New house setup advice

[ohgeetee]

Hi all,

I have read through most of the home setup threads, and I think I have enough information to ask more pointed questions. I have just bought my first home, and have it wired up. My house is 2 stories with a finished basement, around 2700sqft I think, and my current setup for wiring is as follows:

Comcast line directly from outside box into basement utility room, we'll call this home base. There is no splitter outside, just what looks to be a pass through that grounds the line to the house. I have RG6 coming into this room from 3 bedrooms, living room, office, and basement. There are no splitters anywhere in the main house. I'd love advice on how best to split this, and what hardware to use, but I understand there might be better fora to get that info from. My plan is to have modem, switch, and an AP at home base, with possibly moving the AP out into the finished area if coverage isn't good down there.

I have 3x Cat6 to living room, 3x to office, and 2x to master bedroom.

After reading the forum, it sounds like the ubiquiti pro setup is what I may end up going with with for wifi, just for ease of use even though it might be overboard to have 3 AP, but if there are specific options I should also dig into let me know.

Here is what I would like to do:

Access wifi seamlessly throughout the house. House is fairly open floor plan so I think I could get away with 1 in main house and 1 in basement, but the cost difference between the 3 pack and buying 2 seems like its worth erring on the side of caution.

I like the idea of PoE on those APs to avoid cable mess, What would be a good prosumer grade PoE switch recommendation?

I want to be able to store and stream media to my TV. I currently have a TiVO HD and I use pyTivo to stream from my office, but its a pain. I'd prefer some type of centralized network storage that I could use to drop media to, both video and music to stream to devices. It would be awesome if I could stream to tablets, phone, ipod touch, etc. I also have an XBox that can be streamed to. What are my other options here? Should I be looking at things like Boxee?

Eventually I think it would be cool to have a couple of cameras setup as well, maybe one in home base to be able to scope the switch and modem without having to run downstairs, and maybe some exterior stuff as well. This would be down the road a bit, but I'd want to try to have a setup that would integrate this without a lot of issues.

As far as cost goes, I'm not bleeding edge, but I'm not scared to spend if it makes sense. I always try to get the best bang for the buck. I'm also open to any tips or advice that I may be overlooking. I'm a first time homeowner, and I know that a lot of homeowners have unique insight into headaches a plan can have when you haven't dealt directly with it before. Basically, I'm all ears, and would love to tap into the collective to have a decently connected house that would be enjoyable to entertain in.

Thanks for reading all of this, and I'll be answering any questions anyone might have. I appreciate all of the help.

 

[p11]

1. Take direct cable line and put a dual 3.5db splitter (ideal, bgi, or monster brand).
- Direct one of those lines directly to your modem, the other line should go to a 5 way splitter or whatever is needed to hookup the remaining TV's in your home. (Don't leave any empty sockets, put caps on if you do) *You might also need a AMP if you have TV signal issues.
2. Centralize your modem/router/switch/nas/and UPS downstairs.
- Buy a E3200 or E4200 and disable wifi
- Netgear FS108 gigabit switch
- Synology DS212J (seems fine for your needs)
- APC XS1300 UPS
*If you really don't want to use the POE injector buy a toughswitch but its unnecessary as you can mount the injector downstairs and just install the unifi ontop of the hole your cat6 comes through.
3. Install a Unifi Pro in your living room, as central as possible.

I did something similar but I centralized my network in my office.

 

[PigLover]

For the coax, only use 1000mhz or better splitters. Use a 1 to 2 splitter first in line and feed your cable modem from that (the cable modem needs the best line levels - tuners are more forgiving). Get the rest of the splitters you need to feed the tv lines. As long are your connector crimps are good you shouldn't have much trouble.

 

[djflow195]

Get this:

http://www.electroline.com/product_EDA_FT.php

A +3db downstream / unity upstream drop amp.

Run the line from Comcast directly into the RF-IN port. Run power injector into the PWR port. Hook all of your house runs and cable modem into this. Cap off unused ports with terminators.

I'm using this now and have never had signal issues:

Downstream
Channel ID      2             4             5             7 
Frequency       633000000 Hz  645000000 Hz  651000000 Hz  663000000 Hz 
SNR             36 dB         36 dB         37 dB         37 dB 
Downstream Mod  QAM256        QAM256        QAM256        QAM256 
Power Level     8 dBmV        9 dBmV        9 dBmV        8 dBmV  

Upstream
Channel ID      2               1 
Frequency       27900000 Hz 	34800000 Hz 
Ranging Svc ID  5486            5486 
Symbol Rate     5.120 Msym/sec  5.120 Msym/sec 
Power Level     30 dBmV         32 dBmV 
Upstream Mod 	[3] QPSK        [3] QPSK
                [3] 32QAM       [3] 64QAM
 
Ranging Status  Success         Success