HD / SD distribution throughout home

[admin_exported]

I'm in the middle of an extension to my house and have managed to include a dedicated cinema room. I have some of the equipment already, including a JVC HD100 projector and Linn Komponent speakers. I'm a little unsure of which receiver to go for (have heard the Onkyo's have become unreliable as a result of incresaed manufacture) and I've held off buying a screen until I can demo the projector and decide on a suitable screen size. Nevertheless, I'll be looking at a top-end (ish) receiver and will be hooking it up to a PS3 and Sky+ box.

If I understand correctly, I can output from the Sky+ box by using s-video and optical into the receiver (and then output from there via HDMI). Given that the receiver (and projector) will upgrade the signal from SD to HD, I see little benefit of paying for Sky HD. However, my main problem is video distribution to the other tv's around the house.

Will the Sky+ box output via coaxial cable at the same time as outputting by s-video and optical? If so, I'll settle for SD for tv's around the house and will wire up that way. However, if it doesn't, presumably I'd have to switch the Sky+ output mode every time I watch (I'd like to avoid this if I can).

Is it possible to take a feed from the receiver and distribute a HD signal to other tv's in the house? I've kept away from the idea of running HDMI cables as I've heard the quality degrades after 7m, and presumably it would be a pricey way of doing it. Are there any alternatives without spending riduculous sums of money?

 

[professorhat]

Crawf62:If I understand correctly, I can output from the Sky+ box by using s-video and optical into the receiver (and then output from there via HDMI). Given that the receiver (and projector) will upgrade the signal from SD to HD, I see little benefit of paying for Sky HD.
Don't mistake upscaled SD for HD. The HD channels on Sky HD will be far superior to the equivalent channel on Sky+ which is being upscaled.