Re: Advice on sending video and audio around my house ... ?

[tefxp]

Hi Marcus,

> part of a rewire. Actually that WAS the idea, but the electrician
> I'm using seems to know nothing about cat5 cabling (I caught him
> folding and stapling it 90 degrees around joists etc) ,anyway we've
> come to an arrangement were he will fixed and supplied the
faceplates
> and *I* will pull the wires. Each room will have a double face
plate

Seems you got the short end of the stick then :)
Still, better to be sure your cables are okay than leave it to the
whims of a sparky eh?

> (4 RJ45) and a single face plate (1 RF + 1 RJ45) mirrored in two
> diagonal corner.. (so a total of 10 RJ45 and 2 RF in each room).

I'm sure Keith will have something to say on this, but I'd be wary
of placing RF & CAT5 together as the noise from the RF might have a
detrimental effect on the signals.

Although, in Basic Balanced Audio Theory 101 at the recent UKHA
meeting (!), Prof Doxey did say that with balanced signals, the
noise gets cancelled out at the end of the line.....which is fine if
you _know_ it will be a balanced signal in the CAT5 adjacent to the
RF socket. If, otoh, you find you want to run a network signal,
gawd knows how it would behave......

> for upload and one for download of video signals but having read
> about Kat5 it seems a better (quality) and versatile system.. hence
> one RF has been replaced by an RJ45.

Why bother keeping RF at all if you're looking at KAT5 - or is it a
case of keeping your options open?

Personally, I put double RF sockets in all the rooms at least a foot
from the CAT 5 sockets. Although this was not to be the primary
means of distributing audio or video, I did it 'just in case', with
one designated a radio and the other a TV socket (I didn't like the
idea of splitters at each end).

Clever huh? Nope. I should have gone for satellite cable instead
of CT100, so haven't quite got the ultimate flexibility I
wanted..... DOH!

> I'm fairly new to all this but have been researching on the .net
> for a few weeks now. I wish I'd started earlier and found out about
> X10 stuff before the electrician finished the rewire. ( I'd have
> made sure he put in a neutral wire to each light switch.. damn!)

tell me about it :( Though ask Ken Watt in the main UKHA group all
about retro-fitting inline modules......

> I've seen a couple of places mention sending full 5.1 audio over
cat5
> does Keith do (plan to do) anything like this or are the Kat5 just

AFAIK, this is on the list - somewhere after two way IR signalling,
the infamous KAT5 switcher, and VGA modules.....

> for video ? Is it possible to split the TX signal so I can send the

Current units can do stereo audio + video or just video (eg RGB) or
just audio or video + mono audio in two directions.

> same signal to 8 different rooms i.e. like I will be doing with the
> TV signal via an 8way TV amplifier ?

The cunning plan with the switcher will be to switch any 8 sources
into any 1 or more of 8 destinations.

At present, you can use specially modified (unterminated) RX units
daisychained together to distribute 1 KAT5 source to....umm Keith -
how many? RX units. Only the last RX unit should be termintated.

> Also what about IR control.. ideally I'd like a IR Rx in each room
> routed back to node 0 and then patch to appropriate IR TX to
control
> the equipment.. be that in node0 or in another room in the house.
> I assume this is all possible by having a TX/RX for IR in every
room
> (feeding through a cat5 cable). I'd then have a couple of Pronto's
to
> control everything :)

Again, on the cards for KAT5 - the next stage in fact.
For now, powermids or xantech blocks will probably do much of what
you want
(or shell out for a Linn Knekt system :))

> Does anyone know if its permissible to run RF cable next to Cat5
cable
> in the same conduit around the house ? I know I cant run cat5
cable near
> mains voltage cables but I'm not sure about how noisy RF is ?

Any of this is permissible. Advisable is another matter.
Refer to my earlier comments and, no doubt, to the voice of the
Professor on this.

> If I can't use Kat5 for audio I'll have to run speaker wire to
each room

You can.

> Any advice would sure be appreciated.

HTH and hope my answering doesn't mean more work for Keith in
explaining things _properly_ than if I'd said nowt in the first
place :)


Tony