboard with my routers etc.

In the lounge - I will have my 5.1 Surround Speaker Setup with the cable running back to the receiver using 2.0mm cable.

Throughout the House I am wanting to put in-ceiling speakers Dining Room, Living Room, Outside Patio Etc connecting the multizone on the receiver.

Each room with the TV's what are my options getting the signal through to them from the MYSKY and DVD with wired IR Receiver.

There will be about 7 Rooms I am wanting to put TV output.

Is there a converter that will convert HDMI to Single RG6 Coax?

I have seen the HDMI over CAT5/6 wallplates but I have heard that it will only work up to 30m and people have had issues with it.

Any options and help would be much appreciated on what would be best.

Thanks

JimmyH

2886 posts

Uber Geek

#821759 18-May-2013 21:28

Given that the build is currently in progress and you (presumably) have all the walls opened up, I would consider running conduit from a face-plate in each room to a central point, with a loop of fishing line in each section of conduit for pulling wires through at any future point..

It's a much more future-proof option as you can run whatever wires you want now, and easily remove them and upgrade to something else or replace a defective cable by just removing an old cable and pulling the new one through.

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

Uber Geek

#821765 18-May-2013 21:51

The absolute minimum is Cat 6, terminated as HMDI.
Forget coax over HDMI unless you want a world of hurt as well as a loss of quality.
For simplicity, a modulated analogue over coax has been done for years, but it's certainly not what you'd put in a new home.

Are you are of just how many / few HDMI handshakes your MySky box can handle? (I'll give you a hint, it's three (one for the splitter, two for the TV's.) Let alone your DVD player? Actually, why use a DVD/BluRay player at all? Why not run via a media server over your home network? If your library isn't digitised, now would be the time to start!
If you do go the way of HDMI over Cat6 to 7 different TV's, your HDMI splitter will not be cheap, trust me... it will have to assign digital keys where your MySky / DVD player cannot. Then, will all the TV's be the same resolution? If not, you may struggle with EDID issues...
Oh yeah, definitely don't skimp on baluns...

There's a lot more to what you're trying to do than you may think. Get a professional onto the case.

My $0.02.

Zeon

3916 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#821794 18-May-2013 23:17

Coax is a dying medium IMO. Maybe in 10-20 years most of your content will be delivered by IP and cat6 is extremely flexible. E.g. one of your runs could be for IR distribution for the remote, some for HDMI, others to connect your tvs to the net. I'd run 4x cat6 to every room and have 4x cat6 for your TVs alone

Speedtest 2019-10-14

LennonNZ

2459 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#821803 19-May-2013 00:02

http://www.hdconnectivity.com/multiroom-hd.html

but I am sure there is a cheaper brand someplace..

8 in and 8 out so you can put everything in a cabinet and have Cat6 from each room

Yes run cat6 everywhere.. ( 2 in each room at least and at least 4 in important locations)

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#821822 19-May-2013 08:35

The only purpose coax serves is RF distribution of the broadcast signals, ie your DVB-T and/or DVB-S signals around the home. It's worthless for trying to send content around the home unless you're looking to move towards DVB-T based inhome distribution to multiple devices.