New House - Cable Questions

8ofSpades

Hi

I'm currently in the process of acquiring a property
The good news is the floors are not down yet and I have the opportunity to lay whatever cable I need in the next few weeks

There are 2 sitting rooms seperated by a hall in between.
Both sitting rooms will eventually have laminate flooring and the hall will be tiled. The Hall is about 3 metres wide.

What I plan on doing is having a TV in each room with their own Sky+ boxes eventually.

So my question is what cables should I run through from sitting room 1 ro sitting room 2 in order for this to be possible. Is it better to run the cables under the floor instead of 2 feeds from the satelite dish. Or do I even need 2 feeds from the satellite dish for this to be possible?

I have read some other threads and seen cat5 cables would be the way to go. Is this the case

Please give me as much advice as possible and it would be much appreciated

If you need more info then please let me know.

crosstownk

You'll need 2 feeds from the dish to each Sky box if you intend to use Sky+

It might not be a bad idea to run Cat5 around the house.

Don't forget to run the cables for your surround sound too and any other audio cable you may require.

eddiem74

Does the property not have any wiring already in place for TV/Satellite ?

Has electricial work already been completed ? Are the walls already plastered ?

Sleipnir

Definately run some CAT5 around the house if you can. Most H.E. appliances now come with an Ethernet port. The one on the Sky box is not in use, yet. My T.V. has one, as does my blu-ray and xbox.

You can also run T.V. signals through it although I haven't tried it myself. Niles Audio have stuff that does it.

If you can't run cables around the walls and the floor is concrete, you may need to cut channels in it.

Also, don't forget speaker cable for surround sound.

p15574

I'm not an expert on this, but I would suggest the following to each room, leading back to a central point:
a) 2, 3 or 4 satellite quality coax (eg CT-100, is it?). With 2 you could have the 2 sat feeds required for a Sky+ or Humax box. You could send an analogue signal down one of those, but it might be easier having a third cable dedicated for it. The fourth one I would suggest as a 'return' cable if you wanted an rf-out from a Sky+ box to feed elsewhere.
b) 2 or 4 cat5e or cat6, as more and more machines get ethernet ports. I think perhaps 4, because you could have, say, a need for a connection for a tv, satellite box, computer and popcornhour (for example), thus requiring 4 connections. You might just get 4 to the main location, with 2 to the other one.

c) Seeing as you have the opportunity, possibly no harm to get a couple of cat5s to the hall too - you never know what you might need in the future. Even if it's only used for a phone.

To the central point I'd run 4 coax to the satellite dish. You'd also want to get a phone line to here, which you could then pipe around the cat5 lines, or if you have DSL you'd want your router here and connect the cat5s to it. If you have UPC you would want it to terminate here so you could pipe to the other rooms. You may also want to put a coax from here to the roof or attic for, perhaps, an aerial to receive DTT in the future.

8ofSpades

Thanks for all the advice guys, still reviewing it to make sure i understand it all

Yeah the house is finished, plastered and all.
Only thing that isnt down are all the fllors downstairs so I have an opportunity to send any cabling i need around the downstairs area.
Cant get anything upstairs really.
There are a few TV points around the house.
Is it possible to use these if i wanted to see th same sky channel from the sky box downstairs say or is this just a coax

Have the audio cable and am going to wire both rooms for 7.1

like i say, i'm a newbie so open to any/all suggestions

Dr. Nick

Interested in this too, but for a new-build (we're at roof stage, still talking to sparks for job)
They're saying run cables back to a central hub, which is fine, but just exactly what should I run back and how many??

I'll want sky+ hd in one room, multi-room and one hd fta box. Can control all these through magiceyes? What about central audio from here, how would I control this remotely (assuming I wire speakers)

It's all a little confusing for someone who knows a little but not a lot!