# Home Theater/Game Room Help



## vedwards (Oct 29, 2008)

Hi, I am a newbie.

I'm going to try to explain what I am trying to accomplish. Starting with a list of my equipments and followed by Leviton compents:

1. Quad RG6-U Cable
2. Mitsubishi DLP Projector 1500 
3. Klipsh Quintet Speaker System 
4. Synergy Sub-10 Subwoofer
5. Yamaha Dvd DV-56160
6. Monster Power 3500 MK II
7. Yamaha A/V Receiver (RX-463)
8. Cat6
9. DirectTv HD service

LEVITON PRODUCTS: PHONE SECURITY MODULE, DSL FILTER BOARD, 1X6 PASSIVE AUDIO MODULE, VIDEO AMPLIFIER MODULE (48210-VA), 10/100 INTERNET GATEWAY 4 PORT, 10/100 ETHERNET SWITCH 5 PORT, 3X8 BI-DIRECTIONAL VIDEO MODULE, ADVANCED TELEPHONE & VIDEO UNIT (47603-AVT), 3X4 MULTI-SWITCH 47691-3MS, STRUCTURE MEDIA 280 SERIES CENTER.

I have sever zones that I am trying to provide service to: In every room, I want to be able to have HD Satellite in every room without the need of additional boxes, Computer/fax/phone/internet access, surround sound connectivity, be able to play PS2/Xbox games, Listen to music throughout the house. All cable will be ran inwall. My equipment room will be located in the Home Theater area where all components and MDF unit will be placed. I don't know what cables to make for each connections that I need, what plate connectors need to be able to play game consoles in each rooms with having the game boxes for each room, along with computer/internet/phone/fax access....I hope I explain so that you understand if not, I will try to as best as I can.....Thanks for you patience and understanding.

:reading::reading:


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## tenzip (May 4, 2007)

Welcome to the Shack!

I would love to help, but your situation is outside my knowledge/experience. I do know there are a couple of folks around here that know something about structured wiring/distribution, so I'll let them answer.

This is new construction, or existing?


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## vedwards (Oct 29, 2008)

The Home Theater Room is an unfinished bonus room with no sheetrock.


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## vedwards (Oct 29, 2008)

but the other rooms are finished, so I would have to do some fishing through the walls.


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## salvasol (Oct 31, 2006)

This is a little complex to me too ...:innocent:

Did you read this  Thread ??? ... maybe you can get some ideas :yes:


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## the_rookie (Sep 30, 2008)

So, let me get this straight;

Do you want to be able to use video games, movies, and TV all from one source, playing in multiple rooms?

I might have a solution to that if that is what you need.


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## vedwards (Oct 29, 2008)

Yea!!!!!

That's exactly what I trying to accomplish in addition with having the ability to access the internet, and connect security cameras....Thanks for your reply.


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## the_rookie (Sep 30, 2008)

My dad did this back in our older house, its quite simple.

I will write out a detailed description and walk through to do it, but first im going to vote for the president, and than go to work.

So later tonight I can write a good walk through on it...thats if someone else doesn't beat me to it.


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## vedwards (Oct 29, 2008)

G.r.e.a.t!!!! 

I'll be waiting.............and yes, do go vote!.............our country need y0ur voice............sorry! Though i beat you to the punch and did the early voting.........excited to have gotten it over with......smile!!!!!!!

But again, thanks so much for your response. I truly appreciate you!!


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## the_rookie (Sep 30, 2008)

Well, what we had was similar to what you want.

Now, from that standpoint, we can build off of what my father had, and use the same ideology.

You said your HT room is still in the building phase? Well that does help a lot.

But there are a few more details I need to know before we continue with this help.

1) What connections will you be using? WIll you be using Coaxial, RCA, S-Video/RCA Audio, S-Video/Optical, Component/RCA or Optical or Coaxial Digital Cable, or HDMI? Cuz if using Optical for the audio Signals, you will lose bandwidth after certain distances, and will lose audio quality.

2) You said you wanted zones? Did you mean multiple Speakers throughout the house connected to the main AVR? If so, than larger gauge speaker wire will be needed to maintain audio quality vs distance, it will be costly more costly, but still cheaper than buying another AVR for the other "Zones" and regular speaker wire.

Also, do you understand that if you run HD cable to other rooms without boxs, you will be limited to watching only what the original box is showing, and can't change channels per room, so only 1 channel total for the whole house?


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## MatrixDweller (Jul 24, 2007)

You could have satellite TV in every room with only a central box (using a audio/video splitter), but all displays would show the same picture. For satellite you need a separate box for each display. Each box connects to an individual LMB on the dish so you would also need a dual/quad/(or more) LMB dish or more than one dish to connect to more than one TV. Some sat receivers have dual outputs (still need two LMB connections), but one is HD and the other is SD. 

You could have all the receivers in one location, but controlling them would be a pain because the remotes all use the same codes. I think you can rekey the RF remotes and tie them to specific receivers though.

What you'll probably want to do with audio video distribution is place one or more wall plates in each room and fish wire back to your media closet. 

- For Cable/Sat and DVD/Bluray you'll probably want to do one or more HDMI cables per room
- For PS2 you would want a component feed plus two RCA audio cables. You will also need wireless PS2 controllers. I don't know about their range however and you might need an RF repeater.
- For your speakers you would want 2, 5 or 7 speaker wire runs plus a coaxial cable for the sub.
- You would need a component video switch and a HDMI switcher, both of which would need to be IR or RF controllable.
- You would need several good RF remotes with IR blasters placed in your media closet that convert the RF to IR.
- You would need a better AVR that has zones or buy additional AVRs if you want sound to be available in different rooms independently (ie: listening to different things in different rooms). Otherwise you could get a 5.1/7.1 audio matrix switcher to distribute the same audio everywhere (but only in one location at one time). You would need amplified distribution to pump the same audio all over the house at the same time.
- You would want to run a couple CAT5e (or CAT6) runs to each room plus a phone line for network/internet and fax. The other option is using wireless internet. Wired is much faster and less problematic though. You could use a cable/dsl router and/or a network switch/hub.

If you were looking to do this to save money, the cost of getting RF remotes, the extra wiring, wall plates, and HDMI and Component matrix switchers might be the same as buying a couple more RX-V463's (or RX-V363's) and a couple PS2's (($230 to $350 + $125) X 2 = $710 to $950). You also need extra satellite receivers as I mentioned so there's no savings there.

If you did it that way you would just want to run coaxial (for sat) to each room plus network and phone.


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## vedwards (Oct 29, 2008)

Answer 1: I am not sure which cables to use. I had plan on using Coaxial, Component/RCA Coaxial Digital Cable, and HDMI?

Answer 2: We already have to the main stereo/cd player system in the kitchen with multiple Speakers apprx. 10 speakers throughout the house. But, what I wanted to do is to have surround sound in each bedroom so when they watch tv/movies or play video games they will be able to have that same theater sound. I'm not quite sure what connections/ports to put up in their rooms that will have the wall connections.

Answer 3. No, I didn't know that; I do have two satellite dish. One that is HD and the other I guess is Standard Directtv dish.


Thanks for getting back with me.


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## Guest (Nov 13, 2008)

If your currently using 2 dishes for Sat, you should consider replacing old dishes with DTV SMW dish. You would get the SD & HD signals and need only a single RG6 for each receiver (locals/SD/HD/HDDVR). up to 8 separate locations. 

The sound and networking will be trick, requiring a well thought out pre-plan 

Do you have a budget in mind?


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## vedwards (Oct 29, 2008)

Our Budget Plan is roughly 9000.00


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2008)

Theres so many questions to ask. If you could give a detailed list of for each room and a rough floor plan with the location of current wallplates and installed wiring for each. Photos are also helpful. 

Do all the currently installed CAT6 and RG6 run to a single point (homerun)?

Take some time to figure out how your current setup is configured and then we can integrate it into a plan.


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## the_rookie (Sep 30, 2008)

Im going to tackle this in sections over a few days...cuz personally...if I were to be there...I would be doing this full time and working on your house at this very moment. Guiding and doing the stuff for you...however...since im not, i can't and dont have as much drive to write out the entire guide in one sitting. So i will do it in sections so you can give me more parameters as I might cross some here and there.

Let me brainstorm a little more...and i will get back to you.


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## vedwards (Oct 29, 2008)

Thanks! I will be waiting. I am going to take some pic of the area also for you.


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## steiny93 (Jan 8, 2009)

Sounds like a great project

Off the top of my head I can think of various solutions that would meet the requirements except the playing of ps3 / xbox (assume 360) from remote rooms. The problem with the game consoles is that they utilize bluetooth between the controllers and the console and if the bluetooth doesn't reach from your remote rooms I don't believe there is a solution for extending the range. (unless you disassembled the console)

For distributing hd audio and video: 
If you are going to utilize hdmi for the transport layer then go with a 4x4 or appropriately sized full matrix switch, here is an example: http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dproduct.jsp?prod_id=3331 If you are close < 50ft to your remote rooms you can use hdmi cables, if you are greater then 50ft you'll need a device that takes hdmi and transports it via cat5 then converts back to hdmi, here is an example: http://www.svideo.com/ext-hdtv-cat5.html

They also have solutions also available for componet and digital audio, here is an example of the transmitter: http://www.plasma.com/dvi/cat5tx.htm you would also need a cat5rx for each remote room.

You'll also need something for IR distribution, my vote would go to a xantech solution. I've put in many xantech's and they work great, I have 3 separate xantech's in my house alone  Xantech is all done over cat5, you can lenghten the receivers or emitters via cat5.

Whole house audio,
Lots of choices here, I personally like xantech and niles, both have spectacular solutions available. For these you really need to first decide how you want it to work. By that I mean, do you want wall panels for each of the zones? Do you want remotes for the zone controls? Do you want the zones to play different music or all the same? For audio it could be as simple as a single 12 / 24 / ???? channel amp with speaker wire running all over the house then leveraging the remote room IR solutions to extend the control of the music amp. Or,,, you could have wall panels in each room controling source/volume/etc independent of any other zone.

The first step that you need todo is draw up a diagram of what you want. What you want meaning a picture of the rooms including the features / functions that you will want to be able todo in each of the rooms. Once you have that you'll want to decide if you'll be reusing any components or if you are willing to purchase new (this will matter when you need to make the call as to how to transport the HD signal)

put a bunch of attention into the audio features that you'll want, that'll be the place you can spend or save lots of cash

I don't sell any products or services, I'm just a home theater nut whose wife is very understanding  Feel free to send me a private message if you would like to chat about your project, much of this is easier to explain on the phone


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