Newbie....Planning a new system

[johnred]

I am building and wiring my home and just want to get an idea what everyone would recommend as good starter system. I have been working with my dealer and he keeps on throwing in all the bells and whistles. You got to have this and you have to have that. I think he a he has a blank check, but it is turning me off. Trust me I want everything but I need to start small and expand. I am pretty sure I can make eight audio zone works, so if I can do that then why do I need the matrix switch? I have some amps and receivers already can those be integrated. I would rather spend some of the money on dimmers and thermostats rather than a c4 amp and audio matrix switch.

I want to hook up the following

2 cable boxes

radio (possible from my tuner)

my itunes from my mac

cd player

dvd changer

IP cameras

Lighting

He recommended the following.

1 Home Controller 500

1 Audio Matrix Switch

1 Multi Channel Amplifier

4 Home Controller 200

4 System Remote sr-250

2 7 inch Touchscreen POE

1 Sony Component Switcher

3 Sony Cat5e to Video

He is also recommending 3 rg6 and 3 cat 6 to each location. Thoughts

[bebster]

You don't need the audio matrix switch unless you have more than 8 sources. You can always add that later. But the C4 amp is a good investment. I have 2 of them and am adding a 3rd (more than 16 audio zones), but since I have less than 8 sources I still don't need the audio matrix.

The Sony video switching is something I'd put off until a "phase 2". There's a lot happening in video switching (search HDMI on this site) and you'll see some of the new stuff coming out. If you can wait a few months you'll be better off. I like the JustAddPower HDMI-IP switching solution, but it's quite new and want to see some more field experience before committing.

The 7" TS is great, but there is a wireless portable model that is more expensive but may be the way to go. Check the various models of the 7" TS carefully to see which works best for you.

The wiring sounds like a good idea - it's cheap in the overall scheme of things. I'm not sure you need 3 RG6 cables though. 2 should do it, but then again it's cheap. I've run 2-RG6, 2Cat5e, and 2 Cat6, and conduit where I can. Can you run a conduit as well? It helped me sleep knowing it's there and I can adapt as technology changes.

[johnred]

Thank you so much for your insight. Good idea on the conduit.

[henniae]

As stated you don't need the C4 matrix switch unless you have more than 8 sources.

What sort of system and features are you looking for? It is nice to have a equipment list but that does not tell us what features you want.

How many TVs?

I assume 8 zones of audio since only 1 C4 amp.

5 C4 controllers. (4 HC200 and an HC500). How many On Screen Displays will you be using at one time?

[johnred]

To start I will have

TVs (current)

Master Bed Room

Kitchen

Family Room

Second bedroom

TVs (future)

Two other bedrooms

Master Bath

Gym

The home is for me and my wife so we would not be using all the remotes at the same time

[bog]

John,

When I bought my condo (at the time unconstructed) back in 2006 here's what I did:

-I worked with an interior designer to do a furniture layout.

-From there I expanded to where I wanted to place light fixtures, switches, TV's, LAN ports, speakers and motorized blinds.

-I had conduit installed to meet all my needs terminating in my hall room closet where I installed additional electrical, cable and telephone outlets

I moved in Feb 2009 and had C4 installed starting with the HC300 and a dozen dimmers. Easy. I then started installing speakers and connected HC300 to my receiver. Integrated with the builtin tuner on my receiver and added mp3/rhapsody playback. I experimented with a 1:1 video balun from Audio authority for distributing video over cat5. My receiver acts as my video switch... all controlled with C4. I eventually added the C4 amp to power some additional speaker zones (my receiver only supports 2-zones).

I've been pretty happy using just the SR-250 remote for all my interaction with the system. I also integrated my blinds.

Depending on how many on-screen C4 navigators may be used simultaneously, you may not need as many controllers.

[johnred]

Thanks Bog for your input I like the thought process and add on as you go. I am definitely going to add the lighting in as well. One last question for anyone who is willing to answer. Is it easy to control a dvr from control4. I am totally a newbie, but my installer who means well tends to sugar coat everything.

[pharmdsmith]

I have 3 directv dvrs in my system and they work perfect.

[ILoveC4]

Thanks Bog for your input I like the thought process and add on as you go. I am definitely going to add the lighting in as well. One last question for anyone who is willing to answer. Is it easy to control a dvr from control4. I am totally a newbie, but my installer who means well tends to sugar coat everything.

So long as the driver is written properly (which is easy to do), controlling it with Control4 is just as easy if not easier than controlling it with the supplied remote.

[johnred]

Thanks for the post they were quite helpful. Matter of fact they tipped the balance and I will be ordering my control4 system tomorrow.

[crosen]

Few other thoughts:

1. If you only have 4 TV's currently, I'm not sure you need 5 controllers. 1 HC-500 (or even HC-300) and 3 HC-200s seems more appropriate, though I don't know the details of your requirements.

2. A reason to run 3 (and not 2) coax runs is to support component video distribution. For that purpose, you would need a different type of coax than if you were distributing cable signals, so watch out for that.

3. Unless your iTunes collections happens to be encoded as mp3's, it seems you're still missing a piece to manage music playback as C4 cannot playback the Apple formats.

Cliff

[johnred]

Cliff

Thanks for the response. What would i need for Itunes as well cabling recommendation.

[bebster]

What would i need for Itunes as well cabling recommendation.

iTunes has the ability to convert songs to MP3. I do that when we purchase a song from the iTunes store in the proprietary format.

[WholeHomeControl]

On the iTunes library I see three choices:

1. Convert your library to MP3 (as mentioned by previous poster)

2. Purchase an Apple TV which you can integrate with Control4

3. Purchase the Control4 Dock for iPod (requires an iPod, of course)

On the cabling, if you are getting the Sony Component Video Switcher and will be using that to distribute video throughout your home, then all you need to run is CAT5e to each video end point.

Of course you'll also need speaker wiring (suggest 12 or 14 gauge) from the amp to all speaker end points.

[WholeHomeControl]

Please see corrected version of previous post.

The caveat with the video cabling is that should you wish to swap out the Sony video switch with another that outputs a conventional component signal, you may wish that you had run 3 x copper (not copper clad steel) coax to each video end point.