I have big technology confusion. Not that I don’t understand it, just that there’s so much of it about now, and so much of it that I want (need!). Early in the new year the back of my house is being knocked down, the roof torn off the rest of it and the whole lot being re-built and repaired. It’s not something I’m looking forward too particularly, but hidden amongst the confusion, rubble and chaos is something I’m looking forward to, and that’s re-vamping the wiring and technology in the place.
I live in an old miner’s cottage, and I think the last time the wiring was touched must’ve been in the ’60s or ’70s. There are barely any sockets around, an antique antenna cable from the aerial in the attic, rubbish lighting and all sorts of things which make being a fan of things-with-lights-on difficult. Once everything’s torn apart though you better believe I’m have lots of power points, some decent cabling and trunking put in. Partially because it’s much easier, but also because I think one more cable in the place would see me slaughtered by my other half.
Unfortunately it’s only after that that the decisions begin. TV reception is pretty poor down in our dip, despite being able to see the main broadcast antenna from my living room. I blame all the trees and the… *nature* out there. My broadband subscription comes to an end this month, and with the deals about with Sky at the moment it is seriously tempting to just plump for a cheap package. It works out about the same price as my current phone line rental and broadband costs (because Sky have LLU equipment in my exchange – I won’t bore you with the ins and outs), and from that point of view it’s very justifiable. However, I’ve got one eye on the future too and ave been doing a lot of reading about FreeSat, and I’m quite taken with the idea. It’s essentially Freeview on steroids, no subscription and delivered via satellite, but the thing attracting me is the idea of HD broadcasts for free. Unfortunately it would also mean me investing in an HD PVR, and given the fact that they aren’t even available yet, I can see them being expensive. There are other options too, such as BT Vision with its on-demand programming delivered via broadband, but I know the current bandwidth available means there’s no chance of getting HD over the phone line. Maybe I could even go down the Sky route, get a quad LNB fitted (four feeds come from one dish – 2 for sky and its recorder, 2 for freesat and its recorder) and have the best of both worlds. It depends on the alignment for the dish of course, and I have a sneaking suspiscion it’s different for each.
Then I need to get a new A/V receiver, some decent speakers and start to rationalise my other stuff. The mess of wires behind the TV cabinet at the moment is horrifying and I intend to make it a lot neater. Before any of this can start there’s a lot to be done first, such as rebuilding half a house and dealing with debts, but I’m looking forward to having the blank canvas to work with. In an ideal world that would be everything centralised – lighting, audio, video – the works, but in reality I know how much the controllers (and remotes for that matter!) cost. Maybe I’ll settle for a home media server (NAS maybe) and lots of wireless repeaters and cat5e/6 run in the walls. Hmmm, network points and Power Over Ethernet devices…..