Design and brands for distribution

Hi folks,

I'm trying to finish my A/V over UTP network. I asked about equipment in other threads, read other threads, and went a'googlin', and frankly I'm overwhelmed. I don't know what's the best design, what brand to buy, what products to use, I found so many choices and I bet there's even more I didn't find.

Here's what I have: each room has six Cat6 cables terminated in a keystone jack in the room, running to a patch panel in a central location. I would like to distribute audio (AM/FM and mp3) and video (regular and/or HD) from multiple sources to each room. By multiple sources, I mean cable box, BluRay, computer, radio, etc. as opposed to, say, three BluRay players. Each room will control each component independently (e.g. one room watches BluRay while another listens to the radio) but every room would receive the same signal from each player (e.g. every room would receive the same BluRay movie and the same radio station).

Taking into account that price is a consideration, what would YOU buy to accomplish this?

Hummmm ... I'd say less than $2.5k ... a lot less if possible. I didn't originally add source equipment and speakers into the budget, I thought I'd use what I already own or can get on the cheap. I'm willing to build over several years, working on the cheap now and gradually improving the equipment as my budget allows.


There's no in-wall speakers. No plans to install them. The plan was to plug speakers into whatever receiver/balun/rubegoldberg is plugged into the keystone jack. If that's possible.


Only one room would be 5.1/7.1, and I have an extra receiver so I could run straight digital to the room and plug it into the coax or toslink port. The rest would be 2.0.

Minimum of 3. As high as 3 additional with audio only (radio and mp3).

BTW, I followed the links in your sig and saw a possible solution to another issue I have, in a single port KVM extender over Cat5. However, when I went a'googlin' I could only find ones where the V was VGA. Do you happen to know if any exist where the V is DVI?

Sorry, kind of switched gears. I was referring to your computer setup. I was able to find quite a few KVM extenders, but all of them were VGA not DVI.