Wiring a home network

[BJ James]

In the middle of a basement reno.
In one end will go my 60" Panasonic HDTV and surround system. The same general area will house the household computer. The other end is a wet bar which will have another smaller HDTV of some sort. The basement also contain the main breaker panel where hydro, cable and phone come in.
Mainfloor we have a living room with a TV and surround system. We have a handfull of TV's in other rooms...kitchen, bedroom, excercise room etc but plan on just keeping regular cable to those.

So, I was thinking I need a run of RG6 from the panel to each TV, Cat5e to each of the 3 main TV's, as well as HDMI from computer area to each TV.
I'm not even sure what I want to do here. Any options, ideas or suggestions would be most appreciated.
Cheers,
BJ

 

[adk highlander]

I would look into some kind of matrix system for all of the shared sources you want to use. This way you can house all of the electronics in one area in your basement and feed the high def signal to each TV via Cat5e using a balun or HDBaseT.

I guess I should ask first what is your budget and would you be interested in a system like this. It would also require some kind of control system so you could use RF based remotes or Android/Apple devices to control the zones. I have a 5 zone setup now with most of my sources stored in my rack and use URC remotes to control all the zones.

 

[jonnythan]

Cable is pretty cheap, especially RG6 and Cat6.

I'd run 2x Cat6 and 2x RG6 to each location and probably put an HDMI port in there as well. You don't even need to hook them all up, just have the wire there so you can put in a jack. You can have one wall plate with HDMI, ethernet, and coax.

 

[krzywica]

Usually for a bar/party environment you want to have the ability to at least mirror a source across multiple displays. If you wanted to get fancy you could buy some stuff to allow you to mix and match your source distribution, but thats a lot of green.

 

[BJ James]

Would for sure like to be able to duplicate program on both TV's in the basement. But I understand I can do this with an HDMI splitter. Was planning on this as well as RG6 independently.
Thanks

 

[BMXTRIX]

Ethernet and HDMI over CAT-5 is not the same. If you need Ethernet at your display locations (likely) then you want to run a piece of CAT-5/6 for that. If you want HDMI extension to the TVs, then run an additional piece of cat-5 for that.

I currently run 4-6 pieces of cat-5/6 to my displays when I prewire a home. It allows for multiple HDMI feeds, control, and future expansion as necessary. RG6 is not something I always run, but I do typically run it, just in case there is need for a local cable box of some sort.