Sky/FTA in new build_Cabling Requirements

dfcelt

Currently doing 1st fix electrics and wondering if anyone can answer this based on their experiences.

I want to have main sitting room & main bedroom as the main sky receivers plus all other rooms to either have sky feeds or fta satellite. Installer currently has 2 Cat5 cables to each tv point running up to attic, additional cat5 in sitting room & main bedroom.
Std tv cable also ran in to each location.

Can I run FTA satellite from dish into attic to a "hub" of some description & that will give me FTA to relevant rooms?
Should I put to FTA dishes up to seperate feeds to ensure decent quality (dont want a load of dishes on gable wall)?
Would sky multiroom be a better option?

Any advice appreciated, had a quick search but I could find nothing definitive.
I have electrician asking his mates too.

bk

It depends on what you want.

Yes you can have Sky or Freesat coming into the attic and then distributed to all the rooms.

You'll only need one Sky/Freesat dish, but with either a quad (4 feeds) or octo (8 feeds) LNB on it.

You'll want 2 to 4 coax cables going from the attic to the living room TV position and 1 or 2 coax cables from the attic to each other room.

2 to 4 : 2 for Sky + or Freesat +, 1 for aerial and one for RF out from the Sky box to the rest of the rooms.

1 to 2 : 1 for basic freesat and one for aerial.

p15574

...although you could send the aerial feed down the same coax as the satellite by joining/splitting. As it's a completely new build, though, you may aswell have a separate cable.

If your attic is the central point, you should ensure you have power points up there if any are needed. For example, a signal booster for the aerial, or switch / router for your cat5. You might also want to consider the fire risks too.

You might want more than 2 cat5 in the main tv point - just say you wanted all the following online:
- TV (new models have ethernet ports)
- satellite receiver (will soon be using their ethernet ports)
- PopcornHour or similar networked media device
- Computer connected to tv
- XBox 360
- Wii
- Playstation 3

Might a bit of entertainment overkill, but that's 7 separate devices that would each need an ethernet connection. Obviously you could switch around as required, but it might be better getting, say, 6 ports put in from the start.

Also, make damn sure you position them in the right place! I made this mistake and ended up with a load of plug, aerial and cat5 sockets visible, and loads of wires going here and there from them. As much as possible, try to know what equipment you'll be putting in and bury the cables in the walls - even better, put some sort of ducting in so you can add/remove cables at will.

slegs

p15574 wrote: »

...although you could send the aerial feed down the same coax as the satellite by joining/splitting. As it's a completely new build, though, you may aswell have a separate cable.

If your attic is the central point, you should ensure you have power points up there if any are needed. For example, a signal booster for the aerial, or switch / router for your cat5. You might also want to consider the fire risks too.

You might want more than 2 cat5 in the main tv point - just say you wanted all the following online:
- TV (new models have ethernet ports)
- satellite receiver (will soon be using their ethernet ports)
- PopcornHour or similar networked media device
- Computer connected to tv
- XBox 360
- Wii
- Playstation 3

Might a bit of entertainment overkill, but that's 7 separate devices that would each need an ethernet connection. Obviously you could switch around as required, but it might be better getting, say, 6 ports put in from the start.

Also, make damn sure you position them in the right place! I made this mistake and ended up with a load of plug, aerial and cat5 sockets visible, and loads of wires going here and there from them. As much as possible, try to know what equipment you'll be putting in and bury the cables in the walls - even better, put some sort of ducting in so you can add/remove cables at will.

You only need one cat5 point to each location. You can always add a small ethernet switch/hub to your AV unit to cover all the devices listed above.

p15574

slegs wrote: »

You only need one cat5 point to each location. You can always add a small ethernet switch/hub to your AV unit to cover all the devices listed above.

I know, but then you've got ANOTHER box and ANOTHER powerpoint required, plus you've decentralised control of your network and patching.

ei9go

This is the correct way to do it in a new build .

Note that a quattro lnb is a different thing from a quad lnb.

bk

slegs wrote: »

You only need one cat5 point to each location. You can always add a small ethernet switch/hub to your AV unit to cover all the devices listed above.

You'll want two.

One for ethernet and yes you are correct you can just use a simple cheap switch at the end of it for multiple devices.

But a second to carry a telephone line for Sky multiroom.

Strictly speaking you can run both a 100MB/s ethernet and a phone line over a single Cat5e cable, but then you lose the ability to upgrade to gigabit ethernet, so better to run separate cables.

No point in running Cat3 phone cable, Cat5 for telephone line gives much greater flexibility.

You could also think about running two additional cat5e cables if you want to do some fancy HDMI over Cat5e cable stuff, very nice if you want to hide all your AV gear away in another room.

Dr. Nick

At the same stage as OP. Just wondering about the quality of the cabling for RF.
I've seen 'regular' RF distribution and the result isn't great TBH, does upgrading the cable make a noticable difference?

tipperary

Hi dfcelt

the system you describe is something similar to what I have done. I have all cables (sat and cat5) run to a patch panel in the utility. The satellite and terrestrial TV feeds from the attic also run to here, from where I can direct the various feeds as required. The phone lines can also be connected to the cat5 so it gives great flexibility in terms of what goes where.

Sponge Bob

Quattro lnb model beats quad for sophistication of distribution . also give yourself more than one point in the main sitting rooms so you can move the room around in future if you wish...eg both sides of the fireplace .

a quattro is used with a gizmo called a multiswitch .

a 5/4 is a quattro+tv aerial=5 out to 4 viewing points .

a 9/12 is 2 quattros pointing at 2 different sats+ tv aerial out to 12 viewing points .

HM Sat has loads of them , Multischalter in German . Very reasonable and cheap delivery .

http://www.hm-sat-shop.de/

Long explanation here skewed to those with Sky boxes

http://www.satellitesuperstore.com/multiswitch.htm

dfcelt

Thanks for all the replies.

Currently have cat5 for telephone + 2 coax (not cat5 as previously stated) to each room.
Sitting Rm & Main bedroom have 4 coax.
All cables are ran to a "hub" in attic. Electrician has spoken to an associate of his & this "will work" he has been told. :rolleyes:

If I go down the freesat route (thanks for diagram ei9go) will an additional coax be required to each room to recieve RTE/TV3 etc off a standard aerial or are these available FTA?
Will coax cable be sufficient for what I am thinking of doing, ie. sky multiroom or freesat?
Forgive my ignorance, electrical items are not my strongpoint

bk

dfcelt wrote: »

Currently have cat5 for telephone + 2 coax (not cat5 as previously stated) to each room.
Sitting Rm & Main bedroom have 4 coax.

2 coax in the living room will be enough for Sky + there, but it won't allow you to get the RF out from the Sky + box back up to the attic for distribution to the other rooms. You would be better off with three coax to the living room.

Again for Freesat, 2 caox can be enough, but you would be better off with three.

You would also be better off in having a second cat5e cable to each room for computer networking.

dfcelt

Cheers bk.

4 coax going to living room at the moment, another 4 to the main bedroom.
Toying with the second cat5's alright.