Digital TV cabling?

colm_c

My folks are building a new house and are looking to get TV points in all the bedrooms, living room, kitchen etc. And the guy was just going to wire it up using coaxial cable to standard tv points. I thought this was a bit strange considering that Digital TV will be available in the next 5 years and all the cabling will have to be replaced.

Is it the same cabling with different faceplates? or is it a completely different setup?

Any info on this appreciated.

Rippy

No such thing as 'digital' cable or face plates. Though both should be of a good quality for both analogue and digital. I would reccomend CT100 or Wf100 copper on copper cable and screened faceplates. Even better are f connectors terminated onto ends of cable and brought through drilled blank plates. Custom made flyleads required though. These would also be suitable for satellite .
2 or 3 cables to each point as well could be handy.

colm_c

Cool, I think I'll get them to get 2 good quality cables to each point.

Can Sky be put through the same cabling?

DTT may not be an option for a few years for the location of the house!

Rippy

colm_c wrote: »

Cool, I think I'll get them to get 2 good quality cables to each point.

Can Sky be put through the same cabling?

DTT may not be an option for a few years for the location of the house!

Yes, just remember, two cables for sky+ or other twin tuner pvr.

bk

colm_c wrote: »

Cool, I think I'll get them to get 2 good quality cables to each point.

I'd recommend 3 or even 4 at the point where the main TV is.

Sky+ will use two and then most people want a third to take the output of the Sky box and feed it to the other TV's around the house.

The fourth would be if you ever want to use it for an aerial, for the new DTT service or radio. Might be handy in conjunction with FreeSat service. Depends on what the planned setup will be, but remember, it is better and cheaper to over spec now, then to try and put extra cables in later.

Make sure all the cables are running to some central, accessible point, so that you can combine outputs, etc.

If your parents are interested then CAT5e cable for a PC network might also be an idea, remember CAT5e cable can also be used for telephone cable, you should never just run telephone cable, always run CAT5e instead, preferably two CAT5e cables at each point, for maximum flexibility.

colm_c

Only place CAT5e is going is to the main phone/fax line. Everything else will be wireless, including PCs (which is the current setup).

Good suggestion about the extra cables for the main TV point.

L1011

If you're at liberty to put cables where you want, put CAT5 in to more places - current and near-future wireless technologies aren't good enough for video streaming, are prone to interference, etc, etc. I went to wireless and ended up re-wiring the network cabling less than a year later due to speed issues...

weehamster

I have stop advising people how to 'future proof' a house when it comes to cabling. What do you install, Coax, CAT5e,6 or 7, what about optical fiber. You will need them all at some time, but of course that is a bit much to install them all at once.

So instead, I recommend installing good, strong plastic tubing in the walls from the various points around the house straight to the attic, have washing line rope going though it a tired to a piece of wood at either end to stop the rope dissapearing into the pipe.

This means that you can at any time in the future install whatever cable you need to suit whatever system you want, and without the messy need to chase cables through plaster and brick.

If you are planning to build a new house and want to do it properly, I strongly recommend having a comm's room, (like a 'hotpress' except you want it cool with good ventilation). Make sure that it also have pipes heading to the attic. So you open the door, you have a comm's cabinet inside which can be wheeled in and out with ease and everything audio/video ,internet phone etc can be hidden inside with the cables, all out of the way.

ga2re2t

weehamster wrote: »

If you are planning to build a new house and want to do it properly, I strongly recommend having a comm's room, (like a 'hotpress' except you want it cool with good ventilation). Make sure that it also have pipes heading to the attic. So you open the door, you have a comm's cabinet inside which can be wheeled in and out with ease and everything audio/video ,internet phone etc can be hidden inside with the cables, all out of the way.

Here in France a new electrical norm has been introduced called NF C 15-100. All new houses, appartments etc. have to adhere to this norm. One of the new additions to the norm is that all new constructions must install a type of comm's cabinet and all rooms must have minimum of 1 communication socket (type RJ45). Any one know what the current standards are in Ireland for this type of thing?