Video Wiring Question...

[mhavoc]

Hi Everyone...

 

My house was built in 2005 and has 2-3 CAT5 and 1-2 RG-6 per room on the mainfloor. All wiring is run into a media cabinet which in on the main floor. I have an old C4 Media Controller (pre-HC's and a 16 channel matrix amp), an HTPC and largescreen upstairs, so I can watch netflix, vudu and local video + Chromecast stuff. The rest of the house is old squeezeboxes and WD Live TV boxes where needed.

 

Im wiring the basement now which is where I will have a couple more bedrooms, a common area and a home theater. I am also putting a media cabinet in the media room along with conduit between the upstairs media cabinet and the downstairs media cabinet for future connectivity outside what I run now. In the downstairs, I am running 3 CAT6 + 1 RG6 to each location with HDMI direct from the downstairs media cabinet to the projector location (only 12 feet). 

 

My question is where should I run the coax to from the downstairs... all the way to the main level media cabinet where all the other RG-6 is at (seems like this is probably best, but more painful), or to the downstairs media cabinet?

 

In my world, I really don't plan on using the RG-6 at all since I would prefer to use the CAT6 and use the HDMI video matrix.

 

Should I really even be running RG-6 at this point? I sorta though that maybe HDMI -> RG-6 -> HDMI might be an option, but from what I have read, I will lose quality but that doesn't really make sense since HDMI conversion over RG-6 would still be digital... right?

 

I thought having two locations would be convenient plus give me more space, but Im wondering if that will be problematic using C4 stuff and wanting to share audio + video globally around the house.

 

anyway, any opinions would be welcome. My local control4 guy that I talked to in the past is gone now, haven't looked again for a new dealer.

 

Jess

[SMHarman]

FiOS, Cable TV and Terrestrial TV would be the only signals you 'need' to send along RG6.

 

Once you have that signal to the Cable Box or whatever that is hooked into the Video Matrix then you can run anything else video over HDMI or CAT5/6 and Baluns.

[Cyknight]

You CAN send HDMI over coax - but it's more expensive and/or less reliable. Drop one or two coax if you want to have future ability to have a cablebox etc in the location, but spend cost in general on an extra CAT6 or two - you'll get much firther with that.

 

Where you want the CATs run is dependant on what you want - either have everything fed back to ONE location, or divide sources etc between two location. I generally prefer one location, but sometimes that isn't realistic.

I would make sure you have at least a couple CATs from one 'center' to the other though.

[mhavoc]

Okay... thanks for the feedback. My limitation on the mainfloor cabinet is space. I already have 36 CAT5s running into it and I put in patch panels to clean it up a little but I just don't have any more space in there. I have sorta 'tucked away' all my RG-6 out of the way and just left it 'hanging' for now since I personally don't think I will be using it.

 

So, on the CAT6... Im gonna have two locations, one on the mainfloor and one in the basement. I have conduit between the two for future, but Im also going to run 4 dedicated CAT6 cables from cabinet to cabinet so I can potentially use 4-ports on my switches at each end to get up to 4GBPS by using LinkAggregation (Linksys terminology for combining ports for better speed). I will have a 24-port gigabit switch in each cabinet.

 

With the 8 HDMI Matrix's available now, I think I will keep my control4 stuff in the upstairs cabinet and plan on having all my HDMI sources up there. If I have any HDMI sources in the basement, I will also run two dedicated HDMI cables from the basement cabinet up to the mainfloor cabinet for the most flexibility. The limitation on having CAT6 going to two locations is that I may end up having to have an 8 HDMI matrix in each location ($$$) with only 5-6 video possibilities in each the mainfloor and the basement.

 

I am going to run all my RG-6 to the mainfloor cabinet, just because RG-6 doesn't 'network' like CAT6, so it has to be to a single point. If someone ever goes with 4+ DTV boxes in this house, they will be very happy.

 

time to go dig in insulation... :-)

[Cyknight]

That limitation can potentially still be overcome by using Just Add Power as there are ways to have all those sources available everywhere using multiple network switches. Still $$$ though.