What would you do with a new build and a large-ish budget?

Chrizfitz

Ok building a house and have a couple of ideas about what I want to do in regards to tv and audio visual in it, I want to do all this now so I don't need to worry about it for some years. The plan is to have at least saorview in most rooms (9 at least) and sat in 3-4 rooms.

I don't want sky as I don't need it in my life.
I do want the most sky-like UI. (for ease of use the other half and family)
I have the tv's sorted and HD is so-so to me.

So here's what I am thinking:
A top of the range combo box for the sitting room and bedroom. (means we can view recorded stuff in both rooms and until the kids are a bit older we won't need "multi-room")
Saorview and Freesat split and amplified around all other bedrooms and offices.(I'm hoping that I can have it so the channels just need to be tuned into the tv with a box for each room)

Am I thinking too small? Or too big?
I have the streaming side of things sorted.
I have a good idea on satellites and the such but I would like your dream setups and things you would do?

Chrizfitz

one bump

homelink

Chrizfitz wrote: »

Ok building a house and have a couple of ideas about what I want to do in regards to tv and audio visual in it, I want to do all this now so I don't need to worry about it for some years. The plan is to have at least saorview in most rooms (9 at least) and sat in 3-4 rooms.

I don't want sky as I don't need it in my life.
I do want the most sky-like UI. (for ease of use the other half and family)
I have the tv's sorted and HD is so-so to me.

So here's what I am thinking:
A top of the range combo box for the sitting room and bedroom. (means we can view recorded stuff in both rooms and until the kids are a bit older we won't need "multi-room")
Saorview and Freesat split and amplified around all other bedrooms and offices.(I'm hoping that I can have it so the channels just need to be tuned into the tv with a box for each room)

Am I thinking too small? Or too big?
I have the streaming side of things sorted.
I have a good idea on satellites and the such but I would like your dream setups and things you would do?

For what it's worth here's what I'd do

Install & dish & aerial for satellite & saorview.
Fit a quattro LNB on the dish (not quad)
Run the 5 supply cables (4 sat & 1 Aerial) to a central location i.e utility room,attic etc.
Install a 5in 16 out powered multi-switch (google it)
Personally I would bring 2 TV cables to each room from your central hub while your building (better to be looking at it than for it).
You will need 2 feeds if you want a dvr set-top box.
I would have a Freesat DVR & Tv's with Saorview tuners in the living room & master bedroom with satellite & saorview combo boxes in the other rooms.
You would need to fit diplexers, (TV/sat combiners, look it up) before the set-top boxes to split the cable for satellite & saorview if you only use 1 feed to the other rooms.

steveon

As above but I would also run a minimum of 1 cat5 cable to each room and possibly more than one to your main room or office if you intend on having one to a central point...you wont regret being future proof..

John mac

homelink wrote: »

For what it's worth here's what I'd do

Install & dish & aerial for satellite & saorview.
Fit a quattro LNB on the dish (not quad)
Run the 5 supply cables (4 sat & 1 Aerial) to a central location i.e utility room,attic etc.
Install a 5in 16 out powered multi-switch (google it)
Personally I would bring 2 TV cables to each room from your central hub while your building (better to be looking at it than for it).
You will need 2 feeds if you want a dvr set-top box.
I would have a Freesat DVR & Tv's with Saorview tuners in the living room & master bedroom with satellite & saorview combo boxes in the other rooms.
You would need to fit diplexers, (TV/sat combiners, look it up) before the set-top boxes to split the cable for satellite & saorview if you only use 1 feed to the other rooms.

and cat5e to all pionts .

Chrizfitz

homelink wrote: »

For what it's worth here's what I'd do

Install & dish & aerial for satellite & saorview.
Fit a quattro LNB on the dish (not quad)
Run the 5 supply cables (4 sat & 1 Aerial) to a central location i.e utility room,attic etc.
Install a 5in 16 out powered multi-switch (google it)
Personally I would bring 2 TV cables to each room from your central hub while your building (better to be looking at it than for it).
You will need 2 feeds if you want a dvr set-top box.
I would have a Freesat DVR & Tv's with Saorview tuners in the living room & master bedroom with satellite & saorview combo boxes in the other rooms.
You would need to fit diplexers, (TV/sat combiners, look it up) before the set-top boxes to split the cable for satellite & saorview if you only use 1 feed to the other rooms.

Thanks for the input, i appreciate it

The Cush

As above but I would run a min of 3 co-ax to each room (1 terr/2 sat) and possibily 4 (1 terr/2 sat/1 spare) to a main room for future proofing, as homelink posted above "better to be looking at it than for it".

Liameter

Also, if your spouse is like most, she'll want to reverse the furniture so you should run a full set of cables to two opposing corners of the main room(s) in readiness.
Connect whichever set is needed to the multiswitch.

Use WF100 because it's available in 6 different colours. saves a lot of confusion when you can't otherwise tell which cable is which. I saw an installation where the cables had been installed and labelled then the electrician went in for "second fix" and cut all cables short, including the labels! It took a lot of work to buzz them and re-label.

Carter P Fly

Id Go TV server,

At least 4 Dual sat cards (8 DVB-S2 tuner)
2 Dual Terrestrial Cards (4 DVB-t2)
DVBlogic TVsource and Connect server or Mediaportal (or both)
A Mini Itx Based media client PC attached to the wall behind all the TV's using Either Windows 7 media center(Dvblogic backend) or Xbmc Eden (Mediaportal backend)


I'm presuming You're going to wire all rooms with Cat6, Double Co-ax and Speakerwire?

Chrizfitz

Carter P Fly wrote: »

Id Go TV server,

At least 4 Dual sat cards (8 DVB-S2 tuner)
2 Dual Terrestrial Cards (4 DVB-t2)
DVBlogic TVsource and Connect server or Mediaportal (or both)
A Mini Itx Based media client PC attached to the wall behind all the TV's using Either Windows 7 media 9Dvblogic backend) canter or Xbmc (Mediaportal backend)


I'm presuming You're going to wire all rooms with Cat6, Double Co-ax and Speakerwire?

Crazy overkill IMO. I will have Cat5, double co-ax and speakerwire. I want a tv system (mostly for my OH and family), I will have an atv (or raspberry pi) with xbmc for my streaming.

Carter P Fly

Yes, but with A TV serve you're not limited to Television on a TV screen. You can watch TV on an Ipod, Android device, Laptop via a web browser and you can also record as much as you like with essentially unlimited storage capacity.

Perhaps half the number of tuners I suggest but its certainly not Overkill for a greenfields build by any stretch of the imagination.

Chrizfitz

Carter P Fly wrote: »

Yes, but with A TV serve you're not limited to Television on a TV screen. You can watch TV on an Ipod, Android device, Laptop via a web browser and you can also record as much as you like with essentially unlimited storage capacity.

Already have it through my NAS. As for recording, The only thing that is going to be recorded on this is soaps. Thanks for the input but its just not what I am after.

basill

I did a similar thing when we got a new house. I ran 4 sat grade coax to each of the main rooms where we wanted tv/av. 2 were for the sky boxes, 1 for a magic eye and another spare to try and future proof. Also we have 4 lots of cat 6 cable to each of the tvs in the lounge and dining room. 2 are taken up with hdmi over cat 6 (sending the hd sky signal across), 1 plugs directly into the back of the tvs for DLNA and access to the Internet via. Another is spare.

Also have various speaker cable for the 7.1 in the lounge which all goes back through the ceiling to the receiver in the hall which I run through the sky and blu ray player.

There are also various cat 5 cables into each room. Some are terminated at surface mounted modules, others left in the wall for use later, others in the ceiling where I have hard wired the Sonos sound system. Decided to hard wire this as personally I hate anything wireless given all he problems it can cause with droppage etc.

One thing to consider is how you will control everything. Our AV system in the lounge which is where I watch sport and movies is controlled by a RF remote. It's a Logitech harmony 900 and was relatively painless to setup. The blasters are all located under our stairs in the hallway and control the sky boxes and all of the AV gear so we have no messy cables on show in any of our rooms. Just wall mounted tvs with a load of cable sitting behind them.

Also think about your home network and how you want to run that. We have a 48 port patch panel upstairs, with a netgear unmanaged switch. Also have a NAS with loads of TB of space and holds all of the music and video that either the Sonos system or the tvs use.

Good luck.

Macy0161

Liameter wrote: »

Also, if your spouse is like most, she'll want to reverse the furniture so you should run a full set of cables to two opposing corners of the main room(s) in readiness.

Yep - I did do this, and both points have been used!

Chrizfitz

basill wrote: »

I did a similar thing when we got a new house. I ran 4 sat grade coax to each of the main rooms where we wanted tv/av. 2 were for the sky boxes, 1 for a magic eye and another spare to try and future proof. Also we have 4 lots of cat 6 cable to each of the tvs in the lounge and dining room. 2 are taken up with hdmi over cat 6 (sending the hd sky signal across), 1 plugs directly into the back of the tvs for DLNA and access to the Internet via. Another is spare.

thanks for your reply. You mention some things I have looked into and some things I havent thought of yet. maybe you could answer some questions about it.
How is hdmi over cat 6? 720p?
DLNA, I am guessing you have sony tv's. What features are you getting with a sony smart tv and what are you getting with DLNA

basill wrote: »

There are also various cat 5 cables into each room. Some are terminated at surface mounted modules, others left in the wall for use later, others in the ceiling where I have hard wired the Sonos sound system. Decided to hard wire this as personally I hate anything wireless given all he problems it can cause with droppage etc.

Agree with the wireless thing. I dunno about a sound system like sonos yet. Will look into it more.

basill wrote: »

One thing to consider is how you will control everything. Our AV system in the lounge which is where I watch sport and movies is controlled by a RF remote. It's a Logitech harmony 900 and was relatively painless to setup. The blasters are all located under our stairs in the hallway and control the sky boxes and all of the AV gear so we have no messy cables on show in any of our rooms. Just wall mounted tvs with a load of cable sitting behind them.

I will definitely be getting something in the line of a harmony. It depends on my final setup. I am guessing you have all appliances going through the one remote. do you need separate blasters for each appliance?

basill wrote: »

Also think about your home network and how you want to run that. We have a 48 port patch panel upstairs, with a netgear unmanaged switch. Also have a NAS with loads of TB of space and holds all of the music and video that either the Sonos system or the tvs use.
Good luck.

Did you do all this yourself? If you got someone in to help/do it for you could you pm me the details and your opinion of their work.

Regards,
chris

basill

It's full 1080p. I used cat 6. I got lucky and brought the extenders for around 50quid a set off eBay. Fingers crossed have had no problems so far. If you look into products made by gefen who are the market leader then your eyes will water with how much money you can spend.

TVs are LG. They have Netcast which is okay and similar to the other manufacturers offerings. Its a nice thing to have but I found the processor pretty slow. For example google maps will take quite a while to load up a page when you zoom in. Those tvs are probably 3 years old now. I see that you can now get full Internet connectivity on tvs now and using something like a Bluetooth keyboard can surf the web. I am sure the technology has come on.

The harmony has a pc interface to set up the remote. You just tell it what model numbers you have and it asks you a fe questions about how you will be using your system and it does the rest for you. Only thing I tweaked was one of the delays. Depending on how you rack your gear 1 blaster might work. It will also depend on where your IR ports are located on the gear you have. I brought some non Logitech blaster cables off eBay and they work fine. They have the one jack at one end and about 3 blasters coming off them at the other. They are the stick on type and better than the ones that came with the remote.

I was lucky and had a friend who was an electrician so he took care of cabling and terminatng. He is a smart guy so came up with suggestions along the way of better ways to be achieving the aim. I spent a few months working out my wish list, then googling and reading loads of faqs on websites like avforums. Also spoke at length to the guys at Richersounds in Belfast where I brought most of the AV gear.

One final suggestion. Run loads and loads of cable, whether it's electrical or data. Leave stuff buried in your walls and map it all out. You will never know when it could come in handy. Eg: rear extension, power to a garden shed/workshop, water features, outside lighting, security cameras using ip etc.

Chrizfitz

basill wrote: »

It's full 1080p.

thanks for all that. I will continue to try and figure out what I really need/want. I thought I had a good plan but know there are better options available. I just need to look into it more.

And anyone else wanting to throw in their 2c. please don't hold back. All comments are appreciated.