My choice would be 3/4" conduit which would permit installing/changing the cables as desired or as necessary. For the 4 finished rooms in my house where such might be wanted, there are in each room 3 boxes with 3/4" ENT. The upstairs rooms have the ENT run to the attic, the downstairs room has the ENT run to the basement. From attic to basement is a 2" PVC conduit.
At present, I use no wireless equipment. In the days before solid -state electronics, the usable range of broadcast frequencies was quite limited and was fully utilized with no room for expansion. The advent of solid-state enabled use of higher frequencies. But the possibility of needing to surrender broadcast frequencies for other uses in the future still exists and having the ability to install hard wiring offers flexibility. The broadcast frequency spectrum still has limitations.

This post was edited by bus_driver on Wed, May 28, 14 at 8:40

nepool - Our LAN tech at my job suggested that we run RG6 coax and Cat6 to every TV location. Our friend at the phone company said to run Cat 5e to every phone jack and everywhere we would want internet. So, since we haven't made up our minds yet, we are doing what bus_driver suggested and we are putting in flexible conduit that will be hooked into a low voltage electrical outlet box at all of our TV and phone jacks. We have only run RG6 at this time but can easily go into the attic and drop whatever type of ethernet line we want when the time comes that we will need it.

You can ask electrician to bid, but might be better getting a separate bid from a low voltage wiring specialist. In our case, they were cheaper.

In general, as JDez said, you want coax and CAT 6 to each location a TV will be. Traditional cable TV uses coax, Uverse can use CAT6.

If you think you might want a home security system or whole home audio at some point, cheap to run wires now.

You should receive a proposal for a structured wiring package.

This should include cat6 (not cat5, this is 2014, why go for a standard that was old in 2009?).

Yes more things are headed wireless, but wired speeds are still faster than wireless. All cat6 drops in your home will run to a panel in a central location where you will have a network switch and your dsl/cable modem. You should make sure to run wire to anywhere you expect to have TV equipment and anywhere you expect to have an office/computers.

BTW, this is not an A/V forum but you should be sure to try to use one of the "smart" tvs in the store before you buy it. I work in technology and yet I find them almost universally horrible. The manufacturers have no idea what it takes to make a usable experience. Back in the "old" days of

Technology changes too rapidly to lock yourself into any one type of wiring. Plan for whatever you put in to be obsolete, and make it easy to change it when that happens.

I got a quote on this and it was 18000 on top of electrical. I elected to do it myself. The above quote included audio, and home automation as well.

You can run your phones on cat wiring. I completely rewired my house when the roof was off. My regret is realizing that no matter what I did, it will someday be obsolete.

If I was to do it again, I'd go forward in time and read Bus Driver's post and take it to heart. I'd also run conduit everywhere in a star configuration to a closet, not a smart panel.

Oh, and label EVERYTHING! The cables, the boxes, the conduit.

You have no way of knowing what's going to work best ten years down the road. When they're finally done with screwing around with the specs for cat 6, there will be cat 7, or maybe cat cable will have given way to ultra-mini HDMI. Or full optical thread? Or decent wireless! Who knows? I'm sure that in another generation kids will laugh at what we do. Leave everything changeable.

Thanks for responses.

I just want to know what I need to run right now, in 2014, so that come 6 months from now, when I get my new TV and Uverse or Cable, I'll get a great signal.

We will have 6 Coax cable jacks (old school) in every room we'd ever want TV (Family Room, Kitchen, Study, Master, and 2 in basement)... those are already included, plus 5 standard phone jacks. The question is, do I need to run internet/Ethernet (cat 6?) to ALL those spots if I want to get internet on all those TVs or computers? Or will I save some money by just running it to 2 or 3 of those spots, and get the same results with the new wireless boxes?

I know that 15 years ago, friends ran Coax and phone jacks into basically every room of the house with a mind towards the future, and that was certainly overboard because wiring was still needed for internet and who needs a cable jack in the bathroom...

We're not super techy, nor care about running over the top sound systems. I just want to make sure that come 6 months from now we can stream some movies, watch some high def TV, and use the computers, and not have regrets about the setup.

Thanks!

Anyone else?

I agree with the above that smart TVs are a terrible idea. Things change fast and who wants to change out a TV to get the latest App.

I have a 5000 sqft home that I built 5 years ago. I did cat 5e to all TV locations. In the end, I made a theater room in an area that I hadn't run cat 5e too. So I paid the $20 extra to buy a wifi bluray instead of a wired one. Big deal. We have a wired bluray and they function about the same.

Sure wired is always better but wi-fi can carry full 1080p output with ease.

I go with internet blurays that can run netflix and amazon just fine. You can do apple TV, chromecast or whatever. They are all crazy cheap compared to the upcharge for a smart TV....

We play a catalog of 1080p and 720p movies off network attached storage through Cat5e. It was around $60 per run incl termination.

I've got a gigabit capable wireless router but that setup can't do lag free 1080p. Absolutely run network cable to every TV. Unless you are pulling the wire yourself, double runs are overkill.

Most of our daily use devices like laptops, phones, tablets are all on wireless so you don't need a lot of desktop PC runs unless you have special requirements.

Hi David_Cary,

Have you shopped for a TV lately? All the TVs are smart TVs-- there is no upcharge, really. Its the new 'standard' thing.

Its interesting that you said you ran the cat 5 to all the TVs, but ended up using a wireless device and are not seeing a big difference. That tells me that I don't need to run Cat 5 to EVERY room, but maybe to 2 or 3 major rooms, right, because I probably will be served well with wireless for a few of those TVs?