AV upgrades

[encantotom]

all,

my 2002 came with a 42" plasma in the back and up front. they were old style plasmas with no tuners and only BNC RGB and video connections. i have taken them out (man they were heavy). and taken out the other gear as well. a buddy of mine and i spent a chunk of the afternoon tracing out the coax lines. mine was really wired up a little strange (i am sure it made sense at the time).

my tv antenna is missing on top but at least the coax is there and runs to the front tv area.

there is two coax lines we couldnt find the other end to.

i am going to put i think two 42" LG LED tv's in and a 37" in one of the bays. the only coax i have to figure out how to run is a couple of them to the bay tv.

i want to have all video run through the AV receiver so the old marantz receivers front and back will come out. one of the dilemmas is that the speakers are ADS separates with crossovers and are shared between the home theatre and car stereo and are 4 ohms. most receivers are not crazy about 4 ohm speakers but since i will not be cranking it up incredibly loud i think i will be ok.

i will likely add a powered subwoofer up front as well. just have to run a coax to it from the overhead.

the great thing is my cabinets are all set up for 42" tv's so it that part will be quite straight forward. the aluminum tilting mount up front is really well made and is VESA 400x400 setup and that is the same as the LG for mounting. good stuff.

i have mentioned it in other posts, but be sure to look at www.monoprice.com (http://www.monoprice.com) for mounts and cables. high quality and veryvery inexpensive.

i will do a dedicated blu ray player for each tv rather than share.

i have two smaller tv's mounted over the desk (where the dinette is on all of yours) and will take those down and maybe put new ones there or something else.

it will be set up for gaming as well. been playing around with video server ideas and wireless as well. the tv's i get will have bult in wifi and widi and wifi direct. cool stuff if you look it up.

making progress but slow.

tom

[Bikestuff]

Tom,

Is there a blue wire going into back of Marantz? I found a hidden subwoofer under the seat in my dinette. The blue wire is the source to the sub. (Mine is blown, but has not been replaced yet).

As far as the radio and receiver are concerned...I think the relays over the drivers side window (behind the trim) isolate the two sources.

Cheers,
bill

[encantotom]

hi bill,

the front amp is the only thing i have not taken out yet so i will check and see if it is wired up to a sub. i dont have a dinette as they took it out and had newell put in a desk there. as for the relays, i have them in the same place but they only switch between home theatre and car stereo and dont do any impedence matching.

thanks for the tip.

tom

[LynnJeff]

Tom:
You might also want to consider TVs that are PC or Internet ready? Best, Lynn

[encantotom]

hi. the ones i am looking at are LG 42LM6200. it has built in wifi and a pc input.

it is also 3d, though i am not a fan of 3d yet.

hopefully by the time i am ready to put in a month or so the prices might have come down a little.

tom

[LynnJeff]

I thought with your electronics background that you would be way ahead of us!

We put in a Toshiba 24SL415U 24-Inch 1080p LED-LCD HDTV with NetTV (http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-24SL415U-24-Inch-1080p-LED-LCD/dp/B004MFFD3S/ref=pd_12) and PC hookup in the bedroom with a swivel arm so it swivels to face the bed, bath or kitchen area. (we bought the AV last September/October). We are going to work with the 30" front overhead mount for now....a $10K TV in 2008, can you imagine!It is 720 but at that distance I think we are fine for now. It does have PC connections...just not the good HDMI....for now.

[encantotom]

in my 90 i had 3 tvs with hdmi. along with the ability to hook up my laptop to all three. i also did hdmi distribution so you could watch the same source on multiple tv's.

for the front tv i had to do svga over coax using video baluns.

now with widi, you dont need wires to the tv as long as the tv and lapton are widi enabled.

tom

[encantotom]

i finally figured out how to run wires from the front tv cabinet to the rear tv and av cabinet. it took a ton of work and tearing alot of stuff apart and feeding pull lines through chases, but tonite with darlenes help i ran 2 coax and 2 cat 5e lines from the front to the rear. there is no way to get an hdmi cable in that chase so it is what it is. now i have 4 coax from front to rear and 2 cat5e and one coax from the cable in to the rear tv.

now i am needing to see how i can get coax and cat5e to the bay. i can see some possibilities.

later

tom

[encantotom]

russ, you said you did hdmi over coax. what system did you use? i am a big fan of monoprice and they have a system that seems really good but does not have audio return channel.

other than that it has 3d passthrough.

tom

[RussWhite]

Tom,

Intelix DIGI-HD-COAX-S HDMI over coaxial extender -- transmitter and receiver.

http://www.intelix.com/products/digihdcoax.html

A number of the options were RG6 only, but since I am RG59 that was important with this selection. I don't remember checking on 3D as that is not of interest to be at this time.

If I had all the pathways identified between front and back and wanted to take it all apart I would have just pulled a cable, but I hit the "easy button" on this one.
Russ

[folivier]

Save some work for me Tom! See yall next week.

[express1]

Tom, I thought I saw a HDMI over cat5 on monoprice add. For run in excess of 100'.

[encantotom]

yes they have hdmi over coax and cat5e. i just got some shielded cat5e to run to be sure there is no interference.

so i should be all set.

thanks matt

later

tom

[Chester B. Stone, Jr.]

My 2001 was set up with the original 32" tube TV up front. I found a 37" Panasonic LED that fits perfectly in the space with 1/8" to spare on each side. My Directv receiver does not have coax out, and will not accept the signal from the original antenna on the roof. I installed a new Winegard antenna, which works great, replaced the DVD player and original amplifier with Sony equipment so that everything now works with HDMI. The height of the Panasonic is shorter than the old 32" tube, so I filled the space with a center speaker. If anyone is interested, I will post a picture of the final product. I am interested in having HDMI to the rear TV, but not a big issue at this time since my trifocals prevent me from watching on my back. I do want a sub and will see if I can find that wire to the dinette mentioned above.

[encantotom]

hi chester, please do post pictures. would be fun to see.

tom

[Chester B. Stone, Jr.]

I have posted a few photos, with and without flash. Hard to get a good photo because of reflections.218421852186

[encantotom]

Forest has been here this week and has helped me a ton running cable and getting some things back together.

i thought i had the front to rear cabling figured out but getting from the kitchen cabinets to the valence over the passenger salon area took some time too.

forest helped me figure out how to get cabling to the bay to the rear side of the entrance door so i can put a tv in that bay. so i know have run 2 coax, 2 cat5e and a cat5e shielded from the front overhead tv cabinet to the rear tv cabinet, and we also ran 2 coax and one shielded and one regular cat5e from the front overhead tv cabinet to the bay where the tv goes. just have to finish wire managing it all.

to get to the bay we did this....the valence wire chase over the passenger salon window was removed. as well as the window cover and wiring covers by the door. we ran a 2 foot long screwdriver down the wire chase from the floor by the door through the floor into the bay below punching through the foam ceiling in the bay to the front of the entrance door. then up through the wire case along side the door to the window cover. then on top of the table under the passenger salon window under the window cover (cust some holes in it) and then up the front side of the window cover across the area where the speakers are above the passenger seat into the front av cabinet. sounds easier than it was.

then forest helped me reassemble the overhead valence over the passenger side windows in the bedroom and we put a new led rope light in the valence as well as led G4 bulb in the downlights.

then we knocked off for the night to eat gumbo that forest and cindy made for us for dinner. very very good.

we have a little leftover, come on by....

later

tom

[encantotom]

since i had the inverter hang up and i started looking at new inverters i saw that all of them now use cat5 network cable between the inverter and the control panel. so since i have all the chases exposed, i ran 4 new cat5e lines from the front av area to the bay in addition to the previous ones i had run for the bay tv.

i ran two of them straight to the area over the drivers head where the current statpower panel is. the other ends will be right at the inverter. that way if i ever have to change the inverter, i have all that in place already.

i also have run all the cables i think that i need.

from front overhead AV to the bedroom i ran 1 cat5e shielded, 2 cat5e, 2 rg6 coax.

from front overhead AV to where the Bay tv will be i ran 2 coax, 6 cat5e and 1 cat 5 e shielded.

that way i can do hdmi over a shielded cat5e or rg6.

and have a network drop and a wire to do IR distribution.

i bought two new yamaha RXV473BL receivers. one for the front and one for the back. they have hdmi passthrough, they are networkable, 3d capable and have hdmi control and hdmi return.

i also bought a mirage mm6 compact subwoofer for the front. i ran a digital coax line for the reciever to the cabinet behind the passenger seat.

i have picked out the tv's. LG 42LM6300. will get them in the next week to install.

i have to put a tv antenna on and am waiting for the new winegard round dome one.

then have to pick out 2 3d blu ray players.

it is coming together. we will finish recovering the passenger side window cover tonite or tomorrow and darlene and cindy cleaned the front salon blinds as well as the bedroom one.

will try and get them all back together this week.



tom

[encantotom]

i have bought the 2 42" tv and have 37" for the bay. got the LG 42LM6200. and 2 panasonic blue ray 3d players and 2 yamaha 473 av receivers.

michael day is here visiting and he has been helping me with alot of things. we will try and get them installed in the next week. all the cabling is basically run front to back and to the bay.

i also got a mirage mm6 powered subwoofer and ran cable to put it in the table under the passenger salon window.

will take pictures once done.

tom