Budget A/V Install

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cw-kid

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Budget A/V Install

#1

Post by cw-kid » Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:51 pm

If you read my blog you may have seen my last series of posts about my recent Audio Visual install at my little house in England.

If not you can check out my blog here, there are currently 5 parts to the series, there might be two more posts to come.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Very low budget - shoe string in-fact but we all have to start somewhere and I've only had the keys for this house again for less than 2 months but its shaping up nicely :D
Last edited by cw-kid on Thu Sep 08, 2011 3:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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STC

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#2

Post by STC » Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:57 pm

Sweet! I love the 'big holes' part1 lol.
Nice work though...
-Now just wait for the mrs. to tell you you're moving house...
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#3

Post by StumpyBloke » Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:00 pm

stonethecrows wrote:Sweet! I love the 'big holes' part1 lol.
Nice work though...
-Now just wait for the mrs. to tell you you're moving house...
Would be a divorce court before that happened! Lol
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#4

Post by cw-kid » Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:24 pm

A new house might be hopefully on the cards in the next few years as this one is only 2 bedrooms. So I get to do it all again yeah ! Only bigger and better I hope.

And there's our family house in Thailand to do an install job on as well, I could be busy.. But a pool might be a better bet out there its bloody hot!
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#5

Post by StumpyBloke » Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:26 pm

So 2 houses to chose from eh Stuart?? You have precisely NO sympathy from me!!! LOL :d
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#6

Post by cw-kid » Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:52 pm

StumpyBloke wrote:So 2 houses to chose from eh Stuart?? You have precisely NO sympathy from me!!! LOL :d
Yeah but I only own half of one lol. The house in Thailand is my wife's and the bank owns half of mine :cry:
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#7

Post by Doddsie » Tue Jun 21, 2011 7:16 am

Love the install. with nice documentation.

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#8

Post by StumpyBloke » Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:14 am

cw-kid wrote:
StumpyBloke wrote:So 2 houses to chose from eh Stuart?? You have precisely NO sympathy from me!!! LOL :d
Yeah but I only own half of one lol. The house in Thailand is my wife's and the bank owns half of mine :cry:
Lol!! Fair play mate!! :d
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#9

Post by chucknduck26 » Wed Jun 22, 2011 11:28 am

Sweet setup. I am in the process of finishing our third floor and turning it into a family room. I'm going to run speaker wire in the ceiling for surround sound also. What gauge wire did you use?
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#10

Post by cw-kid » Wed Jun 22, 2011 2:26 pm

chucknduck26 wrote:Sweet setup. I am in the process of finishing our third floor and turning it into a family room. I'm going to run speaker wire in the ceiling for surround sound also. What gauge wire did you use?
I'm not sure what gauge it was it was this stuff from Farnell CPC.
It was selected by someone I use to work with, who is an audio / visual expert and knows far more than me about the technical side of A/V, so I didn't question it and just bought it.
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#11

Post by nxsfan » Thu Jun 23, 2011 5:07 pm

Very nice project, looks highly professional. Thank you for documenting it all. I would like to do something similar in the future, although I rent ATM. I have a similar cupboard under the stairs which hosts a server and an external storage array and drives the TV in the lounge and an O2 Joggler in the kitchen (content wise).

You ran a heck of a lot of AV connectors through your walls. Was there a specific reason why HDMI wasn't enough? Do you see yourself using some legacy equipment, or was it a case of wanting to do the job thoroughly. Something I'm curious about, but uninformed: In the future will Ethernet over HDMI remove the need for running independent network cables? It would be great in the future if a single cable could carry visual, network, sound, and any arbitrary data you fancy (thunderbolt perhaps?).
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#12

Post by cw-kid » Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:14 pm

I may have gone overboard with the A/V wall plates but might as well cover all the bases if you are knocking holes in the walls and floors!

You will only need 1 network cable going back to the switch / router with HDMI Ethernet Channel instead of multiple network cables for each individual device

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#13

Post by milli260876 » Sat Jun 25, 2011 12:23 am

mate i would get yourself on kenable and buy some belkin surgeprotector/power filters in there!! lots of AV to buy again if somethinggoes bang!
Nice job btw.... ;)
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#14

Post by cw-kid » Sun Jun 26, 2011 12:14 pm

I have got a Philips PowerSquid in the cupboard under the stairs which I believe has surge protection, this is connected to the network equipment the modem / router / switch etc. I could probably do with some more surge protection plugs and strips for the TVs / Kit around the house though.
Last edited by cw-kid on Sun Jun 26, 2011 12:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#15

Post by cw-kid » Sun Jun 26, 2011 12:21 pm

And I forgot I have also got two of those eOn Intelliplugs I wrote about them here, which have built in surge protection, one of them is in the cupboard which the WHS and Cambridge Audio A1 amplifier are connected to. I also have one upstairs which the XBOX 360 and the other Cambridge Audio 350A amplifier is connected to. So just need some more for the TV's and the Linksys DMA / Denon amplifier in the other bedroom.
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#16

Post by cw-kid » Sun Jul 10, 2011 1:58 pm

Hi

Just done Part 6 The final part in the series check it out here
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#17

Post by NizZ8 » Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:54 pm

Sweet install cw!
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#18

Post by cw-kid » Fri Jul 15, 2011 10:41 am

I just got something extremely cool working with the help of Eddy from Amulet Devices. I have one of those Amulet voice MCE remote controls and now I can control my Z-Wave lighting by my voice! I say "lights on" and the lights come on in the living room, I can even dim them by voice. We used a SOAP XML code and WGET to send the request to the mControl webserver to run a macro or change the status of a device etc.
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