Hello to everyone. I am new to this and have been reading non-stop for about a week. I am a MCSE and CCNA with extensive knowledge in netorking. I am building a 5000+ sq/ft house in the St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. My question is about wiring. What cables should I use and how much? How much of each cable will I need in each room to be home runs and which ones don't have to be?

My home will have 4 foum main A/V Zones:

Zone 1: Living Room - 50"-60" LCD/Plasma, 7.1 Surround Sound, Touch Panel
Zone 2: Entertainment Room - Projector, 7.1 Surround Sound, Touch Panel
Zone 3: Master Bedroom - 32"-42" LCD/Plasma, 5.1 Surround Sound, Touch Panel
Zone 4: Bedroom 1 - 32"-42" LCD/Plasma, Pair of Speakers, Touch Panel

Each Room will have its own Cable Box, DVD Player and AMP (where necessary).

1. Would like audio in Zones 1 & 2 to be piped to 4 "sub-zones." i.e. Zone 1 (Living Room) will control source of audio for sitting area, balcony, kitchen and front yard.

2. Will mount several cameras around the property and would to be able to view from any TV ....maybe even touchscreen/panel.

3. I would like to install several touchscreens: 3 bedrooms, Office, Living Room & Enterainment Room. Which system will allow me to control the security system via these touchscreens rather than having to install touch panels?

4. Don't see a need for it now, but would like to be able to see video showing in Zone 1 and Zone 2 from any other room?

5. What must I do to be able to switch input for in room speakers between tv and whole house audio.

The system will also control:

- Lighting
- Whole House Audio
- HVAC
- Irrigation
- Security System
- Surveillance Cameras

Provide feedback/comments on the wiring (homes runs & in room) and systems: home automation, whole house video, whole house audio, lighting,

No decisions have been made, but so far I am leaning in this direction:

HA - Cortexa -- Reading about CQC & Mainlobby
Video - ?????
Audio - NuVo
Lighting - Insteon

Based on the responses to the wiring I will create diagrams and post for review.

Thanks in advance. Free room in St. Criox to all that participate.

Mainlobby would have no trouble managing the setup you are putting together. Of course the next level of detail of what hardware you are thinking of is important.

Re: touchscreens / security system: yes, with MainLobby no problem. The touchscreen can have full control over an ELK M1 or HAI security panel. And, integrate all other house and media controls in same screen.

Personally, I would home run all speaker wires/ A/V wires to a central wiring closet and put all of your equipment in a rack. I wouldn't put the equipment in the room. Put a touchscreen / or wireless tablet in each room and control the entire system from there.

In general you would wire like this:
Source devices > Matrix switcher > room audio and video.
The Sources, and the Matrix switcher is then controlled by MainLobby Server software usually via serial cable connection. The server hardware would be in the rack with rest of A/V gear.

The touchscreens, your PC desktop and UMPC wireless tablets then connect to MainLobby server for control over it all. The security panel plugs into either a serial port or PC LAN.

Multizone audio is handled with MusicLobby 3. Multizone movie handling via DVDLobby 3.

What is a "virtual PC"? Do you mean a PC used as a hardware controller? If so, Cinemar sells that preloaded and configured ready to plug into your new wiring and hardware devices.

If you use cortexa, doesn't it come with it's own software so you don't need ML/CQC?

A buddy of mine owns a house in St. John's, Chocolate Hole IIRC. When I was on the east coast he/I used to go down every 9 months. Ah, the memories...

Mainlobby would have no trouble managing the setup you are putting together. Of course the next level of detail of what hardware you are thinking of is important.

Re: touchscreens / security system: yes, with MainLobby no problem. The touchscreen can have full control over an ELK M1 or HAI security panel. And, integrate all other house and media controls in same screen.

Personally, I would home run all speaker wires/ A/V wires to a central wiring closet and put all of your equipment in a rack. I wouldn't put the equipment in the room. Put a touchscreen / or wireless tablet in each room and control the entire system from there.

In general you would wire like this:
Source devices > Matrix switcher > room audio and video.
The Sources, and the Matrix switcher is then controlled by MainLobby Server software usually via serial cable connection. The server hardware would be in the rack with rest of A/V gear.

The touchscreens, your PC desktop and UMPC wireless tablets then connect to MainLobby server for control over it all. The security panel plugs into either a serial port or PC LAN.

Multizone audio is handled with MusicLobby 3. Multizone movie handling via DVDLobby 3.

What is a "virtual PC"? Do you mean a PC used as a hardware controller? If so, Cinemar sells that preloaded and configured ready to plug into your new wiring and hardware devices.

1. In regards to my primary question: what wires and how many of each would you have in each room? Seeing as I am building from scratch...all options are on the table. I am currently running conduits, but I want ot make sure the pipe will be big enough

2. Are you suggesting running "all" speaker wires back to the wiring rack? I have seen some systems where the volume control is wired directly to the speakers in the room. Please comment on how this would affect my ability to switch betweem sources: TV and whole house audio.

3. How would you compare Mainlobby to CQC? Pretty similar? Who has the edge in: learning curve, setup, reliability, and functionality.

If you use cortexa, doesn't it come with it's own software so you don't need ML/CQC?

A buddy of mine owns a house in St. John's, Chocolate Hole IIRC. When I was on the east coast he/I used to go down every 9 months. Ah, the memories...
Right now I am looking for a reason not to buy Cortexa. I am looking for that killer feature that Mainlobby or CQC has that Cortexa just can't match or deliver.

Right now I am just looking for basic functionality: Video, Audio, Lighting, Security, Cameras, HVAC, Phone, Internet, Electric Gate, Intercom and Irrigation. Then the ability to:

1. Access Remotel
2. Use Mulitple Acess Controlllers
3. Down the road I will like to be able to create Triggers/Events
a. Lights turning on automatically at night in the kitchen, hallway or yard.
b. Alert me when someoen is at the gate or front door or in the yard

But for right now I am just trying to assess the wiring needed to make it all happen.

Looking over your needs right now, looks like both packages can achieve what you want.

I think the "killer" argument towards each would be below. I can't speak to killer above Cortexa as I really know nothing about that. I prefer software based engines as I can mix/match whatever parts I want to achieve my objectives, and not be restricted by any anti-competition fears.

MainLobby: Ease of setup. I don't know much about V3 as I haven't looked since V2, but I hear it's much more of an "out-of-the-box" setup than CQC as it's targeted towards DIY'ers.

CQC: Future possibilites. CQC is a "DIY-friendly" package, meaning it's really meant for installers but DIY'ers are widely adopting it and putting in some elbow grease to get it to work. It's architecture allows for some huge future possibilities, ie i've just integrated ODBC control to enhance telephone/HVAC/trapping of when "bad behavior correction" triggers fire so I can correct behavior. But as there's no "out of the box" UI layer, you'll definitely have to put in a little more elbow grease to get it to work.

But you've got TONS of time to decide there, as you need to do the wiring first. As far as wiring goes, here's two diagrams to help seed your thinking.

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/temp/bauer83.JPG

http://www.myhometheaterpc.com/temp/house%20wiring.jpg (some of my oversights in the diagram discussed here: http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=4327&hl= )

kimvi, I just moved into my home (3800 sqft) a few months ago.

I had the same needs you did back in Apr 2006. I decided to go with CQC because its one price and it offers so much in terms of scalability. Drivers are written everyday but the users of the software and the software itself is constantly being improved.


I have 4 rooms that can access all my DVDs, HD cable and PVR, I can play music in 6 different zones.

I dont have lighting working but that will come (Lutron RadioRA), I have thermostat control, I have irrigation control and I have schedule events happening daily.

I have 4 awesome touch screens in every room that needs them.

Costs may vary, I bought everything off of ebay and other sites that refurbish but dont really offer warranties.

All wiring is home run back to a single location (closet in my office)

I ran speaker wire from the speaker location to a volume control in the wall, then from there back to a closet.

Cat5e/component video cable (RG6) is all run back to the same closet from every room that needs HD and internet.

You dont need to run RG6 if you want to go the Cat5e route, there are some nice products for that and I think now I should have went the route. Having 24 thick coax cables snaking around in a closet is a pain in the..... :)

Each Room will have its own Cable Box, DVD Player and AMP (where necessary).

The idea of Home Automation is to centralize and share resources. Put cable boxes in the closet and share them. Put a massive DVD 400 disc player or DVD PC server in the closet and share them.

The idea of Home Automation is to centralize and share resources. Put cable boxes in the closet and share them. Put a massive DVD 400 disc player or DVD PC server in the closet and share them.
I will have that too, but if I rent a movie from blockbutster I don't want to have put it in the 400 DVD changer each time. I wan to be able to just pop it in my bedroom and hit play. Or, if I am watchng "Matrix" for the 6000th time, my daughter can watch Lion King in her bedroom.

2 Questions:

1. How far away are we from being able to "rip" the movies we own in a storage medium and be able to watch 2 or 3 moves at the same time?

2. I plan on using gigabit networking throughout the entire house. So how much cat-5e/cat-6 vs rg6 should I have going into each zone?

Hey I can answer both because I do both :D


1. How far away are we from being able to "rip" the movies we own in a storage medium and be able to watch 2 or 3 moves at the same time?


People have been doing it for years....I have put all 250 DVDs I own onto a PC server (1.5 TBs) and I can play 2 movies at once (one PC for each movie, each attached to the network drives). Wont go into details here. Check out DVDFab for ripping. I use Zoomplayer professional for DVD playback.

I doubt DVD ripping will ever become something people can sell. The "evil empire" doesnt want you to backup any of your collection because they think they can stop piracy and they also think they will make more money if they stop piracy...they are wrong on both accounts. Check out afterdawn.com boards for Ripping discussion.



2. I plan on using gigabit networking throughout the entire house. So how much cat-5e/cat-6 vs rg6 should I have going into each zone?

Lots of cat5e...it can handle gigabit. Cat-6 if you really want to be sure. Run as much cat5e as possible...4 or 5 runs to each zone (imo) so many uses...IR, serial, IP, HDMI, Component. You can simply by Audio/video switches that work over Cat5e and not even run RG6.

I will have that too, but if I rent a movie from blockbutster I don't want to have put it in the 400 DVD changer each time. I wan to be able to just pop it in my bedroom and hit play. Or, if I am watchng "Matrix" for the 6000th time, my daughter can watch Lion King in her bedroom.


hehe....6000th time for me too :D


I have a single DVD player on the rack in the closet too for rentals this way you can watch it in two rooms if you really want. My wife puts the baby down and will stay in the room for awhile she can switch the TV in that room to watch the DVD Im watching in the family room.

There really is no need for components in each room. everything can be shared from a closet. Even HT receivers.

"as it's (MainLobby) targeted towards DIY'ers"
IVB, where did you get that opinion?
We do more targeting towards the dealer audience than the DIY'r.
As we speak we are getting ready for yet another EHX TRADE show. We have yet to do a consumer electronics show.

We just added the ability to maintain "Content Folders". This is primarily intended for dealers to both have multiple "showcases" of setups for their showrooms, as well as the ability to manage many customer setups on one PC for Design / support purposes.

We have email notification of possible system issues or PC maintenance needed that is meant to help our dealer's support PC LANs out in the field.

There is a "Support Page" that pulls from a database with the customers and dealers contact information.

We have Dealer Training.

Could go on and on.

This is not meant that we ignore our DIY community at all. We do our best to listen and react to all of our customer's needs, as well as try to anticipate them as well. Thankfully, most of the needs are the same between these two communities. From reading these forums, I sense that CQC's definition of dealer needs may be slightly different from what Cinemar hears from dealers. But that is what makes choice a good thing.

There are several DVD storage/player solutions on the market today.

www.kaleidascape.com is one and maybe the best consumer electronics product in quite few years.

www.xperinet.com is another.
There are several more available, but these are two that are better known.

"as it's (MainLobby) targeted towards DIY'ers"
IVB, where did you get that opinion?
We do more targeting towards the dealer audience than the DIY'r.


Thought I saw you say it in another thread or forum. perhaps I'm mistaken. Anyhow, it might be as you mention, different definitions of the word dealer.

There are several DVD storage/player solutions on the market today.

not familar with xperinet but kaleidascape is a very cool option and is extremely overpriced. isnt it 15-20K ?? For $1500 a PC based DVD storage/player solution is just as good.

Penn, everything to you is overpriced. Please leave your value judgements out of the discussion. A $1500 PC is not as good as any of the commercial products. For you, it might be okay to settle for something that you have to constantly tweak or monkey with, but for MANY others it isn't. Not everyone wants to roll their own solution to every problem.

What kind of car do you drive? Did you build one yourself because everything commercially available is overpriced?

lol, just posting options that will save the OP lots and lots of money.

A $1500 PC is not as good as any of the commercial products.

yeah, right.... Im my DBA years we heard that 15K PCs were not as good as 200K Unix boxes....same old story, proved them wrong every time. If it works 24/7, 365 days a year is a good as anything.

As for what I buy, How much is your house worth? What do you buy? Not that it matters but since you ask the childish question first lets compare sizes too ;)

What is childish. YOu claim that pretty much every commercially made and sold custom installation product is overpriced. I'm just curious what you don't think is overpriced.

A Kaleidascape system isn't just a computer that is overpriced. You purchase more than just the hardware with a Kscape system. You purchase a purpose built,from scratch OS, the best user interface available and a LEGAL way to have a DVD server. Maybe they are overpriced, but it is ridiculous to compare this system with a home built PC with a crappy MCE OS or whatever roll your own solution you can come up with. ANd the other point is, most people aren't interested in cobbling something like this together themselves. You have the wherewithal to do it and some others do too and you are satisfied with the result. Would you then sell and support this as a product? There is more to every peice of equipment you disparage than just a hunk of hardware.

You are helping to pay for their lawyers to get them a legal monopoly on ripping DVDs :-)

Dean, and here I thought you were trying to tell me lawyers were good for something. :eek: I'm pretty well convinced that the only thing the music and film industry idea of DRM does is screw the folks that actually buy their product. If it even slows piracy down I'd be surprised. As such all they're probably doing is limiting profits by their actions.

As to overpriced I'd suggest leaving that up to the purchaser. Just make sure that the options are put out for all to see. Many things make up percieved value to the end user and not all are tangible. I'm sure I have things that some would call overpriced and others would call cheap. Just the way it is. I looked at the options and made my decision. Sometimes something you just plug in and it works is worth the extra cost. In the case of the Kaleidascape system or other premium product like it the dealer better set the thing up too and wipe my nose while he's at it. The extra service that comes with "high end" type products must be part of the cost. If they can't provide this they become just another box mover.

And now OT. I'd suggest that kimvi leave space to run RG-6 in addition to CAT5 to areas like the main theater and similar. Areas that would have large screens and standalone equipment.

Also make sure you have sufficient AC power supplied to wherever you will have equipment. Don't assume the electrician will just know. He'll wire to code which won't put 20A circuits in a closet. And just telling him that you'll be installing an A/V system won't necessarily work unless they do it all the time. I was grumbling to a builder I know about having a single 15A circuit in the living room that's also my theater (I bought an existing house). He was baffled why it would be an issue since that's all they ever did too. His place was wired that way and worked fine with his big system, a big screen TV and TWO DVD players. I of course had to pull an extra circuit.

Don't forget ventilation in your equipment closet either. It's easier to plan in instead of add later.

As to the CQC, ML, Crestron et al debate I'd suggest that you compare and make the call that way. With CQC or ML the odds are you won't have an installer in your area though it's worth checking if you want to go that way instead of DIY. You should be able to download trial versions of either package. CQC is not crippled on trial so you can try out any of the features. Do keep in mind that CQC has a learning curve so don't give up in an hour. Don't know about how ML is currently.

With Crestron or AMX you'll need to try out at the dealer. And keep in mind that what you buy is what you'll get. You won't be able to change things yourself and upgrades will require another visit by your dealer. All depends on what works for you. You can pretty much count on the system working out of the box this way without any effort other then writing the check. The system should be able to do anything you want and there is something to be said for hardware designed from the ground up just for this function.

When I went through this some years back I went with CQC. No regrets whatsoever. Stellar tech support and it just keeps getting more powerful. I wanted something that could grow in any direction and that's what CQC is doing. Of course YMMV.

I own a Cortexa. It's definitely not as flexible as some of the other systems, but it's got some really good features. One nice thing is that it's running FreeBSD and is very stable. It also uses Compact Flash instead of a hard drive and the system has no fan (i.e. it's quiet and has no moving parts to break).

It doesn't have a programming language per se, but you can set up events using drop-down windows and devices. You can do fairly complex events based on inside or outside temperature, time of day, other events, etc...

I started a website that chronicles my installation and has quite a bit of info about the Cortexa. Maybe it will sway you one way or the other.

http://www.lightscamerahome.com/

Good luck!

great call on the AC wiring, Les.

Def make sure that location as at least 2 20A circuits dedicated to it. You can put them both in one double gang outlet as you'd probably want to run either a surge protector(s) or UPS(s) off them.

If you run two circuits into one box be sure and verify what the local code is in respect to this. It's a little non-intuitive to know you need to flip two breakers to shut the power off. Might save yourself a 'shocking' surprise.

Another option on surge protectors are ones that are part of the circuit. Brickwall makes 20A one like this that's built into a small electrical box that is placed between the breaker and the outlets.

If you do use an UPS note that most for computer use have a stepped sinewave output. Works fine with the switching supplies in most computer equipment but can be rather noisy with the power supplies in most AV equipment. This noise shows up on the outputs also. I have no idea if this is physically damaging to the connected equipment. There are pure sine wave output UPS's but they tend to cost more.

The important thing for me is being able to get 7.1 in Zones 1 & 2 and 5.1 in Zone-3. I assume I would have to use an amp to accomplish this. The question then becomes: how do I tie the whole house audio into the amp, so I can easily between music and the TV. I am guessing that would all depend on the amp I choose being able to accept the input for whole house audio via an auxillary jack. Another key point is the remote being able to control both the AMP and whole house audio.

The other thing I keep coming back to is the wires. In my mind these are going to be my home runs:

Zone 1 & 2: 3 RG6 (Cable/Satellite, In-House Video, Video Out), 3 Cat-5 (Gigabit Network, Phone System, Touchpanel)

Every other Zone:2 RG6 (Cable/Satellite, In-House Video), 3 Cat-5 (Gigabit Network, Phone System, Touchpanel)

Am I using the right cable choices and the right amount of cables?

not sure your cable provider is any good there, so sat will be your staple .

rg6 belden 1829bc ( quad is not nec. for sats unless your are thinking c band analog bud ) big ugly dish
cat5e prefer shielded any brand that is verified

buy it in the states local and forward it down yourself , as well as most everything else.

pick your wall plates and make sure your electrical boxes match and are extra deep leave empty pipe and boxes in high av areas . dedicate grounds to av equipment and ups outlets .
plan your locations when wall mounting lcd/plasma so you dont have to look at the wires . plan for future changes to rooms with hidden boxes and connections ( kitchen bathrooms . you dont have to expose the box for now just keep track of its hidden location . if thinking of recessing monitors in walls or furniture , work that into your hvac plan for cooling and high moisture locations


electrical , make the decision now about backup generators and plan around them . true sine wave preferred , propane/ natural gas . hurricane alley . if whole house backup is not feasible( fuel limitations ) then dedicated ac lines thru your switch over for what portions and rooms will be hot .

central av closet should be multi-access ( rear and front ) . your installers will thank you and you will see the ease of updating your equipment . dedicate twice the room you think you need and run lots of wire now when its cheap . use long lasting labels ( panduit laser ) and create a logical wire chart . terminate everything to a patch system for quick changes . use wire tray and ladder dressing supports for your own ease of management . stick to open frame 19' rack mount designs since almost everything can be adapted to fit in a rack.
leave space between components for venting and expansion . keep ups equipment separate and ground everything ( devices and racks )
security locations should have at least a cat5 stp, good rg 59 ( copper ) as well a low voltage and ac wire . pipe any possible future locations . always go over size on conduit . maintain your own plans and always update changes in your drawings , even to the inch!

all i can think of this morning .. just remember the old adages
( pay me now or pay me later ) ( an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure )

good day

With the size of the system you want, I would highly recommend talking to a residential AV engineer/contractor. You will have much more in this installation than RG-6 for cable/satellite.
With your network knowledge, I would I would recommend a network based control system for all your control communications, but your exact wire needs are much more than can be determined in an internet forum.
Every system I have designed could only be done after some lengthy consultation with the customer. Each one wanted something unique and customized for exactly what they wanted.