Hello. I am finishing our basement and I'm wiring for a home entertainment center and wondering about other cables I may need. So far, I have coax for directv, cat5e to run from one router to my basement router, speaker wire, and HDMI cables for directv to tv, DVD to tv, etc.

Here is my want:
To be able to project onto the tv with a computer or phone while sitting on the couch.


How can I achieve this? To run from tv to the couch through the ceiling is about 25ft. Do I use cat5 for this? Internet articles just confuse me and are complex.

I have conduit that will be in the wall and ceiling so I can run future wires, but want to run as much as I can now.
Any other cables I need? I'm not a gamer and not a big tech guy. Just simple things.

Thanks for the input!

 

I would probably not install a "permanent" cabling for the phone projection. You could leave a mini HDMI available beside the TV and extend it to your couch for the occasional use of the phone. Running HDMI 25' up and over the ceiling may have signal loss. Others may have better suggestions, so hang in there.

 

I would install conduit so you can pull whatever wires you need and don't have to worry so much about predicting the future. Technology and cables change pretty regularly; coax, S-video, DVI, HDMI... I wired my house and thought I was so smart... and I was for the first 5 to 8 years. Then I realized that much of the cabling I had put in the walls was quickly becoming obsolete.

 

Understand cables becoming obsolete. I have installed conduit for future wires. Was more or less looking for suggestions for any other cables I may need.

Thanks!

 

Wireless via either wifi or bluetooth is becoming more and more popular so depending on what you have wires may not be needed. Hard wiring as opposed to wirelessly connecting a computer and a phone may use different wiring. Many computers are set to output via HDMI but some can also do it via USB or Thunderbolt if you're in the Apple camp. Even ethernet (cat5) is becoming a thing of the past as many new computers don't even have a port.

Most of the time when feeding my system from a computer I have the computer located next to the receiver. The cabling is out the front as it's a temporary setup for me. When doing photo shows when I want the computer at my seat I simply use a long cable across the floor. It's a rare enough occurrence for me that it's not worth pulling dedicated wires. Now, I'm slowly upgrading again and many things are routed through our houses wifi so no wires are needed.

 

If you want to cover every contingency I would suggest the following.

You can run conduit if you want to for most wires but you'd have to make it pretty big if you ever wanted to run another HDMI cable. So, I'm going to presume that your A/V components are in a remote cabinet or closet along with a computer network connection. Run two HDMI cables and 5 Cat5e or Cat6 (recommended) wire runs. You might want to run a third HDMI cable in the event you ever wanted to have your CCTV cameras come up on an input to your TV. With quality HDMI cables you can run up to 50 feet. After that you have to use powered HDMI cables. Some HDMI cables can also carry Ethernet but I would suggest that you forego that option and use a separate Cat 6. The remaining network cables will take care of anything else you may want to run in the future. Most any A/V signal can be converted and transmitted over network wires via Balan transformers now days except for optical audio.

I'd use one network cable to connect your TV to the Internet (as mentioned above) . I know most TV's today will connect wirelessly but you're going to get more bandwidth with an Ethernet connection and with 4K TV coming up (Netflix will be transmitting more and more 4K as it becomes available) you'll want the most bandwidth you can get. Eventually 4K will be standard resolution. If you don't have a 4K TV ..... you will have eventually. You'll also find that soon you will have to upgrade your router and network switches from megabyte to Gigabyte.

A pair from one of the network wires will/can be used to carry your IR signals from the TV back to the closet A/V components. IR extenders are available for that. The controller is usually mounted at the TV end, cut the wire on the flasher output and attach it to one end of the pair in the network wire and then attach your IR flashers to the other same pair at the other end of the network cable in the remote closet.

As far as projecting your Iphone or tablet to the TV I'd suggest an Apple TV. As suggested by another poster you can always run a cable from the back of the TV to which ever device you are using as there are "converter" devices available such a HDMI to Ipod adapters, etc. Also the Google Chromecast device can do some projecting.

Hope this helps.