When I move house...

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...I have a master plan in my head... Not that it’ll be anytime soon mind you as we aren’t even looking to sell yet :LOL:

What I’m wondering though is the best way to future proof the house whilst in the process of moving in

I suppose what I’m planning for is a Cat 5 cable for each room upstairs, say 3 bedrooms then a single Cat 5 cable in the living area. I’m assuming every else can run off wifi without the need for a wired connection.

How does that sound and what’s the best way to achieve this?

Additionally I expect we would keep either Virgin or perhaps move to Sky. If staying with Virgin we currently have 2 TiVo V6 boxes. One in the living room and one in the master bedroom. I’d like the flexibility of being able to watch the Virgin perhaps whilst in another room upstairs so I’m thinking how best to achieve this? Running additional HDMI’s from the box and plugging/unplugging as/when required and just going through the pain of popping through to change the channel if the Bluetooth remote doesn’t travel far enough - or what’s the other suggestions? Would the suggestions change if I moved to sky?

All very theoretical stuff at this stage but a good wee project to work through none the less
 
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I only have a basic setup. Cat 5 socket in hall by router, a double socket in lounge with two cables going to it (one for TV, one for firestick), one socket in kitchen diner. All those go to a switch under the stairs. One cable from that goes up to my loft for the CCTV dvr. That’s it for now. Should I want to add points in the bedrooms, I can plug the upstairs cable into another switch and from there, drop down to the bedrooms as well as link one to the CCTV.
 
I would run two cat 6 cables to each TV point (TV and device such as a NVIDIA shield or games console)

Also run network cables to the attic and ground floor ceiling for wifi access points?

Are you likely to have a NAS - network cables to this too...

Anywhere a desktop computer may be
 
I only have a basic setup. Cat 5 socket in hall by router, a double socket in lounge with two cables going to it (one for TV, one for firestick), one socket in kitchen diner. All those go to a switch under the stairs. One cable from that goes up to my loft for the CCTV dvr. That’s it for now. Should I want to add points in the bedrooms, I can plug the upstairs cable into another switch and from there, drop down to the bedrooms as well as link one to the CCTV.

Do you have a drawing of how your wired up?

Thanks both for the replies as well... What about the TV/Virgin/Sky side of things? Anything in place?
 
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Do you have a drawing of how your wired up?
It’s just one cable from the router to the hall socket (or any socket) and then all 5 cat 5 cables from the sockets going into the switch. There’s 8 sockets on the switch and you just plug into any of them and they all connect together. Plenty of how-to videos on YouTube - look up 'daisy chaining'. I bought a roll of cable (make sure you get solid copper cables, not copper coated) a switch costing about. £20 and a £20 cat 5 tool kit including a tester and put the ends on the cables myself.
 
Cat5e is not just for networking, the amount of POE items will only get bigger, so can be very useful to have a run in many locations.

If you have access, then additional runs are not costly and anyone can terminate it easily.

Get the through style rj45 and termination tool and quality keystones.
 
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Don't forget good audio cables for surround sound (Atmos?) with discrete speakers in the right places.
 
three in use behind the tv etc and two for an access point and a roku internet radio device
20210413_095936.jpg
these are the three behind the tv alone for sky box. tv and freesat box.
so you may want to rethink your plans. I know you could put seperate switches in areas requiring more than one connection but as you will be pulling in one cable it is no real extra work to do more at the same time
 
Go OTT!

The cost isn't in the cable, its in the work to lay those cables... Once you have the floors up & routes open... go mad!

We have 48 points across our 4 bed house... only about 8 are spare!

Its best to avoid distributed hubs/switches if you can. One central switch is best.
 
Anything that can be hard-wired should be. Even if the device has built-in wireless, if it also has an Ethernet socket then that should be connection priority #1 if for no other reason than it lightens the load on the wireless network to help those devices that only have wireless as a connection option. We've been through the plague of overcrowded 2.4GHz. It's only a matter of time before 5GHz starts to show the strain too.

For sharing Virgin/Sky etc in to multiple rooms can be achieved with a simple HDMI splitter. If you're not yet running with these services at 4K UHD resolution then you will be at some point in the future, so it makes sense to plan for that now. This means getting a 4K UHD splitter that is HDCP 2.2 compliant and supports at least HDMI 2.0 These are the standards that allow the good stuff such as Dolby Vision to get from a source (if supported) to a capable display.

Once the splitter is sorted then it's time to think about getting the signal from one room to another. This is where I have to say that HDMI is a bad idea for distance work of this kind. Standard UHD-rated copper HDMI cable has a little trouble It has some trouble with 4K UHD resolution signals once you get past the 8 mtr mark. This means that you're probably going to have to switch to a fibre cable to guarantee getting a signal, and that's where things start to get expensive.

HDMI cables are a bit like a boat anchor. Chucking some HDMI cable in to the walls anchors you to the standard at that time. We've seen though how HDMI standards have shifted fairly significantly in the last 10 years as more and more data in the form of higher resolution and more colours and a bigger dynamic range and more frames per second and more audio channels get touted as the next great thing.

We're also at the point now where 8K TV is starting to become mainstream. Just as was the case with the early days of 4K UHD, there's not much in the way of source material to view, but it's only 5 years since Sky started to broadcast in UHD and 4K UHD Blu-ray discs started hitting the shelves, and now look where we are. You can see how it would be possible that the cable you've installed can be rendered useless - or at least very limited - because it is anchored to the standards of today.

My recommendation is to look at installing a couple of CAT6 cables in place of where you thought you might have put in HDMI cable. This won't be for networking and Internet access. It's an alternative point-to-point cable to replace HDMI. To make use of this cable when you're ready, you'll buy two boxes called Baluns. The one near the Virgin/Sky STB will convert whatever HDMI standard we're running at that time to a signal that can travel over these twisted pair cables. The box near the far-end TV will convert the signal back. You'll then hook up with a short HDMI cable in to the TV.

Get the right sort of balun and you'll have a solution for remote control relaying too. There are Baluns with an integrated IR system. A receiver at the far TV picks up the Sky/Virgin/other IR handset signals and passes then back down the CAT cable where they're converted back to IR. A lead with an IR emitter is then used to bring the signal close enough to the IR window on the STB that it responds to the controls. There's a very slight delay of a fraction of a second in this relaying process, but in all other respects it works seamlessly.

The advantage of Baluns is that the boxes can be changed and upgraded as new video standard become mainstream.

Where you're getting trades in to do the refurb' work then it's good contingency planning to install '+1' spare cable. What this means is if your balun or network connection on to the room requires two cable, then have the spark run 2'+1' (3) so that if a joiner / plumber / spark or other trade manages to put a nail through on then you have a backup.

As for the network wiring, I would put two+1 cables behind any TV. Much as I hate to admit it being a physical media fan, the future of video is streaming. I would be incredibly surprised if we see another physical disc format after 4K UHD Blu-ray. In it's defence I will say the a 4K UHD BD disc massacres streaming for picture and sound quality, but the average viewer/consumer either doesn't know or doesn't care. Access to content overrides any quality concerns. Most of my viewing is streamed too, so I can appreciate the case for convenience.

@SpecialK's suggestion of having wiring in place for wireless access points is very wise. Trying to cover a whole house with Wi-Fi from a single wireless router that might not be in the best place, or might not even be that good, or possibly just isn't set up right is always going to be a challenge. Even when things are optimised there's always going to be some dead spots or occasions when more devices are being used at the same time than the ordinary wireless network can comfortably cope with. That's when wireless access points with hardwiring back to the main switch start to pay off.
 
Thanks Lucid. Cracking reply. Will have a look into those boxes. Haven’t heard of them if I’m honest!
 
Lucid, I’ll be honest looking at this kit on Google ive no idea what I actually would need lol
 
Which kit specifically, wireless access points or HDMI baluns?
 

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