Future Proof House Install
 

Hi

I am currently attempting to put together a system into a house which will be future proofed. The house will have 4 rooms with HD TV, and will have wired and wireless broadband in the rooms over the 4 floors.

I would like to know the TV signal cable requirements for Freeview, FreeSAT, SKY HD, Virgin Media and BT Vision. What are types of cable would need to be run for each of these services, and can any of these services share the same cabling?

I understand that Freeview needs its own coaxial cable (CT100?) and Antenna, (or can it share a SKY dish?) SKY and FreeSat use the same coaxial cable (WF100?) and dish, Virgin Media uses a different coaxial cable from a HUB where the signal comes into the house, and i guess BT vision is the same as Virgin?

I'm thinking a 4 way LNB would be required to send the TV signal to each of the 4 rooms?

As far as the Network goes, i guess i will run CAT 6 cable to the rooms that require a wired connection from the Wireless HUB point on the ground floor of the house. To boost wireless signal at the top of the house, i believe i would put a 2nd wireless HUB at the end of one of these cables on the top floor of the house?

Thanks for reading this post, and i appreciate any help.

The future TV installer

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

You should get shielded Cat6e instead, may as well get the best when your rewiring. Virgin Media cabling I think they require use of their own cables should you join, so you might be better off ringing up and seeing if they'll run the cables for you (at a hefty cost I imagine though). BT uses a mixture of ethernet and standard coax so that should be fine with the other two wires.

You might need to use some signal boosters along the way for the terrestrial if your planning on using one aerial to four rooms.

Good luck.

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

If you use satellite to feed TV around your house, then you need one dish and one LNB, but the LNB must have one terminal for every cable run - and remember a set-top box with a PVR function will require two cables. If you're future-proofing, consider an octo-LNB (eight terminals), otherwise a quad might do. I have a quad on my dish with only two terminals in current use. The other two are tightly wound with self-amalgamating tape to keep the weather out and preserve them for future use.

You can have a mix of Sky, FreesatFromSky, Freesat or 'other' satellite receivers attached to the same dish. They all receive the same signals from the same satellites. The only stipulation is one cable, per LNB terminal, per tuner.

If you want to cable up for Freeview, you need one rooftop aerial, ideally with a masthead amplifier (unless you live in a good signal area), with a single cable running down to your loft. Install a distribution amplifier at that point and run separate cables to each room where you want a TV. A Freeview PVR requires only one cable, even though it has multiple tuners inside.

For Virgin Media, installation including all cabling is part of the price you pay when you sign up. There are sometimes reduced price installation deals (or even free ones) to be had. You could cable yourself but all you really need to do, if you want to hide the cable, is put cable trunking runs wherever you want them, plus pull-cords so a future installer can easily get the cable through.

For all of these applications, CT100 is more than adequate. Buy a drum of it and cut lengths as required.

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

One option is to put in the skirting board that can have cable run behind it, and you can remove it as you need.

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

If I was running all the other cables anyway I would drop in a Fibre cable.

Data = 1 Gig
Sat = Fibre LNB available today

When IPTV starts to roll out it would be wise to have a high speed home network not affected by RF interference.

That would be future proof.
100G around the house ;)

Price wise.. cheaper per M than High grade coax/cat6

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

Thanks for all of your replies. I'm starting to get a much better understanding of home installations. :)

The house will be cabled for Virgin Media.

The client wants 7 T.V points. I have had mixed answers on how this should be done.
For a HD TV Virgin system, should i ;
1) run one or two CT100 cables to each screen location? (where a box will be)
2) run the CT100 cable(s) from the Virgin HUB location to each screen location?
3) run the CT100 cable(s) from the HUB to the first screen location, then another CT100 cable(s) to the next screen location, then on to the next screen location and so on?

How many HD TV or Standard TV boxes can you have on at the same time?

I will be leaving a access channel from the roof top to the HUB location for a possible future SKY system as suggested.

Will a Virgin broadband Wireless HUB cover a 4 story house? if not, is it a simple matter of just running a CAT 6 cable from the wireless broadband HUB to another location and pugging another wireless HUB there?

Thanks for your help.

The future TV installer

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

There may be issues with having so many potential outlets for cabl tv around the house. Varying cable lengths cause varying signal levels on the network. If these levels drift outside tolerance tv reception in the house will suffer, or may stop working completely.

When the VM installer comes, he will adjust the levels for the box(es) he installs and will leave it in good working order. However if your customer at some point moves a box to another location in the building there is no guarantee it will work, and VM will charge £99 to come out and make the necessary adjustments should that be the case.

In fact, for this reason it's just possible he may refuse to install at all, with so many trailing cables and so many potential things to go wrong.

We do have installers on here - it would be wise to wait for one of them to post with further advice.

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

I Agree with kstone that fibre is the future, cat6/7 is now.

VM uses RG6 and rg59 coax with solid dielectric, snap n seal connectors.

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

The LNB issue, a quad can feed 4 tuners, either two dual tuners, 4 singles, or any other combination. Not sure if there are sat boxes with more than two tuners.

For a truly extensive setup, you would need a QUATTRO LNB and a multiswitch, which can provide multiple outputs (some switches can also use a quad LNB, signalling it to provide a quattro set of outputs). The common 5x8 (5th input is used to multiplex other stuff in such as UHF TV, FM, DAB) can drive 8 outputs from the 4 inputs

Alternatively, an Octo LNB (and 8 cables from the LNB!) would have enough to provide an average 2 feeds to each room.
The octo tends to be cheaper than the switch, and avoids the losses associated with a switch (if no amplifier included), but needs 8 runs of cable - :eek:

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

Just remember when doing all this work that in reality there is no such thing as future proffing, something today that looks like the future could easilly bee superseeded by something far better in just a years time. My advise when doing all this wireing up is to use some sourt of ducting system that would allow you to "re-pull" the cabling without needing to complaetly undo everything you have done.

This will give you 2 advantages. copleatly change the cable types if something better comes in the future and/or replace any cables that become defective over time.

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

Agreed.. Ducting the house is best bet.
But I struggle to see a day that a single Fibre reaches its limits for in home application.

http://www.ntt.co.jp/news2010/1003e/100325a.html

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

I've actually done most of what the OP requires, retrofit in an old house. Had the cables dragged through cavities.

Sky and Freeview are provided through a 16 port multiswitch and a 80cm dish which has a quattro LNB on it. 4 cables run from the LNB into the multiswitch. A 5th cable from the Freeview aerial also runs into the multiswitch. 16 cables run out of the multiswitch, 2 to each room (allowing for Sky+). Each room has a diplexer to splitout the Freeview and Sky outputs within the wallplate.

I've also run CAT6 to each room and have RJ45 outlets near the TV points, as well as elsewhere in the room. Standard telephones can be run over this with the required adapters. All phone points run back to a Panasonic phone exchange. The phone exchange, the TV multiswitch and the Ethernet switch are all located in one central comms cupboard. External phone lines run into that cupboard as well, as does Virgin Media broadband and cable TV. Therefore all routers are located in the cupboard as well. WiFi is offered by seperate wireless access points situated around the house.

For Virgin Media, I have only provisioned 3 rooms for Cable TV but I could have done more simply by running coaxial to the others from the comms cupboard. All 3 rooms are fed via an appropriate splitter, available from Virgin Media. I've seen larger than 3 way splitters but I am not sure what the box limit (if any) Virgin Media specify. The TV coax, telephone line and seperate broadband coax run to a box outside on the wall of the house which is fed from the road.

Ensure enough RJ45 ethernet sockets are provisioned next to TV points, as well as near appropriate seating areas. Having a phone exchange is nice because it allows for inter-room/floor calling and all phone lines through the house can be run through it. No need to have DECT basetations everywhere plugged in. I prefer it.

I couldn't have run fibre everywhere because of the bend/turn requirements of that. It cannot be bent like coax or CAT6 can be. Turns have to be gradual.

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

Depends on the Fibre cable type.
Newer Singlemode can be taken to a radius if 7.5mm, I'm biased.. but we have now developed cables that you staple to skirting and treat like a normal cable.

The radius of Cat6 and Coax should be greater to attain full potential from cabling.
Cat6 (4x outer diameter, so generally a 24mm bend radius).

The active kit however is too costly at the moment, but it is falling fast.
If I was re-moddeling a high end home, I would consider dropping in cable just to have it covered.

Re: Future Proof House Install
 

Hello guys

I have a slightly different issue...
Planned setup is

80cm round dish with quattro lnb for multiswitch.
I have x 4 quattro wires going into the multiswitch and the final fifth port has teristeral tv.

Outputs are diplexed sat and digital tv.

What I like to do is send virgin media/Cable TV to the multiswitch... Is this possible?

What would be the best method?

Ground floor would have triplexed or diplexed faceplates.

Thank you