Home AV distribution equipment

tubosti

Hi All

Hopefully I'm putting this in the right area.
Restoring an old house at the moment and have wired back to central location
3 cat6 and 2 coxial cable and cabling for ceiling speaker in each room with volume control in each room. The runs are too long for hdmi.
I want to be able to watch different sources in each room with sound from roof speakers or the same source in each room.

Whats the best equipment to facilitate this?

Thanks in Advance

bk

Well you can do HDMI over the cat6 cables using HDMI over cat 6 extenders.

You could also you Logitech Harmony remotes to control an AV and/or HDMI switch in the central room.

wexfordman2

tubosti wrote: »

Hi All

Hopefully I'm putting this in the right area.
Restoring an old house at the moment and have wired back to central location
3 cat6 and 2 coxial cable and cabling for ceiling speaker in each room with volume control in each room. The runs are too long for hdmi.
I want to be able to watch different sources in each room with sound from roof speakers or the same source in each room.

Whats the best equipment to facilitate this?

Thanks in Advance

I would if you have the chance rethink ceiling speaker thing, and I say this from the point of view of having had ceiling speakers, here are my thoughts

1) ceiling speakers never give the best quality, of sound.
2) they are stereo only, so not suitable for surround sound if that is your objective.
3) ceiling soeakers are drafty, especially if you are in a bungalow.
4) local volume control I think is a bad idea too.

Tthere are numerous smart speakers options which will provide you with a much better solution without having to build it into your house (I think a Golden rule is never install any electronics directly into a building, such as speakers, volume control keypads etc, they have a limited lifetime, much shorter than your walls or ceilings, and you will end out breaking out the pollyfilla to fill the holes left behind when they break or you remove them.

I had six sets of ceiling speakers dotted around my house, I have removed them all in place of an alternative speaker system.

With regards piping sources for TV around the home, have you considered a HDMI modulator and distributing it over coax ?

Tommyboy40

I've done it in a slightly different way. Main room has Apple TV with optical out to stereo, HDMI to projector. Bedroom also has Apple TV but uses an optical - analog adaptor to connect to phonos on stereo. Both rooms can also stream audio from the Apple TV. The kitchen, bathroom and study all have Airport Expresses which have a line out for audio. this allows me to stream audio to every room simultaneously. The biggest initial problem was patchy connection but that was cured by using my Virgin router only as a modem and installing an Airport extreme as my main router. I'd avoid ceiling speakers as the low end really is poor, they sound a bit like listening to your music on the phone. Your runs of cat 6 could be used to hard wire all the Airports. With my system you can stream from an device in any room or to all simultaneously using iTunes or Porthole. Using a HDMI modulator and running coax will drop your resolution from 1920x1080 to 720x576, unacceptable in my view

bk

Tommyboy40 wrote: »

Using a HDMI modulator and running coax will drop your resolution from 1920x1080 to 720x576, unacceptable in my view

Note, new HDMI modulators that run over cat6 can do 1080p (1920x1080).

Though of course the world is moving to 4k now!

wexfordman2

bk wrote: »

Note, new HDMI modulators that run over cat6 can do 1080p (1920x1080).

Though of course the world is moving to 4k now!

Tbh, the only thing I would use the coax for is distribution of sky etc, anything else would be streaming, in a few years time, pretty much everything would be streaming and coax near redundant

bk

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Tbh, the only thing I would use the coax for is distribution of sky etc, anything else would be streaming, in a few years time, pretty much everything would be streaming and coax near redundant

I agree overall, but I don't think we are there yet.

For me I'm using it to distribute FTA sat and saorview, along with PS3, PS4 (games + bluray) and Xbox.

It is nice that all that gear is hidden away in the study and away from the little ones sticky fingers.

Tommyboy40

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Tbh, the only thing I would use the coax for is distribution of sky etc, anything else would be streaming, in a few years time, pretty much everything would be streaming and coax near redundant

This rather natty 17m screen is done with coax. 3GSDI

Screen Shot 2017-10-26 at 07.48.48.png

tubosti

Hi All

thank you for yer responses, I cant post link yet but i was looking at some equipment from:
HD anywhere, wyrsestorm and control 4.
any opinions on these matrixes

as for ceiling speakers was thinking of KEF CI130CR

thanks