Data, Video, Phone

After Electric, the final step before drywalling was to put in the other cable -- video, data, and phone. My existing service in the house is a bit complex. As part of my HOA, I HAVE to subscribe to this neighborhood service, which provides video/data/phone. I can't quit per the HOA contract. I coudl probabl fill up the entire blog with comments on why i don't like this, but this is a blog about my basement, so i'll stick to what's relevant. From this service (Openband) i have an RG6 video service to the house, fiber data connection (why they didn't choose to push the video through this is beyond my comprehension), and phone. However, their video doesn't offer the NFL package, so i grudgingly continued to get DirectTV.

that means I had to run the following cables:
- phone
- data
- video DirectTV
- video Cable
- surround speaker cables

Also, I currently had "normal" DirectTV, but since HD requires more cables, I opted to upgrade now. The way that DirectTV works, you can't simply split cables, so I decided to run the output of the dish to a multiswitch int he basement, and from there, pass the cables upstairs to the TV, and downstairs to the new TVs.

For the cost update, I bought 500' of RG6 cable (about $60) and 500' of Cat5e cable (about $70). Had to purchase a number of wall connectors (suprisingly expensive) and some tools (crimpers, strippers, etc). Total for this cabling about $250. This brings the total now to $5625


Attached are some photos of the enternainment area, which has a number of these cables. Also, the exercise room, which has the video cables running near the top of the room, so i can mount a TV on the wall. The other picture shows the DirectTV multiswitch.