Building new home and want to do whole house dvr service... what wiring do I need?

The newer Single Wire Multiswitch dish only requires one coax cable for DVRs.  That has nothing to do with Whole Home DVR, although SWM is required for DirecTV's WHDVR networking.  Therefore, at least for your DirecTV equipment, no ethernet cables are needed.  Of course, it's still a good idea to wire each room with CAT5 or CAT6 cables in any new house.  Also consider running plastic conduit behind a wall in each room so that you can easily run future cables from the attic, basement or crawl space.  

You'll also want a coax from your wiring closet or common point to the vicinity of your router for connecting the Whole Home system to your LAN and the Internet.

Not sure what wiring you need....but I recommend you have an installer tell you and NOT customer service people with Direct TV.  The installers just left my house.  I ordered whole home, told the people what I currently had, and they could not do a thing for me!!!  My DVR is still  where I do not want it, I still do not have On Demand, was told that even if they could have installed the HD DVR where I wanted it all the other would not have had "whole access" because they are not HD receivers.  Basically I am very unhappy.

marki:

What was the reason they could not put the HD DVR where you wanted it? They should be able to put a receiver just about anywhere, unless you imposed some limitations on them that they could not overcome

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Sungam

I have a 2 story house.  They can not run a new cable and say the existing cable (that HD is running through perfectly) is not "big" enough.  I even said ok....put the HD DVR box upstairs, where they can run the cable and there is currently a DVR.  Then I can watch my DVR shows down stairs...nope.  They will not do that either....still saying the cable is not big enough.

I just want to be able to watch DVR shows in my downstairs living room and have On Demand.  Both of which I had with the big C company.

We have enjoyed Direct TV, but this has always been annoying.  The original set up was not possible because they could not get a second line to my living room.  We were VERY excited when we were told on the phone that 2 lines were no longer needed.

"The cable is not big enough"?  That makes no sense.  I suggest you call DirecTV and request a different installer.  

Maybe your current coax is RG59?  That's not suitable for satellite. They'll need RG6 coax.  But I don't understand why they can't run new cable.  Installers do it all the time. 

that is what I thought.  However, it would be difficut at our house....but that is their JOB.    Guess I will just live without it or change back to old cable company.

 you do understand that only HD receivers participate in WHDVR. std receivers cant play any content off of the HDDVR

peds48

Yes, I understand that now.  It is not what I was told on the phone when I placed my order.  I was told all of my receivers would have to be changed out.  This lead me to believe all would work.  It is a mute point, since I can not get it at my house at all.

You must have a very unusual situation for DirecTV to not be able to do the installation one way or another. The normal procedure is called a house wrap... cables are run outside the house to the rooms where ther receivers are located and then  through the exterior wall into the room. It's hard to imagine a situation where that would not be possible, although some do not like the look of the cables running on the outside. Hiding the cable in the walls (wall fishing) is an added cost option but requires that the installer have the proper tools and expertise. As an alternative, you might want to talk to a local electrical or low voltage wiring contractor about replacing the existing cable (probably RG-59) with the RG-6 required by DirecTV.