New house build : Need advice on making it wired for Music, Video, Data..

Ba$tard

Hi folks

We are building at the moment and are near finished floor level and the time is now to figure out what I need to look at for the latest and greatest (within costs!) technology/wiring, etc for a house with the following;

Phone and Networking: Ethernet (presume Cat 6e) cable for both ?

Music: I dont expect distributed sound or anything, but maybe some sort of spread music between say two rooms, with control to turn it off in either room.

Video: I was looking at the concept of some sort of video matrix, not much clue here, but prehaps the ability to send TV signal from say two sources around the house?

Anything else?
Would someone have a decent website/magazine, etc I could start looking?

Thanks
James

Buford T Justice

Hi James

First things first.

Decide where you want to locate all the gear, video players, switchers etc.... as this will be the focal point of where everything will be located back to.

Phone and Networking:
Anywhere you think you could ever possibly want a datapoint in the future, run a cable to it. Its cheap, and it'll save grief in the long run when you think I wish I had put that there before. I'd recommend running one to the TV point, and any other electronic gear. You might never use it, but if you went with an integrated automatic system like AMX or Crestron in the future, it will be useful for controlling the TV and so on.

Music:
Pre-wire your sitting room with speaker for surround sound. IF you're going doing this much, its worth the effort.
If you want to pipe music around the house (ceiling speakers perhaps) then run cables to each location to the equiptment room, this will allow you to control the volume to each room indepenently. Also, its worth deciding what sort of signal you are going to use.

If you are using the standard left right format, then be mindful of the fact that there would always be one left and one right speaker. If you use 100V line, Then this would be different. You will need to ensure that the speakers have transformers for 100V line, and that they are wired in a combination of series and paralell to ensure that the overall impedence of the speakers matches the amplifier.

Video:
This depends on what you want to send and in what format. For normal video signal, I would use RG6 Co-ax. Run two to each location, just to be safe.

If you wanted to do Computer Signal or HD, then you would need some converters, and run it via RGBHV, Which would be 5 RG6 Cables.

tbh, I could go on all day about the possibilities. It would be easier if you told us what you wanted in each room, video, data and audio wise. We could then suggest the gear that you can use in each place, amp's switchers, etc....

Some links

High End Automation:
www.crestron.com
www.amx.com

Parts, Cables & pretty much everything you could need
Radionics
Peats Wholesale

Between Peats and Radionics, they would have 99% of what you would need.