Builder just called to say he will be ready to plaster the extension next week, so I need to get my wires in! My network expert is on his hols – he's going to sort me out when he gets back. He said, just run cat5 from a central point to all the places where I want to view media (TV, video, sky+, photos, internet, music collection, dvd collection). He said I'd need a "popcorn box" at the media viewing point (if that means anything to you).

Question is
Will I also need to run telephone & coax cables to teh media points? or will the cat5 nework also carry the phone & tv signal round on the spare cores?

I could be talking rubbish of course. If I hear nothing I'll run cat5e, phone & coax to the 6 points in the extension. I did teh main house when I moved in 5 years ago (but never set the system up as teh extension was "just about to happen"…. that's another story!

A bit of advice on the cabling would be good. I've left an email for network expert to get back to me.

Any additonal tips much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

He meant a Popcorn Hour networked media player. I've got one, they're awesome!

Unless you're planning on some IP telephony, the cat5 won't carry the voice. And it won't carry a tv aerial signal.

But don't quote me on it! 😉

You can get baluns which let you carry all sorts of things over the cat5, including phone extensions. I'd put in dedicated coax for the TV aerial though. Get them to use proper shielded satellite cable for the TV side of things, electrical interference (which can come from things like the pizza delivery guy's moped) didn't affect analogue TV too much but can make freeview break up quite badly.

If you want to use the Sky signal to feed other rooms (freesat or Sky mirror subscriptions), get runs put in from the dish now too. You can get octo LNBs now that output 8 feeds from the one dish. Or you could hide the Sky boxes away somewhere and distribute the signal they output over the cat5 cabling.

Cheers.
I'll run Cat5e (for popcorn hour), Satellite Coax (for tv signals) and telephone wire separately.

I didn't quite get the sky thing. I have sky+. I believe I can run a Satellite Coax cable from the spare connections on the standard LNB (4 connections I think, 2 take by sky+). The 2 connections can be run to old sky boxes to get the freeview rather than go through aeriel on roof. Possibly it will be easier to use the roof aerial for freeview.

We're going to digital tv up in west cumbria now – Its been a bit of a nightmare. Having to run a booster at the moment. I imagine that the signal can be split and sent round the house, when they sort the signal out. I'll run the coax from a central point to the couple of rooms that could have tvs.

If you run good quality 1mm coax from a central point to everywhere that you may ever want a TV – you can't really go wrong as you can simply configure it to take anything from a FM radio signal to the Sky feed
Remember that you'll need 2 cables for anywhere that may need Sky+ or a dual tuner Freeview box

You need a RG6 type 75? coaxial cable
I'd spec WF100 cable or CT100 if the WF isn't available

EDIT – I'd also run in some draw cords for future use if practicable

If you can afford it, put two CAT5 cables to rooms like your lounge and office. Loads of multimedia stuff needs ethernet, and we're pleased we ran two cables. Otherwise you'll find you need a switch blinking away behind your television.

Cable is so cheap that it's sensible to run as much as you can, while you can.

i'll second running 2xcat5 to all points. It'll help with future additions although the need for running ethernet is gradually diminishing with wireless integration.

Also HDMI over cat5 is starting to rear it's head but will require it's own dedicated or switched cable

I would use 2*cat6. And I have run phones down CAT5 so I assume you can with CAT6

This idea has crossed my mind too as getting some work done on the house, builders are on right not fitting our log burner, thought while the carpet is gone to lay some cables into rooms. Then thought it's a pointless idea as all the systems I have that have internet or LAN connection have WiFi anyway. I suppose in some old houses where the walls are like castle walls it's a problem though.

I wouldn't bother with Cat6. Cat5e will do Fast Ethernet and GigE just fine, cheaper and easier to deal with. Neither Cat5e or Cat6 will do the next big step which is 10GigE so there is no point spending the extra. (unless your have a very long cable run)

this is what we do to earn our crust!

cat6 can sometimes be a bad choice due to the shield causing interference on media-over-cat6 balun solutions so I wouldn't suggest that route.

2x cat5's if your being a tight arse

4x cat5's + 2 coax and a speaker wire to each point you expect a tv to be in. cat5 is about £40 a box. buy two boxes and just pull it in. min 300mm spacing from power cables and any crossing of power to be done at 90degrees.

we also now run fiber as a standard, but not sure whether you want to do that as again, it isnt that expensive – compared to cutting the wall open and laying it anyway!

it's pretty much a 'standard' now to use a central room/cupboard to house all your kit in and control everything using either an automation system (crestron / amx / control 4) or IR (no status feedback so if your amp doesnt come on, you can't tell other than by going to the cupboard to check)

feel free to drop me an email if i can be of assistance.

while i think on, video distro' over IP can be interesting as you'll need a pretty decent managed switch to sort out the data and VLANS, and boxes either end (source and tv) so most of the distribution systems we use don't use IP but their own 'protocol' (in the loosest sense) but it means we can send HD/1080p down 2 cat5's with absolute ease (with IR routing, coax, stereo and digital audio) for about £3.5k for 6 in 6 out matrix or a dedicated single source/room for about £500
don't forget lighting control 😉 … check out RAKO!!