Small new construction prewire for Direct TV

[clayt2]

I am constructing a small mixed use building with four separate units, three of which I would like to pre-wire for Direct TV. Two apartments will have three satellite outlets each, and one of the commercial tenancies will have two satellite outlets. This size building is too small for the Direct TV MFH3 IPTV solution and even too small for MFH2 service.
I am considering prewiring a SMW Direct TV Five LNB Ka/Ku Slim Line Dish for Direct TV service. (I have identified no retailers who will install without a service commitment, which makes no sense since the building won't be rented for months after the walls are sealed.)

The structured wiring in the building will be category 7A, class F cable (1000 Mhz) with the ability to retask outlets at the patch panel. Ideally, I would convert the signal to IPTV off the single wire, pass the signal through an 8 port switch and distribute it through the category 7 cable as necessary. Thus, RG6 wiring would be unnecessary. Both cable TV and off-air signals will run on the category 7A wiring, independently of any Direct TV prewired cabling.

Would a satellite-to-IPTV converter placed on the single wire convert all eight channels, or would the conversion have to occur eight times after the splitters?
Would the IPTV set top boxes be commercially available to my tenants?

Assuming that the ideal solution is not yet reasonably feasible, I have layout questions. The SWM single wire(s) will be a homerun run to the basement where the splitters will be located. The run lengths are as follow:
SWM single wire(s): 43 feet
Runs after the splitter(s) (add 43 feet for total run to the dish)
2 Commercial TVs (set top boes) location): 60 feet (103 feet)
Apt A, Bedroom 1: 29 feet (72 feet)
Apt A, Bedroom 2: 56 feet (99 feet)
Apt A, Media Center: 111 feet (154 feet)
Apt B, Bedroom 1: 39 feet (82 feet)
Apt B, Bedroom 2: 67 feet (110 feet)
Apt B, Media Center: 122 feet (165 feet)
According to Sonora Design, using two fourway splitters, all the drops will have good reception without amplification. So the first question is whether all-in-one dish/swm units have the ports for two single wires to two four-way splitters? Otherwise, I will need a Ka/Ku dish without the SWM and a separate inside or outside 8 program SWM.
I understand that the 8 program SWM stacks only 8 programs and that each HD-DVR can call for 2 of the available programs. I need to understand how this works. I hope the switching occurs at the SWM and is independent of the cabling to the receivers and DVRs. If so, no matter how the signals are split and the cables are run, a total of 8 programs can be played/recorded on receivers and DVRs at one time. Thus, while there could not be 8 TVs on and one DVR recording a different show, there could be 7 TVs on and one DVR recording one show (or, say 4 TVs on and 4 shows being recorded on DVRs).
Or does every DVR tie up two program channels whether it is in use or not? If so, to provide for any HD-DVRs I would need two 8 program SWMs.
Finally, I have seen rumors of play-back over multiple TVs from a single DVR. Would that occur through the SWM? What's the format of the playback? RF 2-2100+ Mhz? IPTV? Will the playback be over a coaxial-only network or can an existing IP ethernet be used?
Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Zynergi]

If you are able to, run 3ghtz Solid Copper RG6 homeruns to your distribution point and rooms this will be fine with your runs, I am not sure how the SWM system will work over IPTV and I doubt IPTV tuners would be available to the general public not running MFH3 systems and is probably a serious overkill for this small of a setup. To start, with your proposed setup, a DVR uses 2 tuners... so Apartment A could easily use 6 available channels, leaving only 2 channels open for the rest of your setup. This is unavoidable, and will cause huge problems in the future.

The SWM assigns channels the first time a Receiver is fired up, it will assign that frequency to that STB and be perm unless that STB looses power in which case it will re-request an available channel, so unless you plan to have your tenants unplug the box when not in use, it will still cause problems, as the "off" button only makes the STB go in standby mode. The SWM LNB or SWM8 Module uses 9 channels 8 for tuners and 1 shared channel for guide data, separated by 100mhtz (no clue why they separated so far when they could have used 50 mhtz and opened 16(17) channels an be more optimized </shrug>


You have 4 Apartments to set up, I would stack a SWM8 for each apartment (+-$400 for the SWM8 Mods) Which would give each setup 8 tuners available. This is also assuming the tenants have D12 SD STB's and R16 or better DVR STB's.. D10, D11 an Older Boxes wont work, neither do the Tivo's or R15's

It may be best to go with the following....

Apartment A+B

Slimline with 4 port 5 LNB +-$100
(2) SWM8 Modules Stacked +-$200
(2) STS-8 1x8 SWM Splitters +-$100
6 Lines in each Apartment (maybe 1 on each side of room)
Leaves 2 channels on each SWM

Commercial

2 lines from open SWM Splitter

This leaves 2 lines and a potential for up to 4 channels to be available at any given time, preventing Channel disruption. Then if you felt so advantageous you could run say 3 legacy lines lines for older boxes to a living room (2 lines for DVR) and 1 to a bedroom to each apartment and label them as such, for the just in case and that would not use any channels at all.

Your distances would be fine for a standard SWM setup if you balance the distance from the Dish to less than 50' to the SWM8 Modules, but In this setup I would stay away from a SWMLNB.. unless...

you used 2 dishes (1 for each apartment, with 1 channel off each for the Commercial).. which may be cheaper

As far as MRV (Multi-Room Viewing) this is handled by the HDDVR's software/Ethernet port and is currently in beta (more info can be read in the CE (Cutting Edge D* Forum). So at each TV location with my proposed setup you would have say in the..

Media Center wall plate: a SWM Coax, 2 Legacy Coax, Phone line (non pbx) and Ethernet
BR1 Wall Plate: SWM Coax, 1 Legacy Coax, Phone line and Ethernet
BR2 Wall Plate: SWM Coax, Phone line and Ethernet

Again this is to provide the most versatility and OTA/Cable could be diplexed into the legacy ports providing your tenants with further options without tearing the place up later.

As far as installing it, if you understand MFH systems at all then the hard part will simply be peaking the Slimline Dish.

Hopefully this made some sense

Edit: According to a couple MFH3/IPTV articles I just read it seems as though with MFH3 and IPTV headend equipment you could just plug a compatible D* box into the ethernet port, unfortunately none of the articles were very specific on the customer side of the system

 

[clayt2]

Thank you.

 

[clayt2]

Thanks