Wiring a House for video/data/phone

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CYaBro

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#27833 7-Nov-2008 18:25

Hey,

Posting this here as the other threads I've found are all closed.

I am helping my brother-in-law cable their new house.
We are putting the patch panel and AV equipment in the same room.
What I want to know is should I just be running CAT5e everywhere for everthing?

We are running CAT5e for data/phone but I'm thinking it will be easiest to use this for TVs as well (with baluns)??
I thought that running 5 CAT5e cables to the main TV locations would cover most things and not bother with RG6 at all, except for sat, antenna runs.
They have a Freeview DVB-S STB and a CD/DVD player that will be controlled via iR over one of the CAT5e cables.
That leaves 4 for composite, s-video, component or HDMI or combination of whatever.

We are going to run 4x CAT5e cables to each bedroom as this allows for data, phone, composite AV plus iR.
Or 2 for HDMI or component AV, 1 for iR and 1 for data - Most people have cordless phones these days so one or two phone points in the house should be enough.

Not worried about audio at this stage except we will put a couple of speakers in the family room and outside for starters.
There is plenty of room in the roof to add cables and more speakers later for surround sound etc.

Thoughts?

Cheers.

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sbiddle

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#176701 7-Nov-2008 18:39

I would still run at least 1 RG6 to each TV - simply because it gives you Freeview|HD on a IDTV set in the future without having to worry about connecting it to a remote STB to get the picture.

CYaBro

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#176703 7-Nov-2008 18:40

Yea but we are in Whangarei and Freeview have no plans to bring Freeview|HD up here

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sbiddle

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#176709 7-Nov-2008 19:08

CYaBro: Yea but we are in Whangarei and Freeview have no plans to bring Freeview|HD up here

I haven't got the list handy but I thought Whangarei was on the list for the 87% rollout? I'm sure that rollout will eventually happen as we approach the shutdown time for analogue.

If you've got cable in the wall already then running some coax down to the same spot is pretty simple anyway assuming you have drilled 25mm holes as you will easily fit 5 x cat5e + 1 x RG6.

CYaBro

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#176711 7-Nov-2008 19:24

Really, I didn't know there was an 87% roll-out.
I wonder if that would include all transmitters around Whangarei or just the main one, Parahaki??
Where the house is it would be using Horakaka.

It will 25mm holes.

I just had a thought. They may want a UHF aerial for Prime so RG6 will be needed to the TVs.

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sbiddle

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#176712 7-Nov-2008 19:30

The current rollout covers 75% of the population. The plans already exist for 87% rollout with spectrum planning and channel allocations already done. It's just a matter of the government funding this expansion.

There isn't the need to have as many translators or transmitters with DVB-T as the signal is so much more robust than the old analogue broadcasts. Even people who had very poor analogue TV coverage will get perfect Freeview|HD reception.

Edit: Just found the link here to the RSM site with full details of channel allocations.

cyril7

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#176782 8-Nov-2008 07:59

You most definitely need to run RG6, Cat5e has enourmous losses over 500MHz so whilst you can just push UHF down it (with a fair bit of gain I might add) you will not have enough puff to push LBand (Sat) down it. Although both Horokaka and Parahaki are on next phase roll out list there is currently no actuall funds to do this and as I understand it no firm install plans (and that goes for all other phaseII sites).

I recently was called to a new architectually designed home that had recently been built some months earlier. The electrician had installed PDLs Lexcoms product which uses CAT7 cabling (4pairs, each pair foil shielded, then an overall foil and drain wire). PDL intend that this is a complete solution, and sell baluns for RF and video feeds to go with it. As such in this home there had been two RG6 runs to the roof where a Sky dish was installed to the home distributor. Sky had installed a standard STB in the home distributor as they could not get the LBand from there to the lounge and to add cables (3story home with large pavilion lounge) would have been near impossible on a sky install budget, and run an RF out from the STB to the lounge and bedroom, a remote IR system included with Lexcom controlled it.

But the owner was not happy with the picture on his 52" Plasma and had also enquired about HDi and had been told by the Sky installer that it would be impossible unless he fronted up with an HDMI adaptor for the Lexcom cabling which is a reasonable solution but still much dearer than 20m of RG6. Bottom line is as there was no RG6 to the lounge he could not site the Sat/Sky STB there so was limited to RF distribution of central Sky boxs only, not a good look on a big TV. After 10hrs of my time, several holes cut in the gib and then having to repair that I got two RG6 runs from the home distributor to the lounge and two to the family room.

DONT rely on Cat5/6/7 alone it will not be adequate for LBand feeds!, also Lexcom provide a very high gain amplifier for V/UHF feeds via baluns, this may not do your DTT signals much good, so once again use RG6. Also avoid Lexcom, its overpriced rubbish, IMHO.

Cyril

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CYaBro

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#176787 8-Nov-2008 08:27

Yea, I have seen a few Lexcom installs and wouldn't touch it either.
Thanks for the info guys. I will be running RG6 to the TV points.
This is a big house and some of the runs are going to be 30-35M probably, with the shortest about 10M.

One other question, when using CAT5e baluns (composite, HDMI etc), does the CAT5e cable have to be one length or will it be OK using RJ45 sockets at each end with short patch leads to the baluns?

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cyril7

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#176788 8-Nov-2008 08:36

One other question, when using CAT5e baluns (composite, HDMI etc), does the CAT5e cable have to be one length or will it be OK using RJ45 sockets at each end with short patch leads to the baluns?

Hi, I recommend for full flexibility as structured cabling (ala AS/NZ3080) provides that all cable runs terminate on patchfields and TO (wallplates) and patch cords at each end connect devices such as baluns, this is how they are intended to be used. You can get 300mm patch cords, although many video baluns (well the component/spdif ones on my desk) have short (100mm) RCA leads on them so can be placed directly behind the gear with a patch cord to take it to the TO.

Cyril

kevthesparky

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#176793 8-Nov-2008 10:06

lexcom is poo.

I was talking with another sparkie who had been requested to use it in a spec home and when I told him it wouldnt handle sat bands he told me I was wrong that the pdl rep had said otherwise. It must have been the house you went to cyril lol.

If I could make a suggestion that when you make off the patch panel that you use coloured patch leads to identify the ports use. When I make off a board I use Green for Phone, Red for IR, Blue for Data. I find that it helps the end user to understand how there system operates and that they are more likely to effectively configure there system with success.

sbiddle

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#176794 8-Nov-2008 10:15

Do the AS/NZ specs for structured cabling give any suggested colours for patch cable colours?

CYaBro

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#176802 8-Nov-2008 10:56

I thought the whole point of a structured cabling system was so that any port could be configured to be any type of outlet - phone, data, iR etc.
What would be the point of using coloured cabling when a ports configuration could be changed to something else?

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CYaBro

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#176803 8-Nov-2008 11:00

cyril7:

You can get 300mm patch cords, although many video baluns (well the component/spdif ones on my desk) have short (100mm) RCA leads on them so can be placed directly behind the gear with a patch cord to take it to the TO.

Cyril

That's another thing I was wondering about the component/spdif baluns, how do you use one of those to connect to a TV? I haven't seen a TV with spdif inputs before. My understanding is that you would need to use two baluns and two CAT5 cables to get component video plus left & right audio from a source to a TV.

Where do you get the baluns from that have the short cables already attached?

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cyril7

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#176807 8-Nov-2008 11:38

Structured cabling as per 3080 specifies that cabling from the floor distributor (patchpanel) to the TO (Telecom outlet) is not service specific, ie can be patched to phone, data or other service at will and is not "prewired", thus colour coding jacks is not what you should do. You should however use coloured patch leads at the patch field to indicate what service is being patched. I dont think there is a spec for that, but I normally use blue for data, black for phone and white for AV services.

The lattest baluns I got off ebay, but these particular ones I am not too happy with, but the price was good ($70US/pair) for component plus spdif. There are all types of implementations, but the better ones do have RCA females on the body of the balun box, some have short leads.

Cyril

kevthesparky

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#176817 8-Nov-2008 12:40

CYaBro: I thought the whole point of a structured cabling system was so that any port could be configured to be any type of outlet - phone, data, iR etc.
What would be the point of using coloured cabling when a ports configuration could be changed to something else?

The port can be used and changed as required the idea of using coloured patch leads is for ease of identification of what that port is operating as at the time. I find that clients pick up how there system operates and how easy it is to reconfigure by using these colour coded patch leads. If yiou are working on a sizable system it can be a pain if the whole thing is all one colour.

Cyril - I like the idea of white for AV I have not yet had the chance to do a house with av over cat5, cheers for sharing I was going to use the fluro pink have you seen that stuff, lol

cyril7

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#176826 8-Nov-2008 13:36

Hi Kev, clipsal CBus uses fluro pink cat5 for its cabling, if you go to Corys Tory St or Rexel Guznee you will see boxs of patch leads in virtually any colour you fancy.

Personally I still prefer the idea of placing DVB boxs (Sky or FreeView) at the site of viewing so the last leg (component or HDMI) is as short as possible and give full automomy for channel selection, so you need an RG6 to do that. Feeding baseband video (composite/SVid/Component) or HDMI over structured cabling is ok to a limited use, but in genernal I prefer to use structured cabling for coded systems (ie TCP/IP etc) that give an isolation from any propogation issues that cabling may have,

ie I still wait for the day when all TVs fitted with mpeg decoders (ie iDTVs) also have a ethernet port that can let the decoder also operate as a media client, and Skys HDI STBs can operate as media servers. I understand that the lattest top of the line panasonic iDTVs in the US are fitted with ATSC decoders that also support media client over ethernet, in reality this is a simple step for any DVB decoder, infact most if not all DVB single chip solutions have had MII ethernet support for years now, just hardly no one uses it.

Cyril