Sterling / Home integration / Video distribution
Video distribution, Monroe GA
One rack of equipment can send any video source in the house, cable, streaming, security cameras, a media server, to any screen, independently, without a box behind every television.
A television with a cable box, a streaming stick, and a game console plugged into it has three video sources and one screen. Video distribution flips that arrangement: a small number of sources live in one equipment rack, and any screen in the house can call up any one of them, on demand, independent of what every other screen is showing at that same moment.
How it actually works
This is not four examples out of many. Every source on this list is genuinely reachable from every screen on this list, at the same time, independently.
Source \ Screen
Kitchen
Primary bedroom
Theater
Patio
Cable and streaming
Kitchen
Primary bedroom
Theater
Patio
Apple TV
Kitchen
Primary bedroom
Theater
Patio
Security cameras
Kitchen
Primary bedroom
Theater
Patio
Media server
Kitchen
Primary bedroom
Theater
Patio
Each dot represents a live, independent connection, not a shared broadcast. The kitchen can be on the security cameras while the theater plays a movie from the media server and the primary bedroom has the news on, all from the same rack.
What it replaces
One rack, centrally located, instead of a small pile of boxes behind every screen.
The security camera row on the matrix above is worth sitting with for a moment. Without video distribution, checking who is at the gate means walking to a dedicated monitor, usually by the front door, or pulling out a phone. With it, the same feed is one button away on the kitchen television, the theater screen, or the touchscreen in the primary bedroom. It is not a separate camera system with its own screen, it is one more source on the same matrix as everything else.
A question worth answering directly
A streaming stick behind every television works, right up until you want to watch the security cameras from the couch, or a source that only one device in the house has access to, a physical media server, a satellite receiver, a specific cable package. Video distribution means buying that source once and reaching it from everywhere, instead of duplicating hardware and subscriptions in every room that wants access to it.
How it gets built
Every screen that will pull from the distribution system needs a cable run back to the equipment rack, decided at blueprint the same way any other low-voltage run is. Rack location, generally somewhere central and ventilated, gets decided at the same time, since it becomes the hub every source and every screen connects back to.
The rack itself, matrix switcher, network gear, and source equipment, gets built out and tested during rough-in and trim, well before the televisions themselves go on the wall.
Distributing 4K video to multiple screens at once also puts real demand on the network behind it, which is one more reason video distribution, networking, and Control4 get planned as one system rather than three separate purchases.
What we install
Sterling installs Sony video products not available directly to consumers, connected through a distribution matrix that Control4 controls. Choosing a source on a touchscreen or remote is a Control4 command, the matrix hardware behind it is what actually carries the signal, cleanly, to whichever screen requested it. The same matrix that runs the kitchen television handles the theater and the security feeds, one piece of equipment doing the work three or four separate boxes used to.
Common questions
Yes. Once the camera feed is part of the video distribution system, any television or touchscreen on the same system can pull it up, not just a dedicated monitor by the front door. A single button on the remote or touchscreen can bring up the gate camera on whichever screen is closest to you.
No, and that is the actual point. Each screen picks its own source independently. Two people can watch two different things on two different televisions while a third screen shows the security cameras, all from the same rack of equipment.
Modern video distribution is built to carry full 4K HDR signal to every screen without the quality loss older systems had. We spec the distribution hardware to the resolution the source material and the displays actually need, so the picture on a distributed feed matches what a source connected directly to the television would show.
In most cases, yes, though it usually means running new cabling to the equipment rack rather than reusing what is already in the walls. We will look at what is there and tell you plainly what can be reused and what has to be pulled fresh.
One source can be sent to every screen in the house at once just as easily as four different sources going to four different screens. The system does not care whether it is distributing one signal broadly or several signals independently, that flexibility is the reason a matrix system exists in the first place.
Source selection on any screen becomes part of the same interface as lighting, climate, and audio. Picking a source is a Control4 command sent to the matrix, the same way dimming a light or lowering a shade is a command sent to those systems, which is what lets a single scene, like movie night, dim the lights, close the shades, and switch the theater screen to the right source in one action.
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