[trio151]

I know that this is the home theatre forum but you guys are much more knowledgeable than I am when it comes to home theatre cabling.

Our church is going to be spraying insulation in the attic very soon and we need to decide what video cabling to run from the back of our church to the front of our church.

Lets assume we have a distance of 100'

The project we have right now is VGA so we definately need a VGA cable but to be ready for 5 or 10 years from now what cables would you run in the attic for future video output? HDMI, Component, Ethernet?

We are a small church with a limit budget but we know that once that insulation is in the attic it will be almost impossible to run cables through the area.

Thank you for your input.

 

[Zedcaster]

Conduit!

Trio, you'll never be able to predict the future. Trying to guess what cables you need 5 years down the road is a mugs game. Putting in wires now is a crap shoot with the odds loaded against you.

Conduit is my suggestion - this is essentially pipe for wires. It's reasonable in cost and you can install it yourself if you're handy. Otherwise an electrician can help. Conduit means you can change your mind at any time and run or remove whatever wires you wish, whenever you need to.

Run the pipe from the projector location to the source, put in some access boxes along the way. Or use junction boxes if you think you might want to put speakers or some other device(s) in between. The beauty of conduit is that you can extend the run to any new location just by adding joints like in plumbing. If you use PVC plastic pipe you just glue it together, no soldering or power tools needed.

Anyway just my 2 cents.

 

[TECHNOKID]

Personnally I don't think you need HDMI cable for a church PJ since the PJ is normally used to display text of the songs and the odd Christian movies, right? Not counting that if your present PJ doesn't have HDMI connections, right? Therefore, more money would need to be invested in either a new PJ or at least HDMI to VGA interfacing. IMHO VGA is here for a long long time, this is what's used in the commercial, corporate and government sectors and HDMI isn't a valid expense at this point. We so ralrely (I mean VERY rarely) get demands for HD visuals in the rental business. That I know of, there is no demand for HDMI permanent installs in those sectors.

In all cases, make sure to use inwall grade cable and for runs above 50' it would be wise to use a repeater (video amp).

Cheers!
TK

 

[bigfatalleycat]

Run a conduit of some type(4" water pipe?) through the attic before the insulation is blown in and you can pull through any type of cable you like when an upgrade is required.

 

[TECHNOKID]

Run a conduit of some type(4" water pipe?) through the attic before the insulation is blown in and you can pull through any type of cable you like when an upgrade is required.

Cleaver idea, that is what we did for the audio snake for the portion of ceiling that was gypse enclosed. We used the 4'' ABS but some other products maybe available for cheaper but in anyway the expense is worth in the long run. Allows for cable removal and plenty of cable upgrade