New house: Electrical wiring plan - help

funkey_monkey

Hi, we are building a new house and I was wondering if I could get any punters as to what wiring I need for my home.

I have a study room planned - do I need to consider having a cat 6 wiring plan for the house?

What is the best way set up the TV points for the new tvs? do I need an Internet point for each of them or can I run my house on wireless?

We are organised not considering anything beyond what a normal house would have in terms of needs or wants.

Although I would like to put in surround sound into one of the rooms. Is that necessary now or are sound bars sufficient for most needs?

Thanks.

akaSol

funkey_monkey wrote: »

Hi, we are building a new house and I was wondering if I could get any punters as to what wiring I need for my home.

I have a study room planned - do I need to consider having a cat 6 wiring plan for the house?

What is the best way set up the TV points for the new tvs? do I need an Internet point for each of them or can I run my house on wireless?

We are organised not considering anything beyond what a normal house would have in terms of needs or wants.

Although I would like to put in surround sound into one of the rooms. Is that necessary now or are sound bars sufficient for most needs?

Thanks.

As with all "big" questions, only one answer can be given : "How long is a length of string"

The questions that you need to ask / answer are:
Q1. Will every room have a TV?

Q2. Will I be playing local content (room per room) or will I be taking the info from a server?

Q3. Do I want music in the house Q3b. Do I want to perhaps feed the TV to it?

Q4. Do I want a cinema sound ( helicopters rushing around me realistically) or just a fuller sound from the TV (also links To Q3b)

Q5. From a wireless standpoint, what type of insulation are you going to use.

-Sol

(Ritz, think we might need a new sticky)

funkey_monkey

1. Maing living room, lounge, possibly study and I'd like the option in the bedrooms.

2. Nothing the complex I'd think. Probably taking feeds from internet TV and/or satellite. Bedrooms possibly similar - maybe more biased towards an internet setup. It is for parents, but it will be left for me. I'm not sure as to what I want. I have a number of movies held on an old desktop, but like the idea of accessing it from TV if not a big job to setup.

3. Any music we listen to is normally just a radio feed through the satellite. I would like the option of accessing music held on a server located in the study, but this is only a far out wish - could it be done wirelessly or do I need a wired steup for this?

4. In the main lounge room (where I'll be putting the new TV) I'd like surround sound but I'm not sure if a wireless setup would suffice. I'm not sure if going for a wired setup at this stage is worthwhile - although now is the time to put it in if it is the thing to do.

5. Internal walls are all block construction. External to have 350mm pumped cavity.


Are we nearly at the stage whereby a lot of this stuff can be done wirelessly or via home plug setup?

akaSol

1. OK so RF cable and a minimum of two network points behind every potential TV point

2.You have a two fold option here. Sat box in every room under the tvs or in a central location. One in every room is handy but can be unsightly. Central location is neater but means that you need to get to the source if something hiccups. Most modern tvs can read video files, all you will need is a network hard drive so they all can access the movies.

3. Again a network hard drive will aid you in this, with the use of network enabled speakers you can stream audio files to them or have ceiling speakers wired to a wifi amplifier.

4. Wireless works very well actually, all you need is wifi and a power supply. It's limitations are high definition audio. It's probably a good time to pre wire for 5.1/7.1/11.1 again you have the option to wire locally or in a central location.

5. That's fine, foil back insulation plays havoc with wifi.

Home plugs and wireless streaming is OK for lightweight stuff but nothing beats straight cable.

funkey_monkey

We're having a discussion in regards to where to place the stoves and tvs.

In general is it better to have tvs in center of wall or in the corner? I know there are issues with viewing angles on the tvs. I'm trying to think of a house I've been in where the TV was not in the corner angled out into the room. Might give me my answer!

Is there a general consensus on the minimum viewing angle to have for modern tvs - it seems to vary by brand. Is the angle getting wider or shallower?

akaSol

funkey_monkey wrote: »

We're having a discussion in regards to where to place the stoves and tvs.

In general is it better to have tvs in center of wall or in the corner? I know there are issues with viewing angles on the tvs. I'm trying to think of a house I've been in where the TV was not in the corner angled out into the room. Might give me my answer!

Is there a general consensus on the minimum viewing angle to have for modern tvs - it seems to vary by brand. Is the angle getting wider or shallower?

I've done mixture of both. Ultimately it depends on size of room etc. I feel "background" tv's can "shoved" anywhere you feel ( or have the room ). Principle tvs need to be placed centre focus ie main room - middle of all viewing angles.
But again this is subject to room dimensions, given its a fresh build there's nothing to stop you from wiring two + tv points per room and only using one.

Oh in previous post I forget to me mention the most important thing in wiring :
CONDUIT!
Don't place any cable inside raw plaster. It's a fial safe encase a cable breaks, this also includes all network and stereo /surrounded speaker cables

funkey_monkey

Okay things have progressed. There will be CAT6 throughout the house. Each TV location will have 2 TV inputs, double socket and CAT6 socket.

The electrican is talking aobut having the set-top boxes located in a cupboard away from the TV rooms. Apparently this is how it is all done now. How does the Sky system fit in with this? I'm not sure as to how we could control the system without a magic eye etc and Sky multi-room.

The additional rooms will have CAT6, 2x TV points and double scoket too. However, the chat was that instead of going through Sky they would get Freesat directly from the dish.

Any comments on this setup and/or suggestions for improving before we commence the tracking?


Thanks.

akaSol

If you are running two TV points then you would be better off with the boxes in each room not remotely (as it's only SD via RF unless you are using saoirvew)

If you are looking to use Hdmi balums (Hdmi to cat) from a remote location having two RF's is a waste of time and effort
Edit : Should have said some Hdmi to cat have IR extenders built-in

funkey_monkey

Hi,

I should have added the caveat that we are in 'the occupied counties'. Our main rooms will in all likelihood have Sky installed. The bedrooms to be Freeview/Freesat.

funkey_monkey

Apologies for dragging up an old thread, but we have completed the installation and the electrician has installed 2 x satellite connections (F-connectors), phone point and 1 network connection at each TV point.

My understanding now is that we have messed up the installation by putting in 2 satellite cables and only one network point. However, the faceplate could only take 4 inputs. So that is what he installed.

We intend to get Sky into the main room and Freesat elsewhere. All cabling goes back to a centralised distribution point in a cupboard.

In order to install the system, I've asked around in a Sky forum and obtained the following reply (Click here for thread)

Upgrade the HD contract to Q, with a 2TB main box and at least one Mini. If you are a longstanding Sky subscriber you may qualify for a significant discount on the up-front cost of this hardware combination.

Specify a 'hybrid' Q LNB as part of the contract (tell them you have existing FreeSat hardware)

Have six co-ax wires put in from the dish location to your cupboard (these need to be in place before Sky arrive, and please remember to label them).

Join one pair of co-ax from the dish via F-coupler to the pair going to your chosen UHD TV location. Next to this TV will be where the main Q box is installed by the Sky engineer (don't show them the cupboard, as it will only scare them ; )

Have them connect the other four dish feeds to the Hybrid LNB: those become your FreeSat sources, for straight-through F-coupler via co-ax to up to 4 rooms initially.

Have one Q Mini (or more) installed on other TV(s) : these could use your ethernet, as long as there's a data switch in that cupboard, and can be moved from TV to TV for full Q access (apart from UHD)

Remember that your central data switch also needs an ethernet link from your router.

At least this way your Q installation would count as a 'standard' one which the engineer shouldn't refuse to attempt, but you'd retain the option of investigating distribution systems (for more than one UHD-fed TV, for example) in the future, and you'd get some use from your co-ax investment.

Is this the best resolution for this installation?

As we want the Irish stations in both living rooms, an alternative implementation is to put Sky into the main room, Freesat + SaorSat into the other living room and then just freesat to the bedrooms.
Could Saorsat be potentially sent to the bedrooms to utilise the spare satellite receiver?

How do these connectors allow me to work with 4K?

akaSol

To my knowledge 4k is not available on free view. UHD sat content is available from the Q box (content changes from channel to channel, sports fixtures etc) is well as on demand movies in 4K.
However I did read a thread from Boards sky forums that they no longer provide the hybrid LMB to facilitate freesat, so be careful. (link)
And yes a saoir/sat box in every room is the easiest option.

The Ritz

Is this the best resolution for this installation?

On this topic I’d trust the advice you’ve received from the Sat forum, they have the expertise in specialized sat installations. If you are unclear about any aspect of the advice you quoted in your post above, you should seek clarification on the thread in the Sat forums, I wouldn’t like to see you get conflicting opinion/advice from two different sources on Boards. The Sat forum is where the expertise is, if I was in your position I would be taking their advice, if I was uncertain or unfamiliar with the practicalities of their advice, then I would get a Sat installation specialist to do it rather than endure an ineffective attempt myself.

Hope that helps,

Ritz.

funkey_monkey

Okay - it was a Sky Satellite forum, but I'll repost on the Satellite forum here.