WholeHome

One of the most frequently asked questions is “What wires should I install in the new home I’m building?”

Keep in mind that most builders are pretty touchy about you meddling in their project. In fact, I spent two full days pulling extra wires all over my own home right after it was framed, only to come back the next day to see all my extra wires pulled out and neatly coiled on the living room floor. So a couple of suggestions: don’t try to sneak it, buy your builder a case of beer, tell him exactly what you are going to do, and make sure you get his blessing. If you are building a two story home with a basement, make absolutely sure that there is a chase of some kind from the attic to the basement or install a good sized 2 or 3″ conduit or you will be sorry later. And finally, if you are working with the builder, make sure you strap all your new wires properly – according to local code. It has to look like it was professionally done or the inspectors might cause the builder trouble and make that case of beer less valuable.

Absolute Minimum:

As for wiring, if you are going for absolute minimum, my recommendation is (2) RG6-quad shield coax, (1) Cat5e for phone, (2) Cat5e or 6 for Ethernet and a spare for video, and (2) 16GA lamp cord for in-room speakers. Everything but the speaker wire should go to a single “mudring” (orange box frame for low voltage wiring). The Speaker wire should go to a “switch height” box near the room entry and then continue to optimal in-ceiling speaker locations so you can later put in volume controls. And don’t forget pre-wiring your living room and/or home theater location for surround sound. 2 rear, 2 side, 2 front, center, and sub locations – for the sub, I would double wire with speaker wire (same 18GA lamp cord) plus an RG6 coax in case the output you choose is RCA.

One extra upgrade:

Consider running one more cat5 to the location where you put the speaker control in each room – this will allow for future upgrade to a keypad that allows you to choose sources for the room.

So – where should all those wires go?

Telephone (one cat 5), TV (Coax), and Ethernet (Another Cat5) should all go to a single wiring panel – usually centrally located to minimize run lengths – closet, basement or preferably somewhere with attic, ceiling, chase access so you can run more wires later if needed. On-Q/Legrand and Leviton both make very nice cabinets that fit between studs and have nice snap-in modules like telephone punch blocks, cable splitters, and even ethernet switches.

My setup is not as well dressed as it should be, but I have everything in one place –

Audio may or may not go to the same location. If you invest in a switch that lets you put all your sources down in the basement and control everything from keypads in each room, you can run all those wires to another panel right next to the phone/ethernet/cable one. In my home, I ran all my speaker wires to my second story loft, where I have a Mac-mini running into a stereo amp (cheapest possible stereo audio receiver I could find at Best Buy), that feeds a multiroom switch. In all cases, I recommend putting in a switch so that the system is balanced, and if you choose to turn off a room, it does not change the volume in the rest of the rooms.

For the more advanced users – futureproofing…

A much more comprehensive guide, including hookup details, wiring for other major systems, proper wire dressing etc, there is an exceptional guide (broken up into three parts) from Cocoontech.com that I’ve save HERE for your convenience. It is a big read, but worth it if you are starting a new project.

And for your convenience, I put together a simple reference table – There are about 100 other services you could plan for, but if you take these into account you are easily 90% covered.

And what post would be complete without a plug for BOCS – home video distribution has never been easier than with our all-in-one system that any homeowner can tackle. www.bocsco.com

Lots of new boxes out there including the Cisco PNG200 (which I’m afraid I slammed a bit a couple posts back) that are using the new XMP protocol – INCLUDING some of the new Motorola HD boxes that Comcast is handing out. In the wake of the “silent launch” a couple of things everyone really should be aware of.

1) XMP is SUPER tight on timing – Uh, but who cares?? – ANYONE who uses a universal remote because most off the shelf equipment is not capable of reading and reproducing those codes. Normal learning remotes reproduce within about 2-5% tolerance. It takes at least 1% to make XMP work. (again, in my humble opinion, stupid on the part of the manufacturer).

2) Two-Way protocols are a nice idea, with higher end remotes, you could get show or song info on your remote, you could get new IR codes loaded into your remote and other cool whiz-bang ideas but think about that for a second. You are sitting on the couch and want to change the channel – you pick up the remote and briefly point it at the TV, sometimes not even long enough for the TV to see the code thrown at it and you have to try again. Now consider that to get any kind of meaningful data you would have to consciously point the remote at your set top box for long periods of time to get data back 10, 20, 30 seconds or more.. Remeber the old “loading the program on your apple or TI home computer from casette tape?” Yeah I think you get my point.

3) Good news – Motorola figured out how bad this would all be and made their box “dual code capable” – at least the one I got will process both the new XMP protocol (the grey Comcast remotes) as well as the traditional learnable codes (Silver Comcast remotes). BIG thank-you to Mot.

Looking for thoughts and opinions on XMP and how it applies to how you use home entertainment. Anyone want to share?

I’ve been getting a lot of questions on firmware and the features that each version supports – So – I’ve updated the “Firmware Features” post (See the little menu to the right) with a detailed accounting of more of the features as well as a little matrix so you can see what the version of firmware you have is capable of…

Again, the firmware was not really designed to be field upgradeable, but I’m happy to upgrade your equipment if you have a need or give you the information you need to upgrade the firmware yourself…

So – the big question I’m looking for help and advice from the community, how does one decide whether to allow source code (for the remote in particular) to be open source? Frankly, I get a kick out of being able to find a new situation, go spend half an hour hacking up code and being able to have a completely programmable, versatile remote control, and I think there is a decent community of folks that would like it. But what is the overall value, support would have to be – well – zero. What are the chances it would just irritate people? Anyone had experience with this?

A little more technical detail on how we do programming

We use the TI MSPFET430UIF interface (USB connected to a PC – last I checked they are about $100) and the FETPRO software (free of charge from the Elprotronic website, the free version will not update serial numbers but programs software, the link provided goes directly to their download site) and a little custom board that allows us to connect the Remote or BOCS device to either the UIF interface or a serial port to a PC for debugging. I’m attaching a schematic of the interface board below. The jumper is set in “external power” position when programming a BOCS unit (with its own power supply applied) and set in on-board power mode with batteries removed for programming remotes. When the interface board is plugged in (straight through cable pin 1 on interface board to pin one on BOCS unit or remote – they have different ends but both are straight through cables), the pull up/dn states on the interface board enable a tri-state amp on the device to be programmed which disconnects an on board serial port and hijacks that to talk to the processor… So – if all you want to do is program firmware, only a cable with proper pull up/dn pins is required. Firmware must be programmed through the jtag port, debug info is only available on the serial port.

DO NOT LET THIS SCHEMATIC INTIMIDATE YOU – I’m providing it for general interest – there is a very simple way to hook up to the remote and you do not have to even understand the schematic to do so…

EDIT:

Thought I’d add a couple of notes -

As you can see from the above diagram, the main programming interface is from the jtag two wire direct into the connector that goes to the remote – i.e. unless you have a specific need to use the serial interface (mostly for debugging but rarely used), you don’t need to complicated board shown in the schematic – a 4 wire jumper from the jtag programmer over to the remote would suffice.

We have, indeed, decided to go open source – I’ll post the details on avsforum.com so if you are interested in modifying anything for your own use or posting your updates back to the community, there is now a way to do just that.

David Feller

This is coming up more and more -

We created Xtender as a product focused on Cable-TV customers, and that is a huge market on it’s own, but obviously there are lots of folks that have gone the Satellite way – Dish, DirecTV, and even a few off brands…

I’ve had great luck getting Xtender up and running in Satellite homes, but installation is usually completely different and takes some thought to make sure you end up with something that will really suit your needs. Make no mistake, there are some homes where installing Xtender is just not yet feasible (more on this as I know how to solve the issue but just need time to get a new “supercombiner” designed specifically for satellite.

So – Let’s split this into discussions of the two major systems out there Dish Network and DirecTV (Each with specific discussions on different systems/boxes/setups out there) – Frankly this is a better discussion for Wiki like style so I’ll probably transfer it over to something like that shortly. (See www.myXtender.com/support for the wiki page with all the detailed information)

But let’s tackle this together at a high level before you decide to jump into the techie details and drawings over on the wiki…

Dish networks -

The good news is that dish has stayed with the traditional frequency allocations for satellite, so diplexers still work great. In fact, dish has come out with a line of boxes that have two tuners, and uniquely, two video outputs. (Traditional DVRs with two tuners still only have one video output). The second output can be tapped either with composite out OR on their cool “second Room” output – basically a modulated output that can be diplexed back onto the satellite cable, taken outside, and then run to a second TV – control is via a wireless remote. That kind of system does work well and provides more flexibility for installers since they only need to install one box for every 2 TVs. Drawbacks, though, include poor remote RF performance and the limitation that “TV2″ needs to be a dedicated TV – it really does not share with the whole home.

Xtender works seamlessly with this kind of system, but since TV1 can be controlled with an IR remote (or an Xtender IR bug) and TV2 can only be controlled with a Dish RF remote, we swap the outputs. We route TV1 via a composite cable into Xtender to share with the whole home and run TV2 into the “local TV” and let users control it in the same room with the Dish RF remote – that also solves the issue with the Dish RF remote not working long distances. Then we take the cable off the “TV2″ modulated output and run that into Xtender – so Xtender feeds its signals back through the Dish diplexers and back outside. The only other change we make is instead of running that “TV2″ to another dedicated TV, we put a splitter on it and run it to all the rest of the TVs in the home – so they all share the Dish DVR – cool…

The only drawback is that customers that want to co-locate their Dish boxes (and feed the rest of the house using Xtender kind of like a cable TV headend) sometimes need to drop a new wire to that location because Dish has a problem that you can only run two tuners off one line from the dish/switch. Pretty dissapointing if you asked me, hoping they eventually fix that.

DirecTV – Let me say “holt crap batman” – there are at least 5 different systems, 5 different dishes, and about 20 different ways to install all the pieces. Some make Xtender installation really simple, and some take some serious crawling in crawlspaces. I’ve gotten to the point where I can walk in a home and in just a few minutes know whether I should gracefully slip out the side door before anyone sees me, or just do a simple install – let me see if I can share crisply what to look for.

If you have a legacy system with a multiswitch (4 or 6 in and 8 to 16 out),  there are a few limitations:

Only one satellite wire can be “diplexed” (you actually cant use a diplexer – you have to use a splitter but it works fine), most users choose to co-locate all the satellite boxes in one place but that usually means running more wires to that location, and if you do that you end up with HD at only one location.

But that can all be solved by converting to a SWM8 switch (or if you have a SWM system already installed) – standard diplexers can be used, the SWM8 switch has an off air input (where you route the Xtender output/channels) and all rooms can be HD AND receive BOCS channels. A SWM8 switch runs about $150 as an upgrade from folks like weaknees.com and is simple to install.

I know this was a very quick overview, more info can be found on the Wiki – or you are more than welcome to contact me for help.

Good luck all!!

I’ve been getting a LOT more questions recently on installation tips and tricks, requests for installation videos, and espescially information on SATELLITE installations – so I’ve started working up a full Wiki site with all that information.

www.myXtender.com/support

It is admittedly in early stages (for instance the full install manual is not yet up there) BUT you can find:

* An interactive installation manual

* A FULL set of installation videos – you can watch me installing and configuring an Xtender system

* A guide to the various types of satellite installations – I’m steadily working through this (almost nightly updates) – so if your system is not yet shown, just wait a couple of days.

As well as a whole host of ways to get personalized support if you are in the middle of an installation.

This will look much better in the Wiki version, but there are a few firmware versions out there now with a few slightly different features – yeah we learned a LOT by having a bunch of folks using the product literally every day and have upgraded some features from time to time.

Rather than doing the the traditional way – “1.1.1.2 changes these things” let’s flip it around – I’ll list the major changes (the ones an end user might notice) and let you know which firmware version it shows up in.

First – what does your remote look like – if it is this one (<- Left – with the circular top) you have an alpha unit – basically forget it – that is discontinued and firmware is completely incompatible. Call us for a replacement system. You were an early adopter so we will make you a very special deal. I really didn’t like this remote – buttons too small, too many buttons, too many colors…

If you have a production system you have a remote that looks like the one on the right –>

This is the only one we are supporting – but unless you have had your unit for more than a year – this is what you have… Don’t worry what the buttons or markings look like – as long as the pause button is not bright yellow you are good.

The firmware version can be found in the battery compartment under the left battery – you will see a label that looks like this: The Firmware version is the last 4 digits on the F/W line – so this version shown is 1114

Your serial number is the number after the S/N:

OK – now for features:

Learning:

Learning is the ability of a device in the Xtender system to “suck in” an IR code from an Original (OEM) remote that came with a device. By default, the Xtender has learning enabled – i.e. if you plug an ipod dock into the “Blue” channel – we don’t have codes already in there for iPod docks – so you put Xtender into learn mode (Red + enter) then press the play button on the BOCS remote (where you want to put the learned code) – then you point the OEM remote into the IR window on the front of Xtender and push the play button – Xtender sees the light flash, remembers it, and next time you press play on the blue channel it regurgitates that code into the little IR bug stuck to the front of the ipod dock. But the remote itself needs to be able to suck codes in as well – for controlling TVs and other devices that stay in the room with the remote and are controlled not through Xtender but via the little IR lights on the front of the remote itself…

Here is where we made a mistake – we assumed that needing learning on the remote itself would be rare (since we pretty much have every TV code ever made already stored in the remote) – but it turns out that people frequently want to customize the remote – like putting the TV input button somewhere they can remember on a particular button. So Remotes used to come with learning disabled by default. We did build in a cool little way to activate learning – in the beginning a customer would call up tech support, give a credit card number, we would charge $10 and provide an unlock code to activate learning… For now we are waiving the fee – just call tech support and we will provide a free upgrade code – you hold down a couple buttons, punch in a nine digit number unique to your serial number and learning is activated.

For all NEW remotes with firmware version 1450 or newer Learning is activated on the remote by default

Fast Tuning

Some TVs, when entering multiple digits to change channels, want to see +100, 1, 4 to go to ch 114, some want to see 1, 1, 4… and when tuning to a two digit channel some want to see 1, 4, enter or 1, 4, OK otherwise they dont change channels at all or there is a big delay after the second digit is pressed before it changes channel (waiting to see if you punch another digit)… So for firmware versions 1329 and above, we added a feature to allow adding OK or Enter after the two digits are sent to change to a BOCS channel (Red, Green, or Blue) – Hold Menu+5, then choose one of the options:

1=default, 2=+100 then two digits, 3=option1+OK, 4=option2+OK, 5=option1+enter, 6=option2+enter

So for most TVs, try 3 or 5 to speed up tuning…

Be sure to press OK to save your change before the power light goes out.

Low Battery Indicator

In early versions of firmware (1047 and older) the remote periodically checks to see if you have a low battery and if so flashes the power light briefly every 10 seconds or so… We quickly realized that turning yet another light on when your battery is already low tends to speed up the death process. So we switched to no indicator. Then we ran into a bad batch of Chinese batteries – really cheap ones apparently with little chemical mass – so poor that when we switch both IR LEDs on at the same time to change a channel that the IR chip goes into reset because the voltage is drawn down too far… Causing the remote to do really weird things – (The Local TV led would stay on for a long time and nothing was put out of the IR LEDs – so it kind of looks like the remote is doing something but it would no longer control the TV… not really intuitive that the batteries are low). So with firmware version 1317 and newer, we rapid flash the power led to show an error. Unfortunately the new plastic cases with the “Low Batt” marking in red next to the power led are still in works in China – so the indication is there but no marking yet to tell you what it means. Hopefully it is strange enough behavior that you will change the batteries.

TV input

OK – I admit it, I missed a button – TV input. For almost all firmware versions, it can be sent to the TV in Local TV mode by pressing shift then Live-TV but frankly, that is a pain – so with 1114 and newer we mapped it – when in Local TV mode – to the shift-Live TV button. But this is easy to solve with any remote by simply learning your input button – well – wherever you’d like to put it. Note that the A, B, C, D buttons (shifted to access) are mapped to direct TV inputs – different for each TV but they take you directly to specific inputs instead of having to cycle through them.

I still didn’t like it, so with 1385 and newer, it is mapped to the unshifted Live-TV button when in TV mode. no more having to push shift to change TV input.

Some learned codes do not work

We noticed that some IR codes for Sony products could not be learned either into the Xtender or into a remote. Long story short, we learn the code properly but when we regurgitate, we do not put out the code long enough (Sony and a few others want to see the code repeated a few times before they recognize it – dumb if you asked me but no one did)…

So – firmware version 1133 and higher we added a feature that if a code is learned and does not work, you can have the Remote and/or the Xtender repeat the code a while longer to make it work… You hold down the “record” and “mode of interest” button (mode of interest means Red, Green, Blue, Local TV, DVD, CBL or Aux button – whichever one you learned codes into) then select a repeat length – default is 1, but you can choose 2, 3, 4, or 5 (2 or 3 usually work just fine) then press OK to save. If you learned into multiple “mode of interest” buttons you have to repeat this for each one you want to “stretch” the IR code length for.

Favorite Channel when going to Local TV

On all remotes, when you press Local TV it (by default) goes to channel 9 – mostly so something changes when you press the button to return to local TV control – otherwise you could still be watching, say, the Red channel but since you pressed the Local TV button the remote is now only controlling the local TV and not the Red channel – confusing – so we have it go to a channel so at least something changes. Apparently change is good.

You can set any default channel to go to that you like (instead of channel 9) just press local TV, the channel you want, and then local TV again – the remote will remember that channel and go to it every time you press the Local TV button.

But – for some rooms, I really do not want the remote to go to any particular channel. So for firmware versions 1114 and higher, if you enter 00 (That is zero zero then press TV) as your favorite the remote will no longer change to any channel when you press local TV.

Why would you ever want this? – well – for instance I have this weird TV in my bedroom that cannot be changed to channel 96 by pressing 96 (I think it is a firmware glitch on Magnavox’s part – so to get to my Blue channel I hit Green (which goes to 98) then hit Local TV, channel Down, then Blue… yeah a little weird but it works – so I disabled the local TV default channel change to I could do this without holding my hand over the front of the remote. OK, I admit it, if you understood that you are special.

The Cisco PNG Set Top box from Comcast

I’m sure it is making its way out to other cable companies in other parts of the country, but if you live in Houston, you may very well get one of these boxes. (See my post specifically about how crappy the box is). But it took a firmware upgrade for BOCS to be able to control it. So, if you have that box (Or any similar STB that uses the XMP protocol) you need version 1400 or newer. Long story short, that particular code is built into the firmware and added to the list as soon as you put the batteries in – the code is 06078.

The most common firmware that you will run into right now, however is 1043

And No, firmware is not field upgradeable – it takes special PC software, very special adapters and cables etc. But if there is a feature here that sounds really good to you feel free to give me a buzz – I’m sure we could arrange a Remote swap if you cover the shipping.

In a typical cable TV home, pretty much all available bandwidth is used by the cable company – so up until now it has been impossible to share the same wires and put your own signals on those wires… Well – BOCS figured it out and here is a little peek under the hood…

The basic concept is that the cable companies avoid putting good stations on channels 95-99 and channel 14 as these all lie within the FM band (Car radio FM) – and those stations tend to leak into the cable companies lines and cause them a lot of trouble. BOCS cleans up that band and puts the Red, Green, and Blue channels there -

If you want to see pictures of how this works, I explain it in detail with some animations. Pretty cool really… – Click the picture to watch