[Archived] Modern Household Media / Digital Needs

[Paul]

Mr and Mrs Paul bought a house this week which is in need of complete renovation. We will be moving there in a few months. One thing I have to consider is modern media. Currently we have enough cable snaking round our house to stretch to Manchester and back. The new property is a stone-built mid-terrace and the level of renovation is such this could be thought of as new build, everything is coming out, gutted back to the original stone and bare earth.

My question is this; what should I be considering in terms of setting up the property for modern communications, media etc? This is a great opportunity to "lose" all the cables. Cable TV, broadbnand etc. is not possible in our location, so satellite or telephone line are the only methods of entering the digital age. At the moment we have BT broadband and BT vision and while I don't plan to change do want to future proof the property if possible. I'm thinking this:

Aerial point in all "living" rooms

Satellite point in all "living" rooms

Broadband - wireless distribution of some sort

Is it possible to effectively route TV, satellite etc round the electrical circuits or do these have to be seperate

Is there something I should have heard of but haven't?

I only live two doors awy from the house we are renovating so know the potential well. What I don't understand is how or what a modern property would look to incorporate to cope with modern, digital media needs and to be available throughout the property. Help please.

[Glenn]

Mr and Mrs Paul bought a house this week which is in need of complete renovation. We will be moving there in a few months. One thing I have to consider is modern media. Currently we have enough cable snaking round our house to stretch to Manchester and back. The new property is a stone-built mid-terrace and the level of renovation is such this could be thought of as new build, everything is coming out, gutted back to the original stone and bare earth.

My question is this; what should I be considering in terms of setting up the property for modern communications, media etc? This is a great opportunity to "lose" all the cables. Cable TV, broadbnand etc. is not possible in our location, so satellite or telephone line are the only methods of entering the digital age. At the moment we have BT broadband and BT vision and while I don't plan to change do want to future proof the property if possible. I'm thinking this:

Aerial point in all "living" rooms

Satellite point in all "living" rooms

Broadband - wireless distribution of some sort

Is it possible to effectively route TV, satellite etc round the electrical circuits or do these have to be seperate

Is there something I should have heard of but haven't?

I only live two doors awy from the house we are renovating so know the potential well. What I don't understand is how or what a modern property would look to incorporate to cope with modern, digital media needs and to be available throughout the property. Help please.

More and more stuff is being routed over your network, I'd make that your primary focus, get that right and everything else will follow. There is a reason BT and SKY are investing huge money in FTTC and FTTD, they want to stream TV to you over the net, in a few years this ill be the norm.

So, if putting CAT 6 (the modern standard for building networking) wiring throughout the house isn't an option, then at least get a good link from somewhere near your phone master master socket (which will need power nearby as this is the obvious place for your broadband router) to upstairs is a must, then if you must use wireless (which is both slow and getting increasingly "noisy" as more people adopt it) at least the bulk of your traffic is going over a decent connection. Whilst I'm an advocate of HomePlug/IPOpenPower connectors there are no replacement for a proper connection at all.

If you're really wanting to go high-tech, check out X10 and other home automation systems, so you can remotely lock your windows and turn off your cooker from work.

[Paul]

Very helpful Glenn and set me in the right direction. I hadn't got as far as realising what I need is Ethernet cabling throughout the house!!!

Seems to me it works like this:

Install a 10/100 network switch centrally in the house

From the switch run Ethernet cable to all rooms. Sockets probably located next to electrical power points

Probably install "power over Ethernet" switch for low power devices

Locate broadband router next to phone master socket. Plug one router porter into the Ethernet system and then any media which arrives via broadband is available thoughout the house

If one wanted to use wireless devices it would be better to have a wireless transmitter plugged into the Ethernet point in the room in which the wireless device is being used

The next bit is unlikely to happen but having an Ethernet system means home entertainment could become like an office system with data stored centrally for distribution to any room?

Now I need to make sure I'm thinking straight. We have BT Vision with Freeview, presume Sky works in the same way? The media content is actually being fed in three different ways When we watch live TV the signal still arrives via the aerial, when watching "on demand" be it iPlayer etc or films the media is being streamed via broadband as though I connected a laptop direct to iPlayer on the web. Finally if I record and watch that has simply been stored on the BT vision hard drive?

Last point. We have Freeview which means the digital TV arrives via the aerial. I may get Freesat in future meaning I need a dish. If we have an Ethernet system can the digital TV signal have a single entry point and be routed via Ethernet or do I still need to have an aerial point / satellite point in any room which wants a TV? The same would apply to Sky presumably?

Hope I've got this right. If you hadn't sent me off to find out about Cat 6 I wouldn't have got as far as Ethernet!!!!

[Paul]

Thinking out loud now. Wireless is really just a convenience thing. By it's nature the signal's ability to carry data will be in some way limited by it being a "radio" signal. Any obstruction, walls, etc. which absorb short-wave will reduce the effective distribution of data. Using cable means the capacity is only limited by the cable and not by external interference?

I should think of home use in exactly the same manner as business use. It's all about distributing data whether the content is the accounts or a film from BT?

Apologies I'm just trying to get my head round all this while Mrs Paul contents herself with colour charts!!!