Re: Audio / Video Distribution

["wkearney99" <wkearney99@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I am in the process of putting all my audio and video equiptment into one
> room of my house and distribute throughout the house from there. I
> understand most of the equiptment needed, but need help on suggestion of
the
> distribution unit that all units plug into and distribute audio and video
> through the house. Also, a suggestion, is it better to setup as wireless
> control or wired control?

Wired works.  Wireless has trouble dealing with older construction,
interference and lack of effective bandwidth.  For a single user WiFi works
great, but crank out multiple sound or video streams and it really bogs
down.  Ask anyone trying to pull movies off a Tivo via WiFi, the transfer
times are dramatically slower than wired.   Sure, there's ways to work
around it but wired *will* work, everytime.  If you've got the budget and
know where you want to put stuff then wired is WELL worth considering.

Several wired distribution systems exist.  After a ton of investigating I
went with Russound's CAV6.6.  The keypads are easy to use and it handles
everything.  Plug the devices into it, run the wires out to the rooms (CAT5
for control, 16ga speakers and coax for video) and setup the keypads.  Works
great.  Not the cheapest but when you add up the costs of trying to 'build
one yourself' it works out pretty well.  But bear in mind that it's an AV
control system, not whole-house automation.  To get into that you're talking
a lot more money (ie Crestron).

I like wired keypads.  They're predictable.  You never have to go scrounging
around for the inevitably misplaced remote.  You *can* control it via IR
remote but I've *never* bothered doing so in the time I've had it.  I do use
device-specific remotes to control the source (dvd or tivo mainly) but for
simple stuff like turn it on, run the volume up/down, and change sources or
tracks I just use the keypad.

The most common way to install such systems is to pull CAT5 to where you
want the control keypad in the room.  Then pull 4 conductor speaker wire to
that same place.  Some systems will control volume via the keypad.  Others
won't and you'll just splice from the 4 conductor out to two 2 conductor
(one left, one right).  Then pull coax to where the TV will be located.
It's often advisable to also pull extra lines since the wire is cheap and
it'll be a lot more expensive to pull other ones later.  If you're pulling
wire don't forget to pull a CAT5 (or better) line for phones and/or computer
network connections.  There are any number of added special cases to
consider so don't think this is 'complete'.

For example, if you put a DirecTV Tivo in a room you'd want to pull two coax
lines to it for it's dish connections along with a phone line.  You might
also want to provide a network connection for it.  Then, perhaps, you might
also want to pull the RF channel 3 signal from it for distribution out to
other rooms in the house.   But in my case I simply put the DirecTivo in the
rack along with the CAV66 and then watch it on the distributed video signal.
I also push it out via modulated RF channels.  This for rooms not on the CAV
as well as for watching it on mute while another source is playing via the
room's CAV-driven speakers.

Bottom line, plan the layout and run extra wire.

-Bill Kearney