How to Wire new build for freesat and saorview?

Blisterman

We're doing a whole house refurbishment, and our plan is to get in someone to install a satellite dish and aerial when its done, so we can watch live TV in about 3 rooms.

We're going to be running a Virgin Media Coax cable to an IT cupboard, where it'll be connected to our modem and then will have CAT 6 going to each individual room.
I've no intention of paying for Virgin TV, hence the satellite and Aerial.

Ideally I'd like to have it all set up so the satellite installer can just plug into the cabling for the TV that's already been installed.

Is there a guide anywhere for how this is done? So I know what to instruct the electrician? Can I have a single decoder in the IT Cupboard, and run cabling to each TV from there so they can tune in the channels?

spaceHopper

I didn't get an AV consultation when we did our extension and I regret it. So makebe ask your architect if they know anybody. It's worth even spending a few hundred quid to get advice.


My two cents,
Think about surround sound and will you wire in speakers of go with bluetooth ones.
Run high quality HDMI from the coms press to each TV point, somethin with at least 18GBPS BW or even hdmi to optical and back.
You can send HDMI over cat 6 but the HDBASET gear to do it is more expensive than the HDMI cable.
Have two cat 6 cables at each TV, have 4 power sockets behind the TVs if they are wall mounted.
Do you need HDMI ARC return for audio amp?
Have two cat 6 or cat 7, not all cat 6 is equal get one with high purity copper as it will carry more current (POE/POC) and better signal integrity
Put in Cat 6 for security cameras too and for f-sake a door bell.
You can get sat to IP, it's worth having one dual box. So look at a octal LNB. Same with TV to IP. For those a manages switch would be helpful if not needed.
TV and Satellite can share one cable but better to run two or 3 coax to each TV point (one for Sat, one for TV and one just incase or for sound)
Also how will you get IR remote control back, you can send it by HDMI from the TV or by coax or run a pair of wires so that you can link it into a HDMI matrix or AV amp.
Can you have an empty conduit too form main TV to press.

Johnboy1951

Blisterman wrote: »

We're doing a whole house refurbishment, and our plan is to get in someone to install a satellite dish and aerial when its done, so we can watch live TV in about 3 rooms.

We're going to be running a Virgin Media Coax cable to an IT cupboard, where it'll be connected to our modem and then will have CAT 6 going to each individual room.
I've no intention of paying for Virgin TV, hence the satellite and Aerial.

Ideally I'd like to have it all set up so the satellite installer can just plug into the cabling for the TV that's already been installed.

Is there a guide anywhere for how this is done? So I know what to instruct the electrician? Can I have a single decoder in the IT Cupboard, and run cabling to each TV from there so they can tune in the channels?

You can bring in all coax cable from the aerial and sat. dish to the IT cupboard and place your tuners there, and distribute the TV channels on the CAT 6 cable to each room.
In addition using this type of distribution allows you to view all Radio & TV channels, Recordings and Stored Media not only via Cat 6 but also via wifi so can be viewed on tablets, laptops, PCs and even phones.
Wifi is not ideal of course but it does work if the signal is good enough.

Lots of info on this type of system in the HTPC section if it is of interest

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643

If you are prepared to get dug in yourself it can be done extremely cheaply, using FOSS software and low powered hardware.

dubrov

The standard is to put all your inputs (Satellite, Aerial, Broadband) into a single area and distribute out from there.

Don't forget wireless as well. It's all well and good having network points in a room but you aren't going to connect your laptop/tablet to a network point if you can avoid it. Room layouts change too so even a 2m cable could be very messy if you need to run it.
Most houses would be well served by a ceiling wireless access point centrally (e.g. in the main hallway). Many support Power over Ethernet (POE) so you just need a CAT7/6/5e feed from your router to the ceiling point.

In terms of TV, your options are distribute over Coax or over the network.
For Coax, you need an appropriate tuner (Satellite/Terrestrial) on the device that plays it (most TVs have both these days but check the spec). You can combine terrestrial and satellite signals down a signal cable but it is usual to run at least 2 cables to allow for watch/record at the same time and also for redundancy. Satellite feeds cannot be split (unless you use Unicable) and need a direct feed from the Satellite dish or a multiswitch (that can be located in your central AV area).

For network distribution, you need a client capable of playing the streams (Raspberry Pis are cheap and I believe work well). You only need one cable for watch/record but a second is always good for redundancy.
Also, consider more and more TV content is delivered by apps so a network connection is becoming increasingly important in this area,

To be honest, I am not sure why the recommendation for running HDMI. I guess you could locate your set top boxes in the AV centre but you would need to have a way to communicate the remote signal back. Some use RF which can go through walls.

Also consider getting a NAS that can sit in your AV centre. It would be a central place where you can store downloads/recordings that would be available to any device on your network. Pretty much all TVs support DLNA which would allow you to play back the content without any additional devices.

spaceHopper

Also run a conduit from out side the house to the comms press, you might want to drag a new phone line, fiber optic or virgin media or network for mesh wifi extending into the garden.

Blisterman

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

You can bring in all coax cable from the aerial and sat. dish to the IT cupboard and place your tuners there, and distribute the TV channels on the CAT 6 cable to each room.
In addition using this type of distribution allows you to view all Radio & TV channels, Recordings and Stored Media not only via Cat 6 but also via wifi so can be viewed on tablets, laptops, PCs and even phones.
Wifi is not ideal of course but it does work if the signal is good enough.

Lots of info on this type of system in the HTPC section if it is of interest

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643

If you are prepared to get dug in yourself it can be done extremely cheaply,
using FOSS software and low powered hardware.

Is there a guide to this anywhere?
And would this all go over the same Cat 6 cable that would plug into the back of the TV to provide it with internet?

Johnboy1951

Blisterman wrote: »

Is there a guide to this anywhere?

There are guides available on the internet as well as those in the HTPC section of boards.

And would this all go over the same Cat 6 cable that would plug into the back of the TV to provide it with internet?

I do not have a 'smart' TV so have no direct experience but expect the answer is yes. That is how it works for other devices.

My preference is to have the 'smarts' outside of the TV so I can upgrade it as I wish, and not be dependent on the TV manufacturer.

The TV, if not using an external 'smart' device, would of course need to have the required software to deal with the data stream generated ........ just like is necessary for internet streams.

spaceHopper

Blisterman wrote: »

And would this all go over the same Cat 6 cable that would plug into the back of the TV to provide it with internet?

You need to set it up so that you mother could use it.

Having everything over cat6 also raised other problems. You need a managed switch or dedicated switch so as not to flood your home network. If you want to send it wireless devices how does that work without flooding you network.

Johnboy1951

spaceHopper wrote: »

You need to set it up so that you mother could use it.

Having everything over cat6 also raised other problems. You need a managed switch or dedicated switch so as not to flood your home network. If you want to send it wireless devices how does that work without flooding you network.

What have you in mind that would 'flood the network'?

Blisterman

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

You can bring in all coax cable from the aerial and sat. dish to the IT cupboard and place your tuners there, and distribute the TV channels on the CAT 6 cable to each room.
In addition using this type of distribution allows you to view all Radio & TV channels, Recordings and Stored Media not only via Cat 6 but also via wifi so can be viewed on tablets, laptops, PCs and even phones.
Wifi is not ideal of course but it does work if the signal is good enough.

Lots of info on this type of system in the HTPC section if it is of interest

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643

If you are prepared to get dug in yourself it can be done extremely cheaply, using FOSS software and low powered hardware.

A little unsure how this works. We'll be running a CAT6 cable to the TVs connected to the internet for Netflix etc. Do we need a second CAT 6 cable for the TV signal? I think most TVs only have one CAT6 port.

Or is there a way of accessing the channels via the same home network as the general internet? And how would you tune them into a TV?
Is there a basic guide online to this?

Johnboy1951

Blisterman wrote: »

A little unsure how this works. We'll be running a CAT6 cable to the TVs connected to the internet for Netflix etc. Do we need a second CAT 6 cable for the TV signal? I think most TVs only have one CAT6 port.

Or is there a way of accessing the channels via the same home network as the general internet? And how would you tune them into a TV?
Is there a basic guide online to this?

You would not be using the TV tuners, so no tuning needed on the TV.
As mentioned the tuners would be in the media press.

You would need to have software on a smart TV to use the output from the media press.

In my case, not having smart TVs I use a cheap ARM STB to lock onto a TV channel and display it on a TV or monitor.

Again specific to my own set up, I use Tvheadend to manage tuners, EPG, Recordings etc etc in the media press with a Kodi plugin, and at each viewing point I run Kodi which provides all the functions I need.

I, as well as others, have posted in the HTPC section about our setups.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=643

Blisterman

Thanks. Does this require an active internet connection though to watch TV? I'd say the majority of my TV watching occurs when the internet is down.

dubrov

External Internet is not required. Just the dish/aerial and your internal network needs to be working.

If you decide to go down the TV over LAN route, here is what you will need

1) Signal Source - Satellite dish for UK channels and Saorview for Irish channels
2) Device to decode and broadcast the signal over the network. You'll likely need a separate one for satellite and terrestrial. See HDHomerun for an example for terrestrial signals.
3) Software to manage tuners/EPG etc. and something to run it on. See TVHeadend
4) A client to receive signals from the network and output them to the TV (something like a cheap Raspberry Pi/Android Box running Kodi would work fine)
5) TV to display the result
6) Somewhere to store recordings. Think harddrive attached to same device running TVHeadend in 3.

Look through JohnBoys old posts and you'll find a description of his setup.
You will end up with a great result but you'd want to be happy to play around with it to get it all working.
There is joy in doing this though.

If you want to avoid the hassle, just talk to a satellite installer

Johnboy1951

I would add only one thing to what dubrov has posted above ...... the device managing the backend (tuners, EPG, recording etc) can be a very low powered and cheap device. It is only dealing with data so no great power required at all.

For instance I am using a €30 ARM device with a specific Linux running on it, and it has no problems with 5 or 6 (and maybe more as I have not tried) users watching TV and or recording.

I use Kodi as the main software, so there is consistency across all devices, whether tablet, laptop, desktop, stb etc.

If you want something to connect a few cables and forget, then do not go down this route.
There is no commercial 'product' that will do all this.

I compare it to me building up my audio system many years ago, by buying separate devices and integrating them all into one system ....... but very many people were quite happy to buy a 3 (or 4) in 1 and it fulfilled their needs. I recall I even built my own speakers to get the best I could afford.

IMO, you need to like being involved with your system to go this route, rather than connect it all up and forget it.

There are times when something goes wrong (happens with all devices regardless) and you as the 'installer' and 'maintenance man' will need to be prepared to find and correct whatever the problem is.
It is unlikely you will find someone local to take over the management of YOUR system

Blisterman

4) A client to receive signals from the network and output them to the TV (something like a cheap Raspberry Pi/Android Box running Kodi would work fine)

Do I need a separate one of these for each TV? Could the Plex App on the TV do this, as an alternative to Kodi?

Johnboy1951

Blisterman wrote: »

4) A client to receive signals from the network and output them to the TV (something like a cheap Raspberry Pi/Android Box running Kodi would work fine)

Do I need a separate one of these for each TV? Could the Plex App on the TV do this, as an alternative to Kodi?

It depends on how 'smart' the TV is.
But the answer *should* be yes.

I used cheap client boxes at each TV/monitor as it provided better consistency of user experience, as opposed to setting up different manufacturers smartness on each TV ....... and then of course the TV 'smarts' rarely get an update after a couple of years, if then.
Using client boxes you have complete control and are not dependent on the vagaries of each TV manufacturer.

andy1249

Could the Plex App on the TV do this, as an alternative to Kodi?

For Plex , the answer is no.
Plex will only play back formats specifically supported by the hardware in the client and for anything else it pushes back on the "Serving Device" to transcode , and transcoding video is not a job for a low powered arm device. ( or any device for that matter , its a waste of resources )

Kodi is much more efficient , and client devices running Kodi tend to cope with most material.

Avoid transcoding. Use software and clients that can play everything natively at each TV point.