Sky/NTL Ct100 cable distribution/

Calibos

I'd a hard time trying to come up with an appropriate thread title so forgive me if my question isn't what you thought from reading the thread title. Rest assured though that despite mentions of NTL, it is primarily Sky related

Might as well give you full back story.

House currently being gutted and renovated. House had NTL. Bray was lucky to get Cable TV over 30 years ago but this is a disadvantage for some areas where the cable is this old. Means no Digital NTL nevermind Internet or HD. However when we plugged in our NTL Digital boxes from previous house we found they worked and signal strength was acceptable (33) despite what NTL's systems said. Because we already had these boxes from our previous house NTL allowed the subscription to continue. Would not sanction NTLHD upgrade however.

Now even if NTLHD was available in the Bray area when they upgrade the Bray cable system, as long as they don't have the Sky Channels we would still prefer SkyHD via Satellite. However, in the future NTL may indeed ugrade the Bray area and may eventually get hold of the SkyHD channel lineup. Not likely in the short to medium term but could happen in the future.

The thing is, is that once this renovation work is done on the house. Thats it. The powers that be will not countenance any drilling or new cable runs or trunking etc ie. if we decided to switch TV providers from Sky back to NTL sometime in the future, it ain't going to happen if it means new cables being run down outside walls and drilled through etc

So, I want to wire the house in such a way that a switch of providers would be easy.

EXTERNAL

So first question. Is Sat cable and NTL cable the same type of CT100 coax?
In the future, could the cables from the Sat LNB be disconnected and connected to the NTL Box under the eaves of the roof?
The Satellite dish will be on a gable wall literally a few feet away around the corner from where the NTL box resides under the eaves at the side of the house. The cables from the DISH/NTL will run down the corner of the wall into an interior corner of the house where all the services reside (Fuse box, Cat5 Ethernet Network gear etc) and from there distributed around the house.

In other words if it were possible to just swap cables from the LNB to the NTL Box there would be no external visual change to cabling etc despite switching providers.

INTERNAL

The electrician who is wiring the house could not understand why I didn't want to share Sky boxes either by a distribution system or by HDMI splitters from boxes downstairs to the rooms above that need a TV feed.

The reason is this. After learning household TV habits in previous houses and learning TV habits in this current house where we lived for a year before moving out again once the renovations started, we found that the TV habits of the people generally using the room below always conflicted with those in the room directly above. In otherwords, sharing a box between the two was impractical. If one were to share boxes between rooms on the groundfloor and on the first floor it would have to be groundfloor front room sharing with firstfloor back bedroom and groundfloor back room with firstfloor front bedroom etc. This would mean HDMI cable runs from the boxes downstairs sharing with upstairs would be 25-30m + at least. HDMI is not designed to work over these kind of distances. One would need to get into HDMI over CAT5 Baluns and the cost starts to mount up.

I also investigated having the Skyboxes located in the utility area and feeding them into a 8x HDMI CAT5 matrix switcher which fed the rest of the 8 TV locations in the house. It seemed to me that the initial hardware and infrastructure cost was so great that it would take 5 years of 4x Mulitroom subs(2x HD) before the Matrix system paid for itself and in that 5 years some of us will have moved out and a lot of the functionality of a matrix system would be moot.

I figured the solution that was best involved no sharing of boxes. That the mininum subscription was 2x HD boxes (I know we need an Octo LNB and 2x CT cable runs to the HD rooms) 1 HD box in the Living room. 1 HD box in the Cinema Room. 1 Standard non Sky+ box in the Kitchen and 1 Standard Non Sky+ Box in one of the bedrooms. Cost of subs would be shared and if someone moved out, sub for that room cancelled and box returned etc.

But I also wanted to run CT100 to the other 4 bedrooms incase people changed rooms in the future etc. In other words, I would have runs of CT100 from every room in the house running to the Utility area where the SKY/NTL cable runs come in from outside.

My question is this. I have read that its not necessarily good to have joins in the cables from the LNB to the boxes. But how else can I have the flexibility I want. I would imagine having F-Connectors terminating the SKy/NTL cables from outside within the utility area. F- Connectors terminating all the cable runs coming from the various rooms in the house and that I could just swap which interior runs/rooms were connected to the incoming cables from outside should the need arise to change which room was getting a feed.

Is it really imperitive to have no joins in these cables. Will Sky void the warrenties on the boxes or dish? The last time we had sky years and years ago we had joins in the cables and there was never a problem.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Tony

You can use F connectors and double female F as long as they are in a dry area. As you are using good quality cable the signal loss at the join should not affect the signal unless you have really long runs. I'd also advise that you consult with a satellite specialist to review the cabling as the electrician does not have to make it work when its finished.

Calibos

Tony, thats great news. The joins would indeed be inside the house in a dry area. ie. A utility cupboard with all the other utilities. Great. So thats internal distribution sorted.

In terms of the hypothetical switching of TV providers in the future. It is the same type of cable used for both isn't it. So I could swap them from the LNB over to the NTL Box under the eaves.

I am aware that neither company like touching the others cabling. I ran into this issue at the house we are renting while the renovations are going on. The house had SKy dish and cabling (boxes gone with previous tenents)but we wanted to use NTL for a little while longer. I figured we shouldn't use up SKy new customer deals on the single box install we'd need in the rented house. Better to keep NTL while renting and keep SKy New customer deals for the big multiroom install in the renovated house. NTL would not disconnect LNB cable and connect to their system. Ran their own new cable and drilled new hole in wall for it.

However. Seeing as our electrician will be running cables outside as well as the inside stuff up to the location of a yet to be installed dish and sky techs will just bolt on the dish and connect the cables, well then the cables are kinda ours and we can tell NTL in the future that they are ours and they have our permission to disconnect them from the LNB and connect them up to the NTL box instead.

Or is there some rule where Sky will only sanction an install where they themselves run the cabling from outside indoors?

Tony

The sky installer will actually be quite pleased as they have less work to do. As long as the cable is the right spec for the highest frequency you are using ie Sky tv then it will work no problem with a lower freq ie NTL . If you can run 5 cables from the dish to the distribution point and put in a mains electricity supply and common earth wire to the same point, that way in the future you have flexibilty to add multiswitches etc if needs arise.

homelink

A more flexible option may be the use of a multi -switch for distributing the satellite signal. This would involve using a Quattro LNB instead of the standard quad/octo.There is a multi switch that doesn't require power(powered by digibox) although earthing the switch would be advised.This switch will give you 8 outputs for satellite at the distribution hub which you could easily connect to as required. You would require 4 feeds from the dish to the utility room and as long as the NTL supply cable was routed to the utility room also you could switch suppliers at any time. If you run 2 ct 100s to each room you can have all the flexibility you need. However you would need to get an independent contractor to install this system as it would not be a standard sky install.

Calibos

What are the advantages of the distribution box lads and why is it more flexible.

Forgetting about any possible future switching of TV providers for the moment. Its highly unlikely in the medium term. Its also highly unlikely that anyone else will want to add another mirror to the 4 STB's we definately know we want now. If anything the number of mirror STB's in the house will reduce as people move out in the next few years. Its also unlikely that those remaining will want to change to other bedrooms as they become available and bring their STB with them. The whole Provider switching and STB room moving scenario is unlikely. Its just I thought better to cover all the bases and keep all options open while the place is a shell.

Is there any real advantage to me in purchasing extra distribution hardware. What does it mean? That I could flick a switch to divert a feed from the LNB from one room to another? Is it not just as easy for me to unscrew F-Connector terminated cables. I unscrew the cable from room A and reconnect the LNB cable to the cable for room B.

Does the Distribution box mean I could have NTL and Sky cables coming from outside connected to the distribution box concurrently and switch between them? Again I wonder why I would invest in hardware to do that. It would mean having to provision for 2 separate sets of cables coming in from outside. 6 for sky and at least 4 from NTL. Why bother when I can just swap the cables from the LNB to the NTL box if I change providers. Even if I provisioned cables for both on the outside I'd still need to call NTL out to climb up a ladder. Its not like I could tell them, hey I flicked the distribution switch, activate my sub. When I cancel NTL when we move back in and get SKy, NTL will want the downfeed cables disconnected from their box under the eaves anyway. SO if they had to send someone out to reconnect them, then its no harder to only have the one set of cables outside and tell the NTL guy up the ladder to disconnect the cables from the LNB and use them.

Perhaps I haven't thought it all through properly but you are going to have to explain what you mean by a distribution box being a more flexible solution.

Thanks again for your input lads.

homelink

A multi switch (or switches) allows for all of your rooms to connected to the satellite at the same time without the need for switching around cables and also reduces the cables coming in to the hub from outside to 4 for satellite & 1 for ntl. (if wanted).

Tony

A mutiswitch will also carry a terrestrial signal such as RTE you use a diplexer or diplexed wallplate to separate the signals at the tv end. If it is set up correctly it will give you great flexibility.

Calibos

I'm back again to this subject after a few weeks dealing with other stuff to do with the build and the sparks needs my final spec soon.Can't say that I understood fully what you guys were talking about with Multiswitches and diplexors etc or the implications thereof. Talk of 4 outputs from the Sat dish had me thinking that perhaps you guys didn't understand that I really needed at least 2 Feeds for 2 HD boxes PLUS another 6 or 7 feeds for SD stb locations etc etc Of course this misunderstanding was because I didn't now what a quattro LNB was and how it differed from a Quad or Octo. In otherwords a lot of what you were saying was over my head at the time and it all sounded very complex....and expensive.

In the interim since my last post I have read a bit more both here and elsewhere and think I have a better handle on what you guys were talking about. So can I clarify a few things and ask a few more questions? A quattro LNB has a dedicated output for each polarity. These 4 LNB outputs can then be split with a multiswitch to feed as many TV points as I need. This is unlike a quad or Octo LNB where each output on the LNB can only feed one TV point. Am I correct in saying that I could infact run 2 CT100 to every room opening up the possibility of any room having a HD or Sky+ box if I so desired. In that case I would have 8 rooms with 2 CT100 runs each totalling 16 and that I could feed them all with just the 4 outputs of a quattro LNB via a multiswitch? Am I missing some equipment in the chain. Did I read something about stackers??

That would give me the STB location flexibility I need. I've only recently heard about the wholehome multiroom offer where its a flatrate 15euro for up to 8 stbs for the firwst 12 months and also the HD box without sub offers. We'd be looking at 2 HD boxes, maybe 3 with 2 HD subs and another 3 or 4 SD boxes. After the 12 months we'd probably cancel the subs on 2 of the boxes and just use them as FTA boxes. It also seems that the moving boxes around thing was not as pie in the sky as I thought. Turns out 2 people someone already want to swap bedrooms after the third moves out in the next year or 3. It was when I thought about some of the boxes reverting to FTA after a year and the lack of the Irish channels that the relevance of what you guys where saying about DTT feeds and diplexors became clear to me.

So can I run this by you guys?

Despite the fact that the sparks knows that the network hub,phone cable hub and Leccy hub is imovable from the area downstairs and while I would have thought his life would be easier if the TV cable hub was there too, he really seemed to be trying to steer me towards the cables from the sat dish going directly from high up on the gable wall directly to the rooms rather than running all the cables down to the Hub area and THEN off to the rooms. Maybe he knows something I don't.

With that in mind. See attached image. I could run the cables from the dish in under the eaves into the eave storage space in the cinema room. Locate the multiswitch here. There will be power in this area because there will be mains points powering a Home Cinema gear rack recessed into the wall in the enclosed eave space. The NTL box is litterally 1 ft away on the outside wall. Should I want to go back to NTL. I just get him to push a single cable in the same hole the Sat cables would be coming in under the eaves and this single cable would plug into the multiswitch feeding all the rooms. No worry about NTL tech not wanting to touch or re-use LNB cables like I was talking about in the first post. Sat cables remain connected for FTA. While I would have to pay mirror subs to NTL I wouldn't have to pay that poxy 3 euro rental charge for multiple drops. I'd just have to pay for one 'drop' from their eaves box.

In the event I get rid of Sky and gave up on NTL too I would have FTA on all the STB's via the sat feeds into the multiswitch but would be without the Irish Channels. I know this isn't your area guys but did I hear that you can install ariels inside your attic? It doesn't need to be a mast outside on the roof? In that case should I get the sparks to run a single CT100 cable from the mulitiswitch in the cinema room eave space over to the attic space at the front of the house where an attic ariel could be accomodated.

Does that sound alright? Its only if I ever ditched all the other services that I would fit an ariel to the DTT CT100 cable I provisioned now and purchase some diplexors to the TV points to split the FTA sat signals and DTT

So what do I need to order now. Have you recommendations for specific models of Multiswitch(what about stackers?) How much are they. How much is a quattro LNB?

Thanks once again for your help and appologies for asking you to wade through that lot above

Calibos

Is this the kind of architecture we are talking about?

Rippy

Calibos wrote: »

Is this the kind of architecture we are talking about?

That's perfect. Don't forget cable from NTL tap to multiswitch and also phone cable (or cat5e ) back to hub from each tv point. Triax (and others) do diplexed outlet plates incorporating 2xsat, 1xUHF terr, 1 X VHF and return (if needed)

Calibos

Should I just get the sparks to run a single cable to the NTL box out under the eaves of the house but not connected. If its connected wont NTL charge me even though I will be with sky unless I ever decided to change back to NTL.

Do I still get the 5-16 multiswitch (4xfeeds for Quattro dish 1x Terrestrial) or is there another Multiswitch with 6 inputs.(4xfeeds for Quattro,1 x NTL,1x Terrestrial). Cause even if I went back to NTL, given they are even more expensive than Sky for Multiroom, I'd probably only want 4 STB's max and in the other 4 rooms would use the ex sky boxes as FTA boxs in conjunction with the Terrestrial. Thus I couldn't disconnect a feed from the quattro dish from the multiswitch to make way for the NTL feed.

Also, what about signal amplifiers for a future ariel in the attic. Do I have to provide mains power up to the front attic for an amplifier or can you get multiswitches with amplifiers built in?