Wiring setup for Sky & FTV new extension

[nai]

Hi folks,

I am currently building an extension to my house (to be tagged the tv/games room) and am looking at what wiring setup I should have to bring Sky etc into the room. My current setup is tv's in three rooms (lounge,kitchen,bedroom).
We have a Sky box and Terrestrial aerial (originally for rte/bbc/utv/ch4) but we don't necessarily need to keep the aerial.

The sky box/aerial are both presented into the lounge and I have coax cable running from here to both the other tv's. So from kitchen and bedroom we can view all terrestrial channels and whatever Sky channel is selected in lounge.

I'm putting in a 42" plasma, home cinema etc. in games room and would like to move the sky box here too and maybe remove the terrestrial aerial (reception isn't great during summer) and replace with FTV box.

My questions are :

Can I use existing sky dish to supply to both boxes (sky and ftv) ?
Would it be possible to present picture from sky box to other tv's ?
Also possibly present picture from FTV box to plasma (although if CH4 is only extra may not do this) ?
What cable runs would I need and what additional equipment (Would it be an additional LNB/sky box/ftv card/cabling)?
Is it difficult to install this setup ?

Many thanks,
nai

 

[sonnyikea]

I'll give this one a bash.

1) Can I use existing sky dish to supply to both boxes (sky and ftv) ?

You'll need a dual or quad LNB on your sat dish to supply the extra feed(s). You could have one Sky box and 3 FTV boxes from a quad LNB allowing you to watch different TV in 4 locations (if you have Sky+ reduce this count by 1 as Sky+ requires 2 feeds anyway).

2) Would it be possible to present picture from sky box to other tv's ?

It seems as though you have a similar setup at the moment from your lounge so you could replicate this in the new room. Or you could use a digi sender (can't find the link at the mo but there is another thread on these) which transmits a signal from a sender to a receiver. Or you could present the sat feeds into the different rooms and buy FTV boxes for each room allowing you to watch FTV in all rooms independently.

3) Also possibly present picture from FTV box to plasma (although if CH4 is only extra may not do this) ?

This depends on the sockets on the back of the plasma but if the TV and the FTV box are in the same room as your post seems to suggest then this is just a case of connecting both the Sky and FTV boxes to the Plasma. If the FTV and Plasma are in different rooms then this presents more of a problem as the best picture quality would be through Scart but this is a difficult cable to run between rooms and picture quality degrades on a cable longer the 5 metres. You could connect coaxially (is that a word?) as you do at the moment from the lounge. I originally questioned why you would want to do this but I forgot that Irish Sky doesn't have Ch4 on it.

4) What cable runs would I need and what additional equipment (Would it be an additional LNB/sky box/ftv card/cabling)?

Like I said a new LNB and however many cable runs from that - 4 for quad, 2 for dual. Another FTV box this doesn't necessarily have to be a Sky labelled box. You can buy digital sat receivers, some with PVR functionality very cheaply, that will pick up the FTV stations from Sat without the need for a card. If you want Ch4 then you will need to buy a Sky labelled box and also you will need a FTV card which can be purchsed from Sky if you have a UK address to register it to - again there are other threads out there that deal with this issue.

5) Is it difficult to install this setup ?

The hardest part is hiding the cabling. If you already have the dish positioned then changing the LNB is straightforward just be sure not to knock the dish out of alignment as it can be tricky to get it back. The cable(s) then needs to run down and into your property. As this can be up to 4 cables this can be tricky to hide.

If you want a decent setup then I would advise getting a professional fitter in to get you the setup you really want. You seem to want to do quite a few different things so I hope my responses are clear to you as there are a number of different ways of getting what you want.

 

[TarfHead]

I am currently building an extension to my house (to be tagged the tv/games room) .. bring Sky etc into the room .. putting in a 42" plasma, home cinema etc.

When it's done, can I come to live in yours ?

 

[Leo]

I'm putting in a 42" plasma, home cinema etc. in games room and would like to move the sky box here too and maybe remove the terrestrial aerial (reception isn't great during summer) and replace with FTV box.

Make sure you feed the plasma with good quality RGB scarts directly from the Sky and FTV boxes. Picture quality from an rf source will almost certainly be poor.