Fire Remodel / Whole home audio / Home theater / newbie to all this. (1 Viewer)

[Sapper112]

Hey all! New to the forum and home theater in general. I will attempt to make this first post well thought out and not ask questions that can be easily researched.

My home had a fire in June and is being remodeled. Right now the house is down to studs so It’s time to wire and “future proof” the best I can.

I have purchased a Monoprice whole home audio system. Monoprice 8 inch in ceiling speakers (2 per room).

This is what I’ve gotten done so far.
Wired Cat5E to every location that will have a control pad for the whole home system.

Wired Cat5E to everywhere I anticipate to have a projector, TV, or LAN outlet.

Wired a pair of speaker wire to every location in the ceiling that I will have a speaker.

Wired RG6 to three different locations that I anticipate to have a subwoofer.

Wired 3 RCA - 3mm wires. One in the upstairs hall, downstairs hall, and “man cave”. I did this because I was going to use Amazon Echo Dots as sources for zones in the whole home audio system and also in hopes that I’ll always be in range of voice controlling other smart accessories that I plan to have.

Wired Cat5E to all exterior camera locations.

At this point every thing listed above is wired to a closet downstairs. I consider this closet to be my media center.

Now for the questions.....
For my “man cave” I want a projector. I know I’ll need a home theater receiver but I’m not sure if I should wire that entire room by itself and have the components that control that room in the room or if I should wire everything to the closet.

I am also not sure what to use as sources for my whole home audio. I’m not sure if the amazon Alexa’s will work the way I want them to. I was hoping the Alexa’s would be able to pick up voice commands where ever I am in the house and also serve as Bluetooth connection so I can stream music to my whole home audio system.

I do not have cable wired in the house or plan on having cable TV. I was planning on using internet based things likes Netflix and YouTube TV instead which is why I hard wired every TV for Cat5E. Does anyone see any issues with this?

How do I wire my house for internet service? RG6 from the exterior to the location of my router?

And of course I don’t know what I don’t know. Any tips would be appreciated.

 

[Sapper112]

 

[DaveF]

Run Cat6 and coax from the exterior cable junction to your interior network junction. I would run coax into the living room tv area. Cable tv is on the decline, but it’s not dead yet. And cable is cheap.

 

[DaveF]

You want to be forward thinking, run Ethernet to ceiling locations to install mesh WiFi access points.

 

[Sapper112]

I did not even know Mesh WiFi exsisted! Thanks! My home is brick and that will certainly help with signal issues!

 

[Sapper112]

Is Google WiFi a good choice? Do those require power as well as cat cable?

 

[Sam Posten]

@Sapper112 welcome to HTF...

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-mesh-networking-kits/

 

[JQuintana]

Is Google WiFi a good choice? Do those require power as well as cat cable?

I use GWF and it's been great. Just plug one of the 3 pods into your modem via ethernet and then just plug the other pods wherever you need them in the hose.All they need is power outlet nearby,

 

[DaveF]

Is Google WiFi a good choice? Do those require power as well as cat cable?

It’s one of several options. I have a friend with the Google system who likes it. From my recent research, I’d buy the Netgear Orbi if I were buying today.

I was thinking, if you wanted to go really high tech, you can pre-wire for ceiling mounted access points for a fully customizable mesh system. But it is easier to go with a system like Orbi, Eero, Google, Plume, etc.

 

[DaveF]

My real point being: because you’re doing whole house prewire, plan for and use a mesh system with ethernet backhaul, rather than WiFi backhaul.

 

[Bob Bielski]

Hey all! New to the forum and home theater in general. I will attempt to make this first post well thought out and not ask questions that can be easily researched.

My home had a fire in June and is being remodeled. Right now the house is down to studs so It’s time to wire and “future proof” the best I can.

I have purchased a Monoprice whole home audio system. Monoprice 8 inch in ceiling speakers (2 per room).

This is what I’ve gotten done so far.
Wired Cat5E to every location that will have a control pad for the whole home system.

Wired Cat5E to everywhere I anticipate to have a projector, TV, or LAN outlet.

Wired a pair of speaker wire to every location in the ceiling that I will have a speaker.

Wired RG6 to three different locations that I anticipate to have a subwoofer.

Wired 3 RCA - 3mm wires. One in the upstairs hall, downstairs hall, and “man cave”. I did this because I was going to use Amazon Echo Dots as sources for zones in the whole home audio system and also in hopes that I’ll always be in range of voice controlling other smart accessories that I plan to have.

Wired Cat5E to all exterior camera locations.

At this point every thing listed above is wired to a closet downstairs. I consider this closet to be my media center.

Now for the questions.....
For my “man cave” I want a projector. I know I’ll need a home theater receiver but I’m not sure if I should wire that entire room by itself and have the components that control that room in the room or if I should wire everything to the closet.

I am also not sure what to use as sources for my whole home audio. I’m not sure if the amazon Alexa’s will work the way I want them to. I was hoping the Alexa’s would be able to pick up voice commands where ever I am in the house and also serve as Bluetooth connection so I can stream music to my whole home audio system.

I do not have cable wired in the house or plan on having cable TV. I was planning on using internet based things likes Netflix and YouTube TV instead which is why I hard wired every TV for Cat5E. Does anyone see any issues with this?

How do I wire my house for internet service? RG6 from the exterior to the location of my router?

And of course I don’t know what I don’t know. Any tips would be appreciated.

Should be using minimum Cat 6a. Preferably Cat 7. Just a bandwidth thing.
Also look into a home theater pc. Get a very large capacity hard drive that can store a lot of high def movies. and a super CPU that can do multi core and hyper threading to get the speed and bandwidth to stream movies and hi def music files. Most important would be the video card. They all come with fans to cool and different ability to stream 4 and 8 k signals. To go future proof get one that does 8 k. If you don't need a monitor greater than 50 inches stick with 4k and save some money. And get an OLED display. Nothing better right now.

 

[Bob Bielski]

And mesh is a new network topology. If one node or host goes down it can still transmit through the other hosts on the network. Mesh is taking off because of the IoT the internet of things. Very low amount of data exchanged and no error correction and very little security issues just one machine like refrigerator or the thermostat or the smart tv or the lights. They use a no security non authentication permission to transmit data and not critical data. This is coming at us like a storm and you should concentrate on security.

 

[DaveF]

Also look into a home theater pc. Get a very large capacity hard drive that can store a lot of high def movies. and a super CPU that can do multi core and hyper threading to get the speed and bandwidth to stream movies and hi def music files. Most important would be the video card. They all come with fans to cool and different ability to stream 4 and 8 k signals. To go future proof get one that does 8 k. If you don't need a monitor greater than 50 inches stick with 4k and save some money. And get an OLED display. Nothing better right now.

No. Don’t do that. Buy a streaming box. Enjoy streaming services. Redeem digital codes from discs.

HTPCs are for crazy people who find ripping discs and fussing with metadata a relaxing activity. Who like turning a simple $70 purchase into a complex, never ending debugging investment of thousands of dollars.

Unless that sounds like a good plan...then I can tell you more, since I have an HTPC.

 

[Sapper112]

What would be the beat way to view my home security cameras on multiple TVs? HDMI splitter?

 

[DaveF]

Your home security video should be going to a network connected server. You would watch the video from the server on your mobile devices or computers or maybe TVs with supporting software. I don’t think you’d have a home security box running HDMI cables to all,your TVs in the house.

For example:
https://www.amazon.com/ZOSI-8-Channel-Weatherproof-Surveillance-Smartphone/dp/B00MXILVL4

This is based on talking with a friend who’s a home-security nut and is always playing with this things.

 

[Sapper112]

https://www.lorextechnology.com/hd-...llance-system-with-8-cameras/LN10802-168W-1-p

This is the system I bought. It does have a network connection. If all my TVs are on the same wired network I can view it that way?

 

[DaveF]

Says it has apps for alll mobile devices and desktop computers. And an HDMI out for local monitor.

If you still need it distributed to TVs throughout the house, you’ll need an HDMI splitter and cables run to the TVs.