hi guys! i'm building a new house right now and its already in its wiring stage. i would like to have a structured cabling and i would like to use the CQC software just like IVB is using. i was inspired by his work that's why i want to start using the CQC software and home automation through my house then if its successfull then i would be doing it as a business too..sorry for my bad english i might not be good at it. anyway here are some of my questions..

1. I have 4 bedrooms and 1 home theater. if i wired all the Cable TV using RG-6 does it need to be home run to the central hub? as of right now in my country we still don't have an HDTV :( but soon i heard we are going to have an HDTV and we would use the DVB-T.

2. i also want to put a Cat6 in all the rooms for data and internet..it also need to be home run right?

3. I will have a home theater and i would like to control the devices using CQC software but i don't know where to start. i also like to use the CQC software for lighting, security, cd player and dvd player..

i'm just a bit confuse where to start..hope someone could help from scratch..mostly i want how IVB home theater pcs work except for the climate control. :) thanks in advance guys! :)

Greetings. Which country? Might help with the non-av bits. Also, do you have any idea what "common practice" is in your country? Doing something vastly different may affect resale value, which wouldn't be a good thing. The US is very into the central wiring closet & distribution model for whole-house AV, with local PCs as a runner-up.

I don't know much about int'l, but here's some thoughts:

For wiring:
- Are you going to use DVB-T receivers, or an HTPC to tune? I know there's been some chatter lately on the SageTV forums about the BlackGold DVB-T tuner card and V6, mixed results. Anyhow, if you pipe the ouptput through a component output, you could still stick 3RG6 or minicoax runs to distribute from a central location.
- If sharing video sources (ie DVD megachanger) isn't that big a deal, you could also stick with local PC control routed to a local TV. Given that CQC is a whole-house license, you could go to the extreme and have each bedroom & HT, so 5 rooms, each be a CQC server. Furthermore you could have a 6th PC be the Master Server. This is monstrous overkill, but if running tons of wire around your new house will either be very expensive or not appreciated in your home country, it might be a better path. In that case, the CAT6 would be all you need as it would get it over the network.
*The issue with this would be synchronized audio playback across rooms, but that may not be a problem for you.

BTW, yes, homerun all your network wire.

Greetings. Which country? Might help with the non-av bits. Also, do you have any idea what "common practice" is in your country? Doing something vastly different may affect resale value, which wouldn't be a good thing. The US is very into the central wiring closet & distribution model for whole-house AV, with local PCs as a runner-up.

I don't know much about int'l, but here's some thoughts:

For wiring:
- Are you going to use DVB-T receivers, or an HTPC to tune? I know there's been some chatter lately on the SageTV forums about the BlackGold DVB-T tuner card and V6, mixed results. Anyhow, if you pipe the ouptput through a component output, you could still stick 3RG6 or minicoax runs to distribute from a central location.
- If sharing video sources (ie DVD megachanger) isn't that big a deal, you could also stick with local PC control routed to a local TV. Given that CQC is a whole-house license, you could go to the extreme and have each bedroom & HT, so 5 rooms, each be a CQC server. Furthermore you could have a 6th PC be the Master Server. This is monstrous overkill, but if running tons of wire around your new house will either be very expensive or not appreciated in your home country, it might be a better path. In that case, the CAT6 would be all you need as it would get it over the network.
*The issue with this would be synchronized audio playback across rooms, but that may not be a problem for you.

BTW, yes, homerun all your network wire.

thanks for your fast reply IVB...i'm from the Philippines..as of right now i still don't know which one to use..whether dvb-t receiver or htpc..which one would you recommend? coz as of today we are just using analog cable tv..so i will be using RG6 for all of the rooms..

what do you mean by 5 CQC server? it means that i could have a touch screen lcd and control it from any of my rooms right? lets say i'm in m Bedroom 1 and i want to monitor the lights, security can i do that in any room?

mostly in each rooms they will only use the DVD server or music player..if they could just use the touch screen lcd and select the movies they want to view on that room..different movies in different rooms..is that possible?

how about the VIDEO which is RG6 i should homerun it to right?

sorry if i might ask to many questions..

anyone?

Oh, sorry dude, didn't notice this post. I went on vacation, must have phased on this.

thanks for your fast reply IVB...i'm from the Philippines..as of right now i still don't know which one to use..whether dvb-t receiver or htpc..which one would you recommend? coz as of today we are just using analog cable tv..so i will be using RG6 for all of the rooms..

The difficulty with receivers is that you can't easily centralize them and control remotely. However, I don't know what HTPC setups are like in the phillipines - you should get on the sagetv forums and see if there's any experience with that.

what do you mean by 5 CQC server? it means that i could have a touch screen lcd and control it from any of my rooms right? lets say i'm in m Bedroom 1 and i want to monitor the lights, security can i do that in any room?

By multiple servers, i mean you could put a PC in each room and have control over each PC remotely. The PC would then be hooked up to the server.

Alternatively, you could put 1 or more PCs in a central room, and run multiple RG6's per room (for HDTV), or 1 RG6 ( for SDTV) to each room.

And yes, you can use a touchscreen to control any room from any room. That's what I do.


mostly in each rooms they will only use the DVD server or music player..if they could just use the touch screen lcd and select the movies they want to view on that room..different movies in different rooms..is that possible?

Yes, but the question is how many different movies at the same time. Each PC can only render 1 video source at a time. Think about how many concurrent video streams you'll want, and design around that. It's a smaller # than you think - in 12 months, we have only used 2 concurrent CD streams once, and have NEVER watched 2 different DVDs at the same time.
how about the VIDEO which is RG6 i should homerun it to right?

Yep, and if you can, run 3 of them (or a 3-wire minicoax) so you can do HDTV over it.

Sorry again about the delay.

hi again IVB! sorry for the late response too..i was out of town...

anyway lets say i just want to view one movie in each room so that i would be needing only one server...

so what should i do next? in order to use CQC just like yours.. :) what are the things needed? hope you could help me step by step..thanks! :)

If you want to talk specifics for CQC, let's move this to the CQC forum. It'd be more appropriate to have product-specific discussions on the manufacturer's forum.