help with AV for new build

[bats]

Hi we are building a new house and are in the process of formalising the electrical spec. It is causing me big headaches as totally NOT TECHNICAL and can't work out if we are being given the right advice...its a big project with a tight budget for this kind of system.

REQUIREMENTS:-
We wanted to play music (from radio, copied CDs, napster or the like) watch TV (probably sky digital or Freesat digital), watch DVDs (standalone or copied onto server) and use televisions as screens to access internet. We are looking to have this in 8 rooms in the house, plus music to garden/patio.

We had thought we simply would put cable (cat 5?) from each room (probably behind TV) back to a central room where we could put some form of big server which would connect to internet/outside world / sky dish etc etc. Had also thought we could used this cable for telephony eg Voip type of thing .

Also the house to have wifi everywhere.


Can all this be done? do we need multiple cat 5 cable to each room, is cat 5 good enough? M&E Engineer saying we need loads of cables going to each room, one for sound, one for sky one for analogue TV, one for internet to TV and that we need to decide on a "system/brand" immediately as this will dictate cabling.....is this true???

In simple terms can someone tell us how this can be done??

Thanks so much for reading this, any advice would be really appreciated

 

[Frank]

The only advice I would give is down't get carried away with the need for everything in each room.

Sounds excessive to have all this connectivity in eight rooms.

Wifi throughout the house is no problem decent router in the middle house.

I would thought you are looking at 1 cat5 and one coax to each room to cover tv and internet but maybe no need for all the cat 5 if you are going to use wifi.

I know phillips do a sytem that works over wireless to allow central music then essentially wireless slaves around the house to play what you want.

You could save the money have one pc do most of the work then a few laptops to give all the family internet.

Probably not what you are looking for but some food for thought I hope.

 

[Wexfordman]

www.sonos.com for music!! beats the crap out of streamuim imho.

Never rely on wireless, always go for wired as first choice. Enure you have ip connectivity at every point in your home where you plan to have tv etc!!

 

[dinjoecurry]

for full HD TV you need 2 x cat 5. I also put in a 10 pair cable which is very cheap and handy to have in at the building stage, of course coax is essential

 

[Tom0815]

for full HD TV you need 2 x cat 5.

No, full 1080p HD with IR can be done with 1 CatX not 2 Even full 1080p with IR and UHF/DVB over 1 CatX will be possible in a few month (test phase one) And don't forget, the better the CatX cable the better carrying of the signal and the longer the dsitance

I also put in a 10 pair cable which is very cheap and handy to have in at the building stage, of course coax is essential

instead of all this differnet cables you could go for an integrated structered cabling system that can carry todays and future services. Gives much bigger flexibility than any "mixed" cabling and give. After all it doesn't matter how much coax you put in that will only be good for TV/video (not even HDMI!!!) and can not be used for IPTV, Internet, phone, audio, etc ...

 

[karltimber]

I think you need to goto avforums.com - there are lads over there that have built cinemas along with full home sound, lighting etc etc tons of info and great at helping out.

getting a few links is great but some lads over there have listed out exactly whats needed for to future proof your dream house for all your av gear,

k