Re: Newbie with lots of basic questions!!

["rb_ziggy" <richard.boreham@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've seen a couple of other suggestions already but thought I'd try an
answer without too much technical jargon or complexity.  Hope the
following helps.



--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, abbott.sarah@m... wrote:
>
> Hi There
>
> Just joined to see if anyone can help someone without technical
> knowledge!!  My electrician is just looking at our wiring
> requirements for a new concrete built house.  I have the following
> requirements and would hope to incorporate my brand new iMac and 3
> iPods into the equation!
>
> Set up playlists at the main Mac Centre (easy!) and now what I find
> difficult:
> How do I select which rooms I can play these in (don't want to wake
> the baby as an eg!)
> How can I change volume remotely?

With the Mac route, Apple already sell a wireless gizmo (the airport
express - http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/)
that allows you to
send music from your Mac (iTunes) to different rooms. It works fairly
seemlessly with iTunes (see the above link for details).

Pros:
- Simple, no wires.
- Links into existing hi-fi's in each location.

Cons:
- (I believe - others please put me right if I'm wrong) You need to go
to your Mac to control the play.  Not exactly convenient if you need
to go to the study to change what's playing in the lounge!

Other ipod suggestions have been made but I don't know these.

Whole house audio (WHA) distribution is frankly a bit of a minefield
as there are so many different options here.  They range from the very
high end integrated custom systems sold by the big brands (linn, qed,
russound etc) through to 'home brew' which many here will have done.
Wiring requirements differ for each so its hard to be definitive here:
there is no one wiring scheme (including the star wiring noted below)
that will fit all / any of the WHA systems out in the market.  This
really means that you do need to decide which you may want to cater
for at about this point.

Someone else has mentioned the wireless Sonos system.  It's worth
looking at this as a baseline as this is one of the most recent and
possibly neatest to use integrated systems around.  It's probably also
'mid-range' in price too for this sort of thing.

>
> Also:
> Watch different Sat TV in different rooms?

Either get additonal room boxes (see Sky's site) from sky for the
rooms you want (allows you to watch different channels in each room
but does require additional subscription).

Or take a feed out of your main sky box and send this round the house.
The simplest and cheapest (and poorest quality unfortunately) is to
use the normal coax ariel wire and a 'loftbox' (e.g. details at
http://www.letsautomate.com/10567.cfm?)
unit which does the
distribution and amplification.  This also allows you to integrate
infra red control extenders into each room too.

There are better, higher quality systems around but these are much
more expensive I'm afraid.  Even if you do want to go the better
quality route, I'd suggest you still put ariel cable (via a loftbox)
into each of your main rooms as it's still useful for terrestrial
broadcast tv (radio too). The alternatives will require you to wire
the house up with 'cat5e' computer networking cable instead of (or as
well as) the coax.

Which leads us onto the subject of considering cabling the house
throughout with network cable ('Cat5e').  This can be used for many
purposes (video distribution, audio distribution and computer
networking).  It's pretty straightforward to get the wiring put in
during the first fix stage but this is a bit of a topic in its own
right. Wireless networking is becoming common but its still very
worthwhile putting in cat5e - its still much faster (you can't
practically distribute high quality video wirelessly yet) and there
are often wireless deadspots or interference with neighbours.

With network wiring, the basic approach is to 'star wire' with runs of
cable at each point you need then (e.g. beside each power socket &
light switch) being run back to a single point in the house (e.g. a
cupboard / the garage) where they are all wired into a 'patch panel'.
This panel then allows you to link any wire and use it for any
purpose. All the wiring needs to be designed and installed at first
fix - cheap(ish) then; very expensive to retro fit after plastering out!

> Set up for surround sound in sitting room!

Assuming you will be having a surround sound amp (5.1, 7.1 or
whatever) you will need runs of speaker wire from the amp location to
the speaker locations.  If you have the chance it's good to get this
put into the walls at first fix.  You can use wall plates with speaker
('banana plug') terminals to plug the amp in at one end and speakers
at the other.  Much neater than having speaker wire trailing all over
the room.  Only problem is it does rather require you to decide where
everything will go before you even plaster the room.

>
> And:
> Watch and record CCTV from the garden, entrance and gates, baby's
> bedroom.

Yeup, this can all be done using runs of cat5 cable from those
locations.  Put cat5 wherever you think you might want it.

It's also possible to use wireless network cameras these days.
However, they are only wireless in terms of transmission of the
pictures.  You still need to power the camera.  So its still better to
use cat5 as you can send the (low voltage) power to the camera on this
too.

Various options around the watch and record once you get the pictures
back to a 'central' point.  Simplest is probably to use an 'RF
modulator' to get the CCTV picture onto the coax arial (loftbox)
distribution.  You can then watch it like any other TV channel.
Sophistication goes right up to having a dedicated PC based system to
record multiple feeds at the same time and broadcast (if you want)
onto the web.

>
> My electrician is happy to do the work (why not - he'll make a
> fortune!!) but he loses me after the first 2 questions!!
>
> Your thoughts would be very useful including suggestions on equipment
> recommendations.
>
> If you can describe in easy English that a thick female could
> understand - all the better - much appreciated!!

So to summarise...

If you are approaching first fix wiring, right now you need to think
about:

- Where to put power sockets (serious point as basic UK standards
still woefully underprovide for power sockets - we ended up with more
than twice the number the architect originally specced).  Hint, put at
least a double socket (4 where you will have TVs /Hifi) in each corner
of the room and then also ensure you have no other areas of wall where
you would have to trail a flex across a doorway.
- Where to put coax arial cable in each room and how to link this
together for distribution.
- What WHA system you want to catef for and then...
- Where to put speaker cable. For surround sound and (possibly) for
whole house audio too (in ceiling speakers).
- Where and how much cat5 cable to put in.

I'm afraid it's not as straightforward as it might be as there is no
one answer.  But if you are building a house then you will have
already discovered that that is the case for every aspect of the build
anyway!

Good luck and I hope this helps.

>
> Thanks a Million
>
> Sarah
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>