Nice to see this thread resurrected.... timing is good for me, as I'm (finally) going to break ground on my new house in early 2008.

Plans include a central IT room in the middle of the house on the 2nd floor. Everything will home run to here.

A few other notes from my planning :
- All of these home runs to go in conduits for future proofing.
- Additional cat5 cable run behind all light switches in the main open plan area to provide for later retrofitting of Lutron or similar... an expense I don't see the point of, but a future buyer might want automated lighting.
- Each bedroom to have a computer and TV, but looking at dual purpose flat screens (eg 22" TVs with PC input) rather than separate TV and computer.

I am looking at distributed Video and Audio, but maybe not immediately, just want to make sure I wire it right in the first place.

Would welcome input on :
1 : Compression technology is improving so fast that perhaps Cat 5e is fine... what is the advantage of Cat 6 in a home implementation.. and as for fibre, is that really necessary in a practical implementation ?
2 : Wiring.....best to get structured cable combining coax and cat 5/6 or separate cables (I'm a novice, don't shoot me )
3 : TVs. We don't have over the air broadcasts in Cayman, all through cable boxes (or satellite), so assume I don't need a receiver. I saw a well priced 24" flat screen on TigerDirect a while back, just can't remember the manufacturer. As I don't think I need a built in tuner in these screens, any recommendations for manufacturers/models ?

Thx !