SquareD - Am I making the right choice?

[jon_itmagic]

I am about to sign-up for a SquareD wideband installation in my new house.

It's a 5 bed house and the cost comes in at around £3k.

Whilst I'm reasonably technically minded, I'm struggling with all the available options / possibilities and therefore need some extra advise...

Is SqareD the best route to do down?... I'm after a system that is reasonably future-proof that can handle as many scenarios as possible.

All help and advice appreciated!

Jon

[vex]

Re: SquareD - Am I making the right choice?

I am about to sign-up for a SquareD wideband installation in my new house.

It's a 5 bed house and the cost comes in at around £3k.

Whilst I'm reasonably technically minded, I'm struggling with all the available options / possibilities and therefore need some extra advise...

Is SqareD the best route to do down?... I'm after a system that is reasonably future-proof that can handle as many scenarios as possible.

All help and advice appreciated!

Jon

Jon,

It is a good system that can provide you with a wide range of solutions and protection for the future. What range of their systems are you looking to put in and what extras are you allowing for?

There are somethings it can not do, I don't particuarly like the way they deal with video distribution, however using their cable we can distribute either composite or even component over the cable.

HTH

Chris

[jon_itmagic]

Re: SquareD - Am I making the right choice?

Hi Chris,

Errm... :? [blank, confused look on my face...]

My quote includes a TV amplifier module, data switch and telephone module.

I work from home and run a number of servers in my garage and workstations in the house. I need to be sure this system has the capacity to handle 5+ PCs.

I was hoping that once my budget allowed, I'd be able to pipe video (incl. HD video) to whichever TV I choose.

[vex]

Jon

The system will certainly be able to handle the pc's and your standard tv distribution requirements and without seeing plans and the number of points you are planning it seems a reasonable cost.

However traditional video, DVD and others is shared using lower quality modulated UHF frequencies (ie they appear as a tv channel) rather than better quality scart type signal distribution. This certainly will not pass HD.

With what you are planning you could do the distribution using IP, (ie IPTV and HD Streaming) but this is currently costly. THe other alternative is to use either a BlueDelta or KAT5 hub to share composite signals around the house.

If you are planning to offer double sockets at each location then you can also use those to share composite and audio, even HD Analogue but it would be to the detriment of the othe rservices at those locations.

Don't get me wrong, the Lexcom /SquareD system is a good one, we distribute to installers here, but my pet hate is it being miss sold as a all singing all dancing must have when there are other things that need to be considered, especailly in your requirements.

Happy to chat over the phone if you want to.

Chris

[smarthomey]

Re: SquareD - Am I making the right choice?

Hi Jon

I am in the process of launching a smart home company which will be a Schneider partner (part of the Square-D network) offering LexCom Home, IHC and Clipsal solutions.

Your requirements seem very similar to the demonstration room I've added to my house which has a 12-port data network and TV/telephone distribution. All the wiring comes back to a central location (in my case a cupboard!) which has a Home Network Sciences patch panel. As well as the network cabling this also houses the wireless broadband router (which is also the hub) and TV amplifier module. My hub is 4-port but in your case you would need to specify an 8-port hub/switch (to handle your 5 PCs plus some expandability).

Based on your requirements (and the high degree of future proofing you need), the LexCom Home system will offer you a whole-house network providing data, telephone, TV and audio distribution as well as the possibility of home automation with IHC or Clipsal later on. I have 12 data outlets in the one room which may by the sounds of it be enough for your house but the patch panel I've used can handle up to about 40 data outlets.

Unfortunately as Chris says there's no "HD option" from Square-D, for that you have to look elsewhere. As well as the more expensive "HD distribution" systems, you could also look at a point-to-point solution suiting 1-3 rooms which may give you both the quality and flexibility you need. I'm actually installing this type of system for a customer next week using an HDMI switcher with an HDMI extender for long range HDMI video from an equipment room upstairs to the main AV room downstairs.

This setup uses an HDMI switch to which you connect your HDMI inputs such as DVD player, computer, Sky HD and so on; it automatically (or manually if you prefer) switches between the various sources. The output then connects to an HDMI extender which sends the video signal up to 200ft to the HD display. The extender has a Sender which is connected via HDMI to the HDMI switch output and a Receiver which is connected via HDMI to the display. The Sender and Receiver units are connected via 2 runs of Cat5 (LexCom Home cabling for a Square-D installation).

This works really well for a single room, but would also be easily expandable to more rooms with an HDMI splitter. If you're interested I have a system diagram I could send you which might make the setup clearer - email below.

You'd need to prewire though of course from source to TV location. Or if you wanted to be clever, as long as your source equipment was close to the patch panel, you could route the 2 Cat5s (from the Sender unit) through the patch panel to a double wall plate (2 RJ45's) and then run patch cables from there to wherever your display is located in the room. At the patch panel you can then decide which room/data outlet to send the HD video to.

This type of solution is single source (same HD signal to all displays), but you can make it multi-source by using a matrix product (for example 4 HDMI inputs & 4 HDMI outputs) where you can route the video source to whichever display you want. This is of couse, quite a bit more expensive.

If you're interested here are some links which might be useful:

http://www.octavainc.com/

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=3872

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=2225

http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=3331

HTH a little with your planning.

Best regards
John
[email protected]