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LexCom Home from Square D - Integrating home entertainment systems makes sense (20/7/2004)

What can be more frustrating for the modern homeowner than wanting to watch a special show on TV only to find that the kids are busy watching cartoons instead? Sure, you can try and gain control of the remote but then the kids will throw a tantrum and destroy any hope you had of watching your show.

So what's the solution? Take off in bitterness and sulk in the garage. Or grab a portable and hide in the bedroom. But then you'll spend more time adjusting the loop aerial while trying to follow the plot through a haze of snow: hardly an enjoyable experience.

And what can you do when someone's hogging the family PC and you have an important email to send? Argue to be allowed on the computer for a few minutes but then face increasing flak when your allotted time runs out while the email attachment has gone wrong for the fourth time!

But suppose that you could simply go into another room with a laptop and connect to the Internet by plugging into an available wall socket. And leave whoever's on the main PC playing backgammon with Belinda from Texas.

Such a system would allow you to take your portable television with you and plug it into a similar socket giving you an instant aerial signal and allowing you to watch your own choice of TV channel.

As technology becomes increasingly important homeowners are finding that they would benefit from greater flexibility allowing them greater use of their home entertainment systems throughout the house. Yet they are often wary because integrated home entertainment systems are seen as being expensive. But that perception is false.

LexCom Home from Square D is a cost-effective solution to the problem since it is based on using a single cable terminating in a RJ45 style socket. This means that a room can be wired with a number of outlets located in suitable places. By wiring each socket to a central distribution centre any service, such as TV, data or phone, can be connected to any room.

Because every socket is standardised there is no longer any confusion over where each entertainment system can be connected. Compare this with the existing system of having a co-axial lead for the television and a Cat5e cable for networking the PCs.

Incoming services, such as satellite, cable or standard terrestrial TV are connected to one side of the distribution centre. This allows up to six TVs in different rooms to be connected without any signal degradation and with the ability to set each TV to a different channel. Similarly a DVD player can be connected to the incoming side again allowing up to six TVs in different rooms to watch the same movie. In addition, the DVD player can be controlled from any room where there is a connected TV.

Because the cable connecting the junction boxes is capable of handling both data and video, it can be used as a home networking system for computers with each having the potential to be connected directly to a broadband signal for Internet access.

LexCom Home is very flexible because every service uses the same socket. This allows the homeowner to change the function of any outlet by simply repositioning a patch lead in the distribution centre. Matching the required service, the DVD player for example, to the relevant room socket easily completes this change.

This means that the bedroom sockets could be set up for PC and CD allowing access to the Internet for work on a computer project while listening to music. Once you have finished using the PC simply change the signal to the socket and either watch TV or a DVD.

The system is modular allowing it to be upgraded to meet any changes to the house while the connecting cable has been designed with a warrantied service life of 15 years.

www.squared.co.uk