Advice on pre-wiring for new D* equipment

[WyattEarp]

I've been a (relatively) happy D* customer for 4 years and I'm excited about the changes that they are making going to MPEG4. I know very little has been officially anounced by Directv about the new MPEG 4 equipment but I'm building a new house and I'd like some advice on how to pre-wire. I've heard speculation that the new HD home media center will act as a central DVR for the entire home. Should I plan to wire RG-6 and/or ethernet cable from a central point to the other rooms in the house or just stick with with wiring from the multiswitch to each room? Any help would be appreciated. thanks

WyattEarp

 

[dragontat002]

well, this is my opinion, but regardless of the new Home media center dealings that may be coming the the future......it probably wouldn't hurt to run Cat 5e and coax to each "living space" in your house......being how technology is growing, i'm sure that they could be used in the future. I'm sure before it's over with every house will be networked for something lol

 

[charper1]

I would go with CAT6.

 

[tds4182]

I've been a (relatively) happy D* customer for 4 years and I'm excited about the changes that they are making going to MPEG4. I know very little has been officially anounced by Directv about the new MPEG 4 equipment but I'm building a new house and I'd like some advice on how to pre-wire. I've heard speculation that the new HD home media center will act as a central DVR for the entire home. Should I plan to wire RG-6 and/or ethernet cable from a central point to the other rooms in the house or just stick with with wiring from the multiswitch to each room? Any help would be appreciated. thanks

WyattEarp

Since you're building a house now would be an ideal time to run at least 2 runs of RG-6, 1 run of CAT-6 and one run of regular phone wire to each room in the house where you even think you might want TV service in the future. You can also install a "central distribution terminal" in your attic or (preferably) a climate controlled closet.

If you really want to "future proof" your installation, run all these wires inside conduit/pvc so that you can pull old wires out/new wires in through the conduit/pvc if you ever need to in the future for fiber optical cable, etc.

It's a little work/expense now, but once the sheetrock/paneling goes up, you'll be glad you did it when you had the chance.

Good luck!

 

[Claude Greiner]

I wouldn't run a regular phone wire, Cat6 is so inexpensive I would actually run a different color Cat6 for the Telephone lines.

But in a typical house, I think (2) Rg6 and (2) Cat6 should be sufficent, and possibly 4 RG6 cables on your main television.

If your like me, where you got multiple Tivo's, Directv, DISH Network, Cable and ExpressVU, I see no issue running 6-8 coax cables per television.

But it works very good, mark everything off in the basement or central distribution point, and next time you get a new Toy like Cable or another Satellite service you can be up and running in minutes.

Another thing you might want to consider using is some stuff called interflex conduit, which is basically Orange plastic tubing. Run these as your home runs and place your wires inside, and if you need to change the wiring you can very easily pull new wire.

Its not so much with Coax Cable and Cat5, but I have seen way too many people try to pre-wire for surround sound, wire it with regular speaker cable but not anticipate the type of system they want to install, or better yet cut the ends off too short and then have to splice the cable Put your wall plates in for all the speakers and then run flexible conduit to the main junction behind your surround sound receiver. If you need to change it, you can easily pull new cable!

As far as Coax, RG6 should be sufficent, but for a few dollars more I would rather see Quad Shield since you can only run new cable once!

 

[charper1]

Dead on Claude!