Cable TV Distribution

[MySparky]

Hi,
I've recently installed coax and cat5 cables to each room in the house (1 of each to each room) and due to cable routing through the house I've run the downstairs cables to a downstairs location, the upstairs cables to an upstairs location and 1 coax and 1 cat5 cable between the two locations.
I have Virgin TV coming into the house as my only TV feed (no aerial in use anymore) so how do I network the whole lot together so that I've got TV and internet in each room, and how do I set it up so that different programmes can be viewed in different rooms? (The Virgin SuperHub will distribute the downstairs internet signal but will it work with another hub connected to it upstairs to distribute internet to the upstairs rooms?)

 

[OwainDIYer]

It should work with a network hub/switch off one of the yellow ethernet ports.

To watch mutiple channels I htink you will need multiple Virgin Media boxes, and they will specify how they're to be connected to the incoming cable feed.

 

[MySparky]

It should work with a network hub/switch off one of the yellow ethernet ports.

To watch mutiple channels I htink you will need multiple Virgin Media boxes, and they will specify how they're to be connected to the incoming cable feed.

So, I use the Cat5 cabling to distribute internet and TV? What would the coax cable be used for then? I read up on building the network and all the places I looked suggested a coax and a Cat5 to each point/room I wanted to network. I'm a little confused now having done all the hard work building it. lol

 

[OwainDIYer]

Cat5 distributes internet.

You will need to ask Virgin Media what they want to do with their boxes.

 

[peterduckett]

Have you actually used the correct COAX cable to pipe VM signal around the House? I believe Webro HD100 is the only triple screened COAX that is suitable

 

[italia]

Its interesting that you terminated the wires on each floor and not one central location.

I have yet to finish my home network but essentially ran Cat5e and Coax to most of the house but it comes back to the same place. So far i have my router there and Labgear dist for sky distribution. Not sure how you would do virgin.

TV over Cat cable I believe needs to be Cat6.

 

[MySparky]

Its interesting that you terminated the wires on each floor and not one central location.

I have yet to finish my home network but essentially ran Cat5e and Coax to most of the house but it comes back to the same place. So far i have my router there and Labgear dist for sky distribution. Not sure how you would do virgin.

TV over Cat cable I believe needs to be Cat6.

Apologies if I didn't explain what I've done properly. I've run a coax and cat5 cable from each room downstairs to a central downstairs location, then in the upstairs rooms I've done the same thing (because the route down can't take anymore cables) and then between the two central locations upstairs and down I have run 1 coax and 1 cat5 to link whatever equipment I eventually use.
I've settled on using the VM SuperHub downstairs for internet distribution and a NetGear hub upstairs to pick the internet up from one of the ports on the SuperHub and distribute it around the upstairs rooms.
I guess for TV distribution I'll use a booster and just pump whatever signal I get from VM around the house and if I want to watch different channels in different rooms I'll have to get another decoder/freeview box. That's the only way I can think of doing it.

 

[peterduckett]

For one i dont think you are allowed to boost VM signal and seccond you can't use a standard freeview box with VM signal

 

[ChrisFrost]

Your problem is that VM doesn't work like Freeview. With ordinary TV signals it is enough to distribute the aerial feed around the house because each TV/recorder has its own tuner. You can't do the same with VM.

Although the VM signal is on coax cable it is very different from an aerial signal. Think of it more like internet over coax. There's two-way traffic involved. This has implications for the quality of the coax wire you used. It also means you can't mix the pre-decoded VM signal with terrestrial TV signals.

If you want to watch different channels from VM simultaneously then you'll need multiple VM boxes. Three boxes is considered the maximum. This means having several coax cables dedicated to the VM system only, and those cables running down to a passive splitter where the VM feed comes in from the road. The VM engineer will take care of balancing the signal level from the street box with enough power to run the boxes in your home. There's a good chance they'll also supply a suitable splitter, or at least recommend something so you don't waste time and money buying something that'll much up the incoming signal.

Of course, once the signal is decoded then you can do with it what you will. However, a single box system means that all the rest of the TVs are simply a window on what the main TV sees.