Which audio/video cables should I use?

[bel_ami_boy]

I'm in the process of running speaker cables from my amplifier in the living room to a pair of speakers in the dining room. As the process involves removing all the skirting boards, drilling holes through several walls, laying the cables underneath and replacing the skirting again, I thought it would be a good opportunity to lay some other cabling at the same time.

What cables could I lay that would connect my pc (upstairs) to the audio/video equipment in the living room to enable audio/video data to be sent from one to the other? The length of cable would probably have to be about 70 feet.

Although I don't have any need at present to connect my pc to the AV equipment downstairs, I'm sure as technology advances I will want to connect them up. By laying the cabling now will at least provide a bit of 'future proofing' and enable this to happen in the future. Plus I don't think my partner would let me get away with removing all the skirting boards a second time to lay a few more wires!! (If you're wondering why I don't just run the cables under the carpet, I can't. All the flooring downstairs is wood!)

Current AV setup downstairs:
Denon AV Ampifier
Pioneer HDD DVD Recorder
Humax Freeview Set top box

[ed klein]

When you get all your wiring in place, make sure your have ALL of your speakers IN-PHASE which means ALL the speaker cones are moving in the same direction (forward or backwards) when the plus (+) signal is attached to your speaker terminal.

You can check which speaker terminal is the plus (+) by connecting a 1.5 volt battery across the speaker terminals. Note which direction the speaker cone moves when you have the (+) terminal of the battery attached to the speaker. Do this to each speaker you have. Reversing the polarity of the battery will make the speaker cone move in the oposite direction.

Not putting ALL your speakers IN-PHASE causes sound and frequency distortation. WELL WORTH THE EFFORT.

[olyteddy]

If it were me, I'd run multiple cat 5 or 6 cables. The balanced twisted pair is the lowest noise wiring available. You can use a bunch of pairs connected together in parallel for speakers; single pairs for low level audio; pairs for data; add a couple of balancing transformers to send video; etc.

[bel_ami_boy]

Forgive my ignorance as I don't know much about wired networks. If I laid multiple ethernet cables, what device would they start from at the PC end? Would it be my router? At the other end of the ethernet cable (in the living room), could I connect this up so it becomes a network socket thereby allowing me to connect a device to it sometime in the future?

[olyteddy]

I was suggesting multiple paired wire, because you could use it (with adaptations) to carry speaker, telephone, video, low level audio, network, etc. About the only thing it wouldn't easily handle is CATV or Antenna (RF). For wired networking you'd need a network card and a router. You'd terminate the pairs in RJ11 connections.