Full house Audio and Video - The last piece of the puzzle.

[chris_j_hunter]

Paul -

pretty-sure I saw something here the other day ... IIRC, Component was more affordable ...

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/productlisting.jsp

Avrio are also worth checking :

http://www.avrio.co.uk/acatalog/HDMI_Extenders__Switches__Splitters_and_Matrix_Switches.html

must dash ... will have another go at digging it out later ...

Chris

[chris_j_hunter]

OK - Component Matrix :

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=4940

Cat-5e - Component extender :

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=4141

having looked at all the options for this sort of thing, though, we favoured staying with HDMI (but we don't have TV, so maybe that made it easier for us), in which case :

HDMI Cat-5 Matrix :

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=4559

or a mix of things from those at :

http://www.avrio.co.uk/acatalog/HDMI_Extenders__Switches__Splitters_and_Matrix_Switches.html

if we did have TV, we would probably work it through the Macs, using USB dongles & whatever, maybe with AppleTV as part of the story, assuming the next version goes in the right direction ...

sorry, not a complete answer ...

[Paul_B]

Chris,

Thanks for the links and thoughts it is helpful to get perspective from others.

Paul

[toscal]

Paul If you are interested I can do a 3x1 HDMI switch for a similar price to the Avrio 2x1 HDMI switcher.
PM me if you are interested.

[Paul_B]

Many thanks Toscal for the kind but I'm currently at the research stage rather than purchasing (especially after Christmas and the wife's birthday this week!)

[TimH]

I just can't get video multi-room distribution sorted in my mind so please help explalin to my thick head!

First of all what I want:
All AV kit located out of site (in the garage)
Receive any available video source in any room (living, kitchen, master bedroom). Either the same source or different source.
Digital TV through aerial will not be available until 2012 here (we are too close to France so transmission signals have to be very low)

If you're locating your gear in the garage I'd recommend a "proper" enclosed rack for your equipment, not just open shelving. We get mice in our garage (one even got into the house when we left the door ajar) and they'll love a warm box to curl up against in this weather. They also like chewing cables & other plastic
(I found a puddle of lemonade in the garage last year - the cap was still sealed on the top but the little "beggars" had nibbled through the bottom of the bottle!!)

Where will your AV amp/receiver etc. be located? with the other sources in the garage or locally in the viewing room? If remotely, I presume you're also running speaker cable.
What are your plans for audio distribution (radio, CDs/MP3s etc) ?
You also don't mention whether you have/want a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player.

What I am thinking:
I need a Matrix Switch? From reading AVForums HDMI still seems expensive and problems with compatability between manufacturers. Therefore, I am thinking component.
Does a Matrix Switch for Component direct to CAT5 exist?
Would I be better off running co-axial cable as well as Cat5?

I would (and have) run coax as well. It is cheap and can be used for all sorts of things - CCTV, IR distribution, analogue/freeview distribution, Sky distribution etc. (remember you can distribute the Sky box outputs via RF - not great if you've got a 42" plasma in each room, but it might be ok for kitchen/spare bedroom portable TVs etc. You can configure each Sky box to output on a different RF channel so can distribute each box's output separately). I've put two runs of coax to most locations and three runs to where I thought I might have a satellite receiver.


Yes, a matrix switch will allow you to send one source to multiple rooms, or different sources to different rooms. If you get a "breakaway" switch then you could watch the news while a CD plays through the speakers, or watch a football game but listen to the 5live commentary, etc.

Do you really want a component switch though, when none of your sources will output component? What devices are you having at the viewing ends? Larger plasma & LCD panels have component inputs, but CRT TVs and the smaller flat panels don't usually come with them. Do you really need to distribute HD resolutions to *all* locations? You appear to have four satellite boxes but only mention 3 viewing rooms, are there other locations you want to feed to?

Ideally you'd get all of your sources into the same format and then distribute one type of signal, but since most of Sky, all of Freeview and all of Freesat is neither HD nor output as component (except Sky HD), you would have to up-convert. Goodmans and one other brand are now offering Freeview boxes with HDMI outputs (but as you say, Freeview is not a solution for now...).

How do I use all 4 satellite signals from the dish (1 x Full Sky Package and 3 x Freesat)
What about using Microsoft Media Centre or MythTV with a Hauppage Capture Card and then a media center extender for each room (like the new Linksys MC Extender II)?

If you think you'll need more than 4 feeds from the satellite LNB (remember Sky+ & Sky HD need 2 cables each), you'll need a Multiswitch (http://www.satelliteonline.co.uk/commercial_systems.htm) switch. They come in various sizes and allow you to connect >4 digiboxes to one dish/LNB. On the dish-side the switch is connected to a quattro LNB via 4 cables and each link has one of the four H/V polarisation and tone/no tone combinations such that each digibox that's connected to the switch gets the signal it needs.


I'd recommend getting a large sheet of paper and writing all your sources down the left hand side, along with the output format they have. Then put all of your "TVs" down the right hand side with the input formats they can accept. This will give you a good idea of what you need *now*. Then add on what you'd like to have in the future to give an idea of where you'd like to be. Work out what you need for each solution; maybe composite, S-video or RGB distribution (over Cat5) for now, and HMDI distribution for later. Provided you have the cabling infrastructure in place, changing the boxes out later is relatively simple.

Have a look at the KAT5 products (www.kat5.tv plus the forum here on Automated Home) for AV distribution over Cat5 cable (including "specials" for component & RGB formats). A KAT5 matrix switch is in the pipeline but until then you could use a different switch and just use the KAT5 boxes for transmit/receive.

Bit of a long reply, but HTH.

Cheers,

Tim.