My television cabling

[Martin Pentreath]

Hi all,

I'm still messing about with my floorboards and cabling. I'm wondering what cabling I should provide to the main TV point in the house. By way of background I should say that I'm very out of touch with TV technology, the last time I had much to do with them there were three terrestial channels and the Goodies were topping the ratings, so please treat me like an idiot.

What I am thinking of is

- Wire a mains double socket as a spur off the existing double socket on the ring there so that there are four sockets, should be enough for most eventualties?

- Two cat5 sockets there, the cables from which will run up to the loft where I'll put a patch panel for phones, and possibly a home network at some future stage.

- Some coaxial sockets. But how many? My current plan is three, all running back to the loft where the TV and FM aerials will feed into an amplifier/distributor which will send signals to various rooms. I would really only envisage using one of the three cables right now to bring a TV feed down to the telly, but I want to future-proof myself and enable maximun flexibility. I thought if I had three I could use one cable to bring the aerial signal directly down to a set-top box (don't really understand these) or a DVD player, use a second cable to send the output up to the distributor in the loft for wider dissemination around the house, and use the third to bring the output from the distributor back down to the telly. Am I a bit wide of the mark here? And should I be thinking of sending SCART signals up and down from the loft? If so can I do that using cat5?

Please comment on whether this an entirely mad idea based on fundamental misconceptions (quite likely) and if so what I should do instead to minimise the need for further disruption once the floorboards are back down and the plaster is patched up (and I finally discover how the bloody machines work).

Many thanks,

Martin

[Robin Prater]

You might need six?

Just one cat5 cable should be ok

You should not need more than three cables - use CT100 which will handle both satellite and terrestrial digital video signals

Your starting to get confused! Aerial signals are small high frequency signals, these go to the tv or video recorder aerial input socket usually via a co-ax connector. Video signal with separate audio are from DVD/VHS players and appear on 21 pin SCART connectors, you wouldn't want to distribute that around the house.

Am I a bit wide of the

I would not be surprised to find a small black box in a few years that will have scart in and network out at a reasonable price but not at the moment.

I hope that helps a bit

Robin

[BillR]

Have you considered a loft box for your RF signals?

Also if you can, provide a string to pull more cables through in the future. I did and it been very useful.

[Andy Hall]

But in that case (actually anyway) it should be CT100 and not cheap TV co-ax cable....... .andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

[Dave Liquorice]

Lets see TV, Video, DVD, terrestial box, satelite box. 5 with out trying. B-)

Cable is cheap, fitting it isn't. Think I'd go for 4 CAT5e or maybe even CAT6 and at least 4 CT100 coax's. No need to terminate them all just coil 'em up out of the way.

Baseband video and audio over CAT5 is available now. Canford Audio stock them. Of course you really want to distribute your sat box or DVD as RGB rather than video or RF to avoid the problems of PAL.

[Owain]

"Andy Hall" wrote | "Owain" wrote: | >That third co-ax could come in very useful though if you ever get a | >sky box - if you get a skybox with a hard disk recorder I think it | >needs twin cable - so you might actually want to put *4* runs of co-ax. | But in that case (actually anyway) it should be CT100 and not cheap TV | co-ax cable.......

It should be; I took that so for granted I forgot to mention it. But it is worth mentioning.

Owain

[BigWallop]

Have a look around this site Martin:

may be of some help.

[stefek.zaba]

[ ... ]

Indeed - did you get Someone to sign for one of their 19" rackmount fridges, then? ;-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Newver enough :)

Fine. I couldn't be arsed to use RJ45BT tails, so teh cat 5 terminates where needed on a BT master socket for my PABX. If I want to use it for a network, I change the face plates :)

Tony Sayer put me right on this. I have loft mounted VHF and TV antennae feeding a Labgear amp down here in the office where all cables lead to, and thence a coax per room. The amp multiplexes TV and FM onto the same (high grade) coax. You CAN get splitters at the other end to break it out, but its proved to be unneccesary. I just plug TV or radio in and its fine. You can get twin sockets if you want both. No attempt to do passive splitting at the sockets has been attempted, or seems needed - since the signal levels are at that point boosted anyway, and the path lengths short.

In fact, its been stunningly perfect sionec Tony told me how, and cost less than £80 for all the parts (excluding cable) and has been completelt 'fit and forget'

I

Off my patch mate. Digital terrestrail STB's use normal anrtenna signals

- just a wider band antenna required. Satellite is a different issue. More cables would be safer.

I'd also be tenmpted to lay some hefty T & E spo that you don't have loudpeaker wires trailiong everywhere. PARTICULARLY of a home cinema multi-speaker setup is envisaged...

[Owain]

Stefek Zaba wrote | Owain wrote: | > Small fridge to keep the beer/champagne chilled | > Canford Audio stock Lots of Lovely Things, and when I was Head Of Technical | > for an award-winning radio station (blushes[1]) I used to enjoy getting | > other people to sign Purchase Orders for them :-) | Indeed - did you get Someone to sign for one of their 19" rackmount fridges, | then? ;-)

There was a Strict No Smoking, Eating or Drinking Anywhere in the Studios Rule; hardly ever observed of course; but we didn't run to a rackmount fridge.

We didn't really run to rackmount anything. Just stack on top of each other. The Telephone Termination Unit was built on Veroboard, FFS.

Owain

[Owain]

Stefek Zaba wrote | Owain wrote: | > We didn't really run to rackmount anything. Just stack on top of each | > other. The Telephone Termination Unit was built on Veroboard, FFS. | Veroboard? That were luxury. Tag strip - we used to *dream* of tagstrip. | Bare-wire soldering was all we was ever allowed. And who do you think | was the station's official third hand? Burning flesh - used to smell it | all day long. And all night.

Soldering? We didn't even have a soldering iron until I wrote home and (with very detailed descriptions) asked Mum to post mine up. Until then everything was connected with choc block - 2A for mics and 5A for mains - or twist-n-sellotape for the RF

Owain