I'll be building a new house shortly, no idea on where to start with media/cabling.

I've always used cat5 previously but not sure what I can and can't do in terms of media serving, my likely sources will be:

DVDs (ripped to server)
Radio (Digital terrestrial???)
Music (MP3s, I currently use Squeezeboxes)
TV (Digital terrestrial + Sky)

I'm guessing that my needs would be best served by having a server room for my sources and silent PCs as the front ends, is this correct? Also one of the reasons I like Squeezeboxes is the fact that you can synch them, is this possible if using PCs as the front end? Obviously I'd like everything to be HDTV ready.

At the moment I'm just thinking of structure rather than specifics of platform etc (e.g. Win/Mac/Linux)

I'd appreciate any thoughts.

There's a ton of places to get an assortment of cables bundled together as one cable like these residential composite cables. Fiber, coax, and Cat5 in one bundle.

EDIT: I'm in no way endorsing or recommending that site. It was one of the first google results I had.

Lucky sod!! How did you find land in the UK?

Anyhow, first suggestion: lots of plastic ducting.

Second suggestion : build a bungalow (or have suspended floors with a 3' crawl gap - all your problems go away and you can run services and all kinds under there.

Third suggestion: I suggest designing it
Seriously.
And that means essentially knowing what you're getting and where it's going. The ducting helps with "oh sh!t, I needed a DVI->HDMI cable going from A to B" but you really need to get most of it right at once (unless you like your lounge looking like a patch cabinet!)

You'll want a place to keep servers - usually called a "node zero" by HA types.

Then think about:
* where are the speakers going? In ceiling? On walls? On the floor?
* where are the amps going? You don't really want speaker wire running around the house - bad for the signal. And going from the node0-(cat5)->room-(line level)->node0-(speaker level)->room is horrible.
* where are the screens going? Walls, under the kitchen units?
* how do you get media from servers to device to amp/display?

If you have a cinema room are you projecting or plasma'ing? Projectors can be built into vented cabs. Screens can be built into the ceilings *if* your joists go the right way (mine don't but coving is great!) Plasmas need strong walls.

Are you going client/server?

Also, think very hard about room layout - a huge problem is having windows and doors on every wall.
Ideally you want a room that has blank end walls, the door in the middle of one long wall and the windows in the other long wall. Then you sit backing the short wall and project onto or hang the plasma on the other short wall.

Don't neglect other wiring: especially security systems. Wireless is great in a listed building but having the batteries go flat in my security system sounds a bit dodgy

You may have guessed I run a server room (study) with MythTV on diskless PCs in the bedroom and cinema room and squeezeboxes in the bathroom and other lounge. I have cat5 to the kitchen just in case...

I've done lots of remodelling so re-running the cable wasn't too bad.

I've done the alarm but still need to wire up security cameras (just IP webcams).

Have you seen the UK selfBuild group?
FAQ here: http://www.sbfaq.borpin.co.uk/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=start
Seriously essential info

There is also a UKHA group - which is fine it you like spending money on X10 and bow down to the church of Redmond
See the community links from: http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/

Personally I'd go MisterHouse - but then that's because Larry invented Perl.

Wow LBT, sounds like you've considered most of the same stuff in a lot of detail. My biggest issue is going to be interfacing to the SKY isn't it? I don't really want to pay them EVEN more money to get multi room, I'd rather use terrestrial with Sky purely for the premium stuff.

Client/server would be fine by me, I've seriously considered a Win Terminal Server environment before but that's the only thin client (apart from slim devices) I've ever used.

Projector vs plasma

I'm looking at projectors right now, purely because they'll disappear when necessary. Mighht be an issue with joists I'll talk to the architect (we're still at design stage)

Bungalow

Funy enough there'll only be 2 rooms upstairs, main bedroom and guest bedroom, all the others will be ground floor.

Who's Mister House?

Mmmmmmmm - I dream of 58 acres.

I rate land way higher than the buildings too, and have a short-medium term ambition to build in a large plot. The only problem is my three money sinks (four if you count SWMBO)

I've been building it up slowly for a couple of years

Denise started it by moaning about the VCR and asking for a capture card!! We ran it under Windows for a week whilst we went on holiday. It crashed on day 2. We installed MythTV the next week - we now have about 2Tb of storage...

Sky SDTV is not a problem (for me with Myth) - basically s-video capture and an IR controller to change channel.
You will have a problem with HDTV.
Be aware that you can only watch one channel at once. However we haven't watched liveTV (or an advert) for about 2 years now and you can stream different shows on each screen without any problems.

I also run freesat capture of the OTA mpeg stream for some channels (not sky). I can't get freeview here (trees) but that's similar and easy too.

I run a huge (2.2m across) screen on standard def and it's great - has to be seen to be believed. The joist thing is pretty minor - I've got (well, will have) mine hidden behind the coving.

The main thing that's hard to hide is the projector - I wouldn't bother with motorising it unless you can afford several thousand pounds.

Oh, MisterHouse

I'm in Reading if you want to come see... but I guess if you have that much land you're not down south

It is *all* linux though - the only windows PC we allow in the house is the work laptop! It does mean that I am not subject to buying licenses to upgrade my PCs or paying extra to run diskless or ... but it can be daunting for newbies unless you know people who know linux - and that's getting less of a problem nowadays.


58 acres eh? Got a spare one for a friendly neighbour with similar tastes in hi-tec

hmm, so what would be the circumference around 58 acres?

hmm, how much is tarmac....

Yippee - every day is a track day!!!

It's being planted (slowly) with trees. About 7000 of 'em so far. No room for a race track, wind turbine (if I can get consent) would be nice though.

I reckon circumference must be around 1.8 km

You can receive nearly all the free channels on satellite with any digital satellite receiver or PCI card. We have four receivers in the house, and one Sky subscription. Only C4 and C5 need a Sky receiver and viewing card, they will come out of an encryption contract in 2008 and will almost certainly broadcast free-to-air. BBC HD is free-to-air and I imagine will stay unencrypted if/when it is a permanent channel, so you could use any generic DVB-S2 PCI card. I hope that the other channels launch satellite HD channels soon, there is very little on BBC HD at the moment!

What software are you using to decode BBC HD? Got a sat card knocking about at work in a linux box and I fancy giving it a go.

I'm not - that's kinda the point
Apparently you need a fast Athlon 64 type system to decode it.

keywords: BBC HD h.264 / AVC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_HD

Try the mythtv-users archives too - 'BBC HD' ...

You can apparently transcode - not bothered yet...