TV/Sky Distribution around House

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Butj

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#66277 16-Aug-2010 16:29

I have read that it is preferable to run out 2x RG6 cables to each room you want tv in, all coming back to a distribution Coms box (along with 2x CAT5/6 for phones and internet). Can somone tell me why 2 RG6 are required? Is it one for sky and the other for the aerial?

richms

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#368257 16-Aug-2010 17:00

mysky has an internal switch in it, there is the possibility that sky may expand service in the futiure to need both inputs fed from different satilites or polarities. They already have the LNBs in place to see D3 on demand, but at the moment that is more a disaster recovery option not for everyday delivery.

Cable is cheap, opening your walls to replace it in the future is not.

Also if you have freeview on the tv then take a third one, since combining them leads to more connections etc which means more points of failure.

Richard rich.ms

Niel

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#368301 16-Aug-2010 18:46

I've seen a home that was pre wired for Sky a number of years ago before MySky. It had 1 cable from the dish to the living room and another from the living room to the bedroom. This is so you can send the output from your Sky STB to your bedroom. Wiring 2 cables to each room and joining them in a distribution box means you can have the STB in any room and distribute the signal to any other room.

In addition this house also had a UHF/VHF aerial cable to the living room. You may choose to have 3 cables to your living room to allow for a terrestrial STB. Or to the basement where you have a media server.

You can never have enough Volvos!

richms

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#368331 16-Aug-2010 19:29

There isnt any way to run sky to other TVs on RG6 that will give a good picture, RF out was fine when people had 20" CRTs around the house, but has no place these days.

Leave the distribution to your cat-6 infrastructure, there are many proven systems to push HD over that available now, RG6 to the TV really only needs to take the freeview and FM channels, plus any analog sources you have added in the house like cameras etc (So you can use the PIP on the TV ontop of an HD source)

Richard rich.ms

Butj

68 posts

Master Geek

#368416 16-Aug-2010 22:37

Wiring 2 cables to each room and joining them in a distribution box means you can have the STB in any room and distribute the signal to any other room.

OK so I only need 1 cable per room if I want to keep the Sky STB in one room only. Same applies for MySky? I'm not interested in pushing HD out to the bedrooms as yet. Maybe in the future. But if I have say a 32inch LCD in the bedroom, will the picture still be OK with RG6 as opposed to CAT6 or HDMI cable?

illicit

553 posts

Ultimate Geek

#368423 16-Aug-2010 22:48

yes it will be 'OK'.

If your running cables now and won't be able to in future though - defiantly run two (2) RG6 & at least two (2) Cat6

Butj

68 posts

Master Geek

#368433 16-Aug-2010 23:05

If your running cables now and won't be able to in future though - defiantly run two (2) RG6 & at least two (2) Cat6

Yep I can easily run out more cable in future. Just a matter of crawling under the house again. I really only want HD in one main room (where the HT and MySky is) and possibly a second viewing room which I may have a second MySky in.

richms

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#368477 17-Aug-2010 01:29

You do know you have to buy a modulator if you want to send mysky thru antenna wiring right? Thankfully with mysky not having one built in means people dont try to distribute a junk inbuilt one.

Thats an additional RG6 from the mysky back to wherever your antenna distributioin is, and then you mix it in with the off air feed before distributing it.

Weigh the cost of that up with some cheap hdmi plates and some more cat-6 and the cat-6 HD distribution doesnt look too bad overall.

Richard rich.ms

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Butj

68 posts

Master Geek

#368554 17-Aug-2010 10:01

richms: You do know you have to buy a modulator if you want to send mysky thru antenna wiring right? Thankfully with mysky not having one built in means people dont try to distribute a junk inbuilt one.

Thats an additional RG6 from the mysky back to wherever your antenna distributioin is, and then you mix it in with the off air feed before distributing it.

Weigh the cost of that up with some cheap hdmi plates and some more cat-6 and the cat-6 HD distribution doesnt look too bad overall.

Thanks ricms. yeah i did know about the modulator. i bought a sigtech box which included the splitters and combiner etc but no modulator. Can you suggest a good one? what about the sigtech product?

Butj

68 posts

Master Geek

#368617 17-Aug-2010 12:42

Butj: Can you suggest a good one? what about the sigtech product?

The Jaycar one looks the most popular. http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=LM3878&CATID=&keywords=modulator&SPECIAL=&form=KEYWORD&ProdCodeOnly=&Keyword1=&Keyword2=&pageNumber=&priceMin=&priceMax=&SUBCATID=

richms

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#368739 17-Aug-2010 16:08

An issue a friend found with one he got that looked like the jaycar one, is that it created the mono for the modulator by connecting the 2 RCA jacks together internally, there was no summing amplifier.

This meant that all the jacks on their generic satellite box became mono since it didn't have proper output buffer amplifiers in it. I would hope the mysky is better than some no brand junk from trademe in that respect.

You also will need a band stop filter on your antenna feed if you are wanting to get a noise free space to put the feeds on, those distribution cabinets never seem to include those in them. I got one off a retired aieriel installer but I believe clayworth in auckland sell them. I have everything below ch 28 blocked and put the modulators on 27 and below, which seems to have cleard them up heaps from when I was just trying to stuff them between all the old analog sky channels etc. Without the filter there was always some diagonal lines across some of the channels and bursts of noise over them.

Richard rich.ms