My 02 cents. This covers in audio video streaming, broadband, HD, whole house audio, etc. Here's a few things to get you thinking.

- run structured cable to every room. Include 2 multimode fiber, at least two RG6 coax, at least 2 cat5e or cat6. bundled cable is MUCH easier and cheaper to install than individual runs of cables.
- run extra cat5/6 to office locations.
- run extra coax and cat5 between tv locations and wire closet (for distributed video)
- run at least two coax from main audio source to wire closet (for house audio)
- run audiocat (speaker cable pair with cat5e) between wire closet and all main rooms, deck, and garage (for house audio/ceiling speakers/volume controls/automation touchpads).
- put ac outlets in closets. extra AC in wire closet.
- put sound absorbing insulation in interior wall (works great!)
- in your theater room/ av room run coax, IR wire, component vid to AV closet if you will have your equipment away from the TV, run component vid to ceiling (for a projector), put ac outlet in the ceiling (projector), and one under the floor in the seating position (for tactile bass buttkicker amp, Xbox, table top projector, laptop power, whatever).
- run extra cat5/6 to av room (xbox live, streaming internet radio, etc., MPC)
- run cat5/6 from av equipment location to seating position (for xbox live, internet access, etc)
- run theater/av room on its own 20amp+ circuit.
- run power to corners of the house in the attic if you want cameras there later. run av cable to the same locations.
- wire the theater av room for at least 9.1 surround+
- run a rg6 coax from the av equipment location to the opposite side of the room for subwoofer locations.
- run multi-conductor security wire everywhere imaginable so you can add cameras, sensors, detectors, etc down the road as needed.
- run 4 rg6 coax from the wire panel to the roof for HD sat.
- run 2 rg6 coax from wire closet to demarc for cable tv.
- run 2+ cat5/6 from wire panel to demarc for 'old fashion' phone lines
- make sure you plan for GOOD power protection for any signal coming into the house, be it incoming cable coax, phones, etc., make sure you have good UPS on all important subsystems (cable, ethernet switches, phone/voip systems, security system).

hope that helps.

Excellent advice. What do you suggest for power protection? Are there any good whole house power filters, surge protection, etc... or are we left to having to deal with good power strips around the house? Or both?

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-'13 E93 M3 Cab, Interlagos Blue, Carbon Black leather, DCT, all options, and fun, endless fun!
-'13 X5 35i M-Sport, Carbon Black & Cinnamon, Dinan Stage 2!
-'15 Toyota Sienna Limited Premium AWD, Silver & Grey, Nav & BluRay, and less lame than the 2011 it replaced
-'07 Mini Cab S, Laser Blue, 6sp, endless fun that ended (sold)
-'04 X5 4.4i, loaded, loved, modded and sold

As MD suggests, APC makes some excellent gear. Can't go wrong with them. There are others that will be fine too of course. Many of them have coax and phone/ethernet protection on them too.

Also, you can get a surge suppressor from your power company that installs on your power meter. This stops all major surges coming down the line.

I somewhat disagree with what he recommends. Your biggest mistake is not knowing exactly what you want, and where you want it. There is such a thing as "over wiring" your house. I own a custom a/v integration company and staff 10 employees that do exactly what you are asking. We typically sit with the client and figure out what their needs are before picking up a hammer. We design these types of systems for many architects and builders Some of what is recommended is good, although I would skip the fiber as it will soon be passed by 10gIP (10 GBPS over CAT-6 Copper wiring). Fiber can be quite expensive to terminate and the equipment is more than copper Ethernet. I can elaborate further if you would like. We are located in Westchester and Manhattan. Give me a call at 914-777-6611 x101.

Impressive, Osbee! And, welcome to the board. Hope you become a regular.

Juan

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Whenever I text "Barack," my phone suggests the word "Capable." I guess my my phone IS pretty smart.

Hmm post #1 and selling something already. But Welcome to X5world anyway.

You need to read his post better. Try this again and go slow... (Rangerfan)"I am looking for some suggestions on wiring and electronics to future proof the place."

You cannot over-wire a house (within reason). He does not know everything now that he may want later. You forgot to mention that structured wiring averages a 5-8% uplift on the resale of the house. The ONLY time it is affordable to run wire in a house is before the sheetrock goes up. The cost is 5x and up to do it after the walls are sealed up. Some people will rely on wireless technologies to get by, and that is fine for certian functionality. But there is NO substitute for hard wiring for performance and security. Period. If you sell a system to someone and are only looking at their needs in 2005, you should not be in business.

Fiber internet to the home is already a reality. If you have the chance to put fiber in the walls now, you are missing a huge opportunity by ignoring it. (Get it... fiber to the DESKTOP). If you are telling your clients that is is way too expensive to terminate mmf, you should look at some new vendors. The price has been falling consistently for 5 years.

Home-run wired structured cabling is the backbone of any modern home's audio, video, broadband, security, and automation needs, and is a must-have for anyone looking to remain future proof. For someone in the biz, sounds like you need to do more homework. I am not selling anything but I'll tell you this, you can completely wire a house for every possible scenario for about $2 a sq/ft. Structured wiring including fiber is less than .75 a sq/ft on average.

Who cares how long someone has been on this board, I've been on here for awhile and I design IT Data Centers for media companies for a living including low and high voltage, and I think you have to be very careful not to over-wire as well, and not because of the cost of the materials but the labor costs and de-marc space requirements.

Fiber to a house is only fiber to the pole, the rest of the way is coax. At least that's my understanding of FIOS.

You can most definitely over-wire a house, the demarc or closet or wherever the cabling is going to centrally terminate is going to have to accomodate an enormous amount of cabling considering the suggestions made earlier and would probably necessitate patch panels!

Rangerfan - I would sit down with a designer with the floor plans in front of you and figure out what you want/need today and build in some room for expansion.

In my house a "pull" consists of 2 cat5's and 2 rg6 coax's that all terminate in a patch panel in my garage. Audio cabling terminates in a corner of my living room where I have my av equipment (i have ceilng mount speaker holes in every room in the house and IR remote plates that i haven't installed yet). Each indiviudal run is pretty thin out on the floors, but the space requirements for wherever it all terminates to centrally can get pretty big.

Don't forget that for data connectivity you can use wireless with well placed repeaters/antennas on each floor instead of running cat5 through the house as well.

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You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Thanks for the advice Gresch. FWIW, I had FIOS installed in my house in CT about 10 days ago (ahhh speed is nice ). Fiber goes to the box on the house! There is a cat5e line run from the box on the exterior of the house directly to the router. No modem in the house--I guess it is ON the house. The battery backup runs from inside the basement utility room (next to the phone terminations) back outside to the 'box' on the house. So yes, it is copper 'on' the house.

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-'13 E93 M3 Cab, Interlagos Blue, Carbon Black leather, DCT, all options, and fun, endless fun!
-'13 X5 35i M-Sport, Carbon Black & Cinnamon, Dinan Stage 2!
-'15 Toyota Sienna Limited Premium AWD, Silver & Grey, Nav & BluRay, and less lame than the 2011 it replaced
-'07 Mini Cab S, Laser Blue, 6sp, endless fun that ended (sold)
-'04 X5 4.4i, loaded, loved, modded and sold

What the industry is actually leaning towards is copper in the home and fiber in the street. They are doing this because copper is cheaper, more stable and durable. It also cost less to produce. The industry is looking at creating standards that are easy to mass produce, allow for anyone with basic hand tools to install and terminate. It is also cheaper for the computer manufactures to use copper and avoid converting light to data. We are seeing the speeds in copper become actually faster than fiber too. You can install fiber, but industry reports show a decline its use in short distances (under 300m).

I would suggest that you wire multiple sides of a room that you think you may use for data/telecom/catv/dss. I would stay away from structured cable as it is actually more expensive than creating your own bundles. It may be easier to run, but per foot it is more money. Creating your own wire bundles also allow you to select different manufactures for each type. For example we use Hitachi Hi-NET CAT-6e cable, Coleman RG-6/Q, and Beldin RGB as our combo bundle. It is just like how you would purchase an Alpine head unit, JM Labs/Focal Speakers and a JL subwoofer for your X5.

Be very selective in hiring your electrician and be sure he understands EIA/TIA wiring standards and proper terminations. I can’t tell you how many jobs we’ve gone into where we have had to re-terminate all off the connections in a 10,000 sq/ft house because the electrician did a great job with the outlets and hi-hats, but didn’t have a clue as to how to terminate low voltage wiring.