My wife and I are building a new house and I am open to ideas on how to best wire the house for video and computer. I would like to be able to edit from my "Man Cave" on a large LED flat screen tv.. I would like to keep the Apple and my hard drives in the office upstairs.

Also what would you do to wire a house, for the coming TV (cable or Dish or Internet)and computers? Boy this is a great problem to have.

Thanks

Ken

I wish you the best!

Years ago I was restoring the 100 plus year old house we now live in, and told my wife I wanted to smart wire every room in the house to a central hub area with patch bay. I explained to her that even if we were not going to be using a computer or TV and such in each room at the moment, we would have the ability to hook anything up in the future in any room. When she found out how expensive all that wire was, she Axed the idea.
We still have these wonderfully heated discussions when she asks a question like "so tell me why we can't hook up a TV over there"... It was one of the worst decisions I made not doing a complete wire-in.

DEAR David,

The wife wants to have a smart house. I am not sure how to make it smart. I have talked with several sales people and all have their special services. What did all you out there do???

Ken.

I really wish I had your problem, but the missus knows only too well what would happen if I was allowed to build from scratch, and it has something to do with Nigerias national debt and the size thereof!. I'm more than profligate enough just renovating.

That said, if I was ever in the situation, I'd definately explore trunking systems that allowed any A/V/ Computer or other service cabling to be replaced/ re- routed or extended in it's entirety without demolishing the house in the process.

One case in point is HDMI. The bees knees now, but what about the NEXT BIG THING?

You park all your A/V sources in one spot, connect 'em up to a suitably grunty HDMI Matrix Switch Splitter with feeds to everywhere you can think of, so any display can see any O/P device at the touch of a button, then someone comes along and says "from now on it's something new and, oh, BTW, it needs a different cable!". Aaaaagh!

I'd like to think the NBT would do without cableing altogether, but just can't see it somehow. Think it's going to be around for some time yet.

I'm sure there are companies in your area that do nothing else but design and install such systems. The stuff I'm thinking of runs along every wall in every room and feeds via underfloor/ attic trunking to everywhere else. Used a lot in commercial premises, and can be screened to allow it to take power and lighting feeds as well.

Needs to be very carefully planned well before the builder gets anywhere near the place as it is incorporated into the fabric of the building. It isn't something you can install later without going through the demolish scenario mentioned earlier.

It sure makes reconfiguring the household A/V, Computer, Audio and power outlet systems easy. Need to add/ move any type of outlet? Just pop the panel off and run the cable, cut a hole in the capping where you want the plate, poke through the cable, terminate and pop the panel back on. Job done.


Then, if you want to spend even more..................


CS

PS:

Just in case you were wondering what I was on about with the HDMI Matrix switch, it's something like this:

http://www.octavainc.com/HDMI%20Ethernet%20matrix%20switch%204x4.html

or this.......

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/New-Products/Crestron-Announces-DigitalMedia-HDMI-Distribution-System.html

hey Kenneth,
don't spend too much,
future is wireless (very near future)

Use WI-FI. I think that the future behind this technology.
I heard, that have already thought up зарядные devices working on technologies WI-FI