New House Built – Tech Questions

[88CRX]

Just getting started on a new house build and I have a couple odd tech related questions that are probably easily resolved… however I’m not tech-savy at all. Noob status.

- TV being mounted above a fireplace, WTF do I do with the cable box, dvd player (yes DVD’S), receiver, etc. Can I wirelessly connect them down into the basement or somewhere else? Don’t really have room for a closet on the main floor and would rather not have a shelving unit to store all that crap in the living room.
- Exterior pot lights, I want them to come on via a timer or photocell in the evening and then stay on till 11-12pm, then shut off on their own. How do I make that happen?
- What other tech rough in’s do I need? We get cable (internet) wired in a bunch of rooms that terminate in the basement and a couple phone connections.

[killramos]

I have my cable box etc remotely located to a side cabinet on both of my over fireplace TV's. Just a PVC tube in the wall between the TV and the cabinet to run the cables through, if you have a receiver all you need is a single HDMI to the tv and let the receiver do the switching. Universal remote helpful for this but not necessary. For my upstairs all i do is hook cable box up to Xbox One up to TV and then a Toslink from the TV to a soundbar and that handles everything I need. user a Harmony Ultimate just for simplicity of one remote.

Basement I have more components which are run through a receiver with single HDMI with ARC up to the Smart TV.

Or you could get super fancy and use a Ethernet-HDMI Matrix like some of the ballers on here have where all of your AV equipment is in the basement like you mention can you can hook any source up to any TV in the house. But its complicated and expensive to do right ( special remotes, switches, hardware, wiring ). To get this done professionally you are talking about crack money ( a buddy had this done to like 12+ tv's , and while it is nice I am pretty sure his total system cost near as much as my car ).

As for additional rough in's i would wire for in ceiling speakers and audio controllers personally, even if you have no short term plans to install.

The pot light timing can be done with a smart switch of which there are tons on the market.

[88CRX]

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I have my cable box etc remotely located to a side cabinet on both of my over fireplace TV's. Just a PVC tube in the wall between the TV and the cabinet to run the cables through, if you have a receiver all you need is a single HDMI to the tv and let the receiver do the switching. Universal remote helpful for this but not necessary. For my upstairs all i do is hook cable box up to Xbox One up to TV and then a Toslink from the TV to a soundbar and that handles everything I need. user a Harmony Ultimate just for simplicity of one remote.

Basement I have more components which are run through a receiver with single HDMI with ARC up to the Smart TV.

Or you could get super fancy and use a Ethernet-HDMI Matrix like some of the ballers on here have where all of your AV equipment is in the basement like you mention can you can hook any source up to any TV in the house. But its complicated and expensive to do right ( special remotes, switches, hardware, wiring ).

As for additional rough in's i would wire for in ceiling speakers and audio controllers personally, even if you have no short term plans to install.

The pot light timing can be done with a smart switch of which there are tons on the market.

Yea current house has pvc conduit from tv down to received on a shelf beside the TV. Problem being I dont have room for said shelf in this living room.

Could I just run a super long HDMI from main floor TV to basement media closet? How far will those fancy universal remotes shoot a signal?

[killramos]

Probably better to use an ethernet to HDMI adapter on either side if the run is really long. HDMI cables are expensive.

Any RF universal remote will likely work fine for this application but check the ranges and number of walls in between remote and RF hub.

[jwslam]

Re: TV Cable box etc. They usually put a conduit in so that you can run cables off to the side for a stand full of all your goodies. I wouldn't recommend wireless connection to downstairs because then you also have to deal with getting a remote control that goes through floors... Other alternative:


Re: lights. https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.v...000132512.html

Re: Wiring. Consider where your stuff is going so you put outlets accordingly. Consider loading breakers so that intensive stuff isn't all on the same circuit i.e. I had microwave and toaster oven on the same one so I moved the appliance. See home theatre projector thread for other ideas in that scope.

[roopi]

Something to think about with exterior pot lights is the locations. They look great but make sure they are easy access to change. I've seen a lot of people put them on the second story not by a window and they aren't the easiest thing to change.

As for a timer a simple switch like this will take care of the timing for you:
https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.v...000132512.html

[88CRX]

That switch is genius. Grabbing one for the current house!

Wonder if it would also work on a christmas light soffit plug/switch?

[kenny]

Run a couple CAT6 lines behind the TV. One for smart TV features (even if you don't need it now), and the other one can be used as a basic hdmi extension or tied into a matrix system. This cable will also carry your IR signals to control everything.

[roopi]

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Wonder if it would also work on a christmas light soffit plug/switch?

Is it the switch or the plug? If you have a switch inside for the plug/outlet in the soffit then yes it would work. If you don't have a switch inside for it then use one of these instead directly into the plug. I used these this past year for a couple of outdoor christmas decorations and they worked flawlessly.
http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/no...8870p.html#srp

[88CRX]

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Run a couple CAT6 lines behind the TV. One for smart TV features (even if you don't need it now), and the other one can be used as a basic hdmi extension or tied into a matrix system. This cable will also carry your IR signals to control everything.

Are the IR signal things something like this?

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00OVAPS3Y?psc=1

This one appears to be wired, so I'd need to wire it from behind the TV to the media closet?

Are there wireless ones or like you mentioned something that ties in CAT6?

[kenny]

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Are the IR signal things something like this?

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00OVAPS3Y?psc=1

This one appears to be wired, so I'd need to wire it from behind the TV to the media closet?

Are there wireless ones or like you mentioned something that ties in CAT6?

I'm talking more about something like this:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=21609

It will carry both the HDMI signal + IR over the ethernet cable. Behind the TV, it doesn't require power as it is sent from the transmitting unit you would have in the basement. This model supports 4K but there are probably cheaper ones out there.

You can actually get away with a single cat6 run to behind the TV since you can also feed your internet connection through here too.

[88CRX]

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I'm talking more about something like this:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=21609

It will carry both the HDMI signal + IR over the ethernet cable. Behind the TV, it doesn't require power as it is sent from the transmitting unit you would have in the basement. This model supports 4K but there are probably cheaper ones out there.

You can actually get away with a single cat6 run to behind the TV since you can also feed your internet connection through here too.

On that particular unit, next stupid question.



The ‘receiver’ goes behind the TV with HDMI from tv to ‘receiver’ plus CAT6 connection from ‘receiver’ to the wall (which is roughed in already). Then in the basement we have the ‘transmitter’ hooked up to the CAT6 from the living room. Also in the basement you run the cable box, apple tv, etc to an audio receiver and then audio receiver to the ‘transmitter’ with a single HDMI?

And somehow a universal remote works for everything? OR is there some sort of IR component also required?

I feel like a noob haha.

[kenny]

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On that particular unit, next stupid question.



The ‘receiver’ goes behind the TV with HDMI from tv to ‘receiver’ plus CAT6 connection from ‘receiver’ to the wall (which is roughed in already). Then in the basement we have the ‘transmitter’ hooked up to the CAT6 from the living room. Also in the basement you run the cable box, apple tv, etc to an audio receiver and then audio receiver to the ‘transmitter’ with a single HDMI?

And somehow a universal remote works for everything? OR is there some sort of IR component also required?

I feel like a noob haha.

Yeah the transmitter will be in the basement with the HDMI source and the receiver is behind the TV.

If you have multiple HDMI sources, you'll want a matrix HDBaseT system so you can have full IR control over each of the devices. This extender I linked to is more of a solution for a single source like a telus/shaw PVR in the basement. If you have multiple sources hooked up a receiver in the basement you'll probably need to utilize some sort of remote with RF control (ex. Harmony). The IR on this is only designed to transmit to a single device but I suppose you could position the transmitter so all the devices can "see" the IR. Not sure how well that'd work though. You'd need to pick up an IR transmitter and receiver (a few bucks each).

IR transmitter/receiver:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=8059
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=8060

HDBaseT matrix:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=21818

But... most important thing now is to get that CAT6 line (or 2) wired up behind the TV!