Ok, where to begin...
I just moved into a new house. It has a pretty nice whole home audio/video/cat5(?) setup. The house is 7 years old, so keep that in mind when I describe the system and what I hope to do. I've spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the system (the prior owner didn't really know much other than how to operate the system) and I've figured out quite a bit, but here is what I've found:
1) I have coax running throughout the house. The prior owner had basic cable pushed throughout all of the coax. Right now I have a DirecTV hookup. I don't know what kind of coax it is.
2) I have 4 audio (just regular stereo red/white) cables that carry sound throughout all of the rooms in the house. There are switches on the wall where you can operate the speakers in each room and cycle through the 4 audio inputs. So if I hook up the radio/dvd/tv/ect. to a particular cable (like radio to cable marked "1") and hit "1" on the remote or wall controller, the radio will play in that room. Each of these 4 audio lines go down in the basement and route to a splitter type device that has 8+ outputs that run cables throughout the house.
3) Apparently there are several cameras hooked up throughout the house that work over the coax. It sent the signal to the tv hooked up to the coax and broadcasted a certain camera on a certain channel. This has never worked since I moved in. There are 2 or 3 coax cables in the "control room" where the AV components are. Hooked up to one of them is an RF transmitter that has a channel setting. But when I hook video up to it and turn the TV on to the particular channel shown on the transmitter, I get straight snow. The coax goes into a special box (separate area than the av cables) that, quite frankly, looks like a friggen mess. It looks like it essentially splits the signal up throughout the entire house. I just can't figure out where the coax "in" cables work into the mess of wiring. It doesn't help that there is cable internet and DirecTV also hooked up in there--i'm afraid to unhook anything out of fear that something will stop working.
4) I have one video input into the house system (yellow cable). That is sent throughout the house along with the coax and audio out. I can hook my DirecTV box into my receiver, hook the yellow video cable into the "monitor" output and throw the tv signal throughout the video connectors in the house. Problem is, no HD signal. This cable, just like the audio cable setup goes down into the basement, into a splitter and then sent throughout the whole house.
5) I have a remote setup that allows my remote to point at a particular wall controller and change the source, volume, etc.
6) haven't even attempted to figure out the cat5 yet.
Now what i'd like to do is be able to send an HD DirecTV video throughout the house (probably through the coax). I'd also like to be able to hook an Apple TV as well. I figure if I can route the audio/video signals to an AV receiver, that receiver can send out the A/V signals throughout the house. I think I just need an AV receiver that has a coax out. Then I need to figure out how to send that signal throughout the house.
First, can I even do what i'm trying to do? Second, how do I know what kind of coax I have? I think that will determine whether I can send an HD signal. Third, does anyone have any recommendations on how to get a coax signal out of a receiver? Most modern receivers don't have a coax out. If need be, I can take pictures of the various components.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
