What do you use? Why?
How Much?

What should I know?

In most cases, you will need to use the terminations specified by the the fiber manufacturer and that will dictate the toolset required.

not true anymore. best way to put a fiber connector is to fusion splice it on. connector comes with a pigtail that has a fiber on it. just match your fibers and your done. Fusion splicer $5K. Fiber tip cleaners vary in price and so do the connectors. quickest way to terminate.

Fusion splice if you aren't man enough to polish your ends. Figure eights, what was it 10 minutes a piece? The first fusion burner we had at the old company ten years ago was 25k and that was a good deal, the cleaver was $1500.

Wow, I was really hoping to get into this for under $1k. Maybe I'll higher someone to come trim out this job for me.

Not gonna happen...

The least expensive reliable fiber kit is the Corning Unicam and runs about $1,500 plus consumables.

I use the AMP NetConnect kit, ran me about $2k.

Look at Liberty [Link: libertycable.com]

Hey guys, late to the party here...

Our AFL FAST kit is less than $1500, and ends are cheap. Terminate in a couple minutes at the novice level. Call for exact pricing. 619-258-2000.
We stock LCs for 50 micron multimode, but we can get others too.

Liberty did a training session here about 8 months ago, I used that exact kit and they offered us trainee's a hefty discount on the tool kit. see if liberty is doing a training session soon.

Extremely easy to terminate, once you got the hang of it; of course.

Fitel S122a Fussion splicer anywhere between $5k-$9k depending on where you get it. the connectors are between $10-$17 depending on your flavor. SSCS-PN1 is about $15.00

real easy to use. the connector kits comes in a package that lets you thread most of the connector on before you even open the package.

its what we use at my main job..

 bump

so let's say we want to prewire all the TV locations at a job (that I have to finish the proposal for tomorrow) with fiber left in the wall for "future"

I'm going to call Liberty in the morning, but I don't even know what to ask for.  I'm looking on their site right now but it's all a bit Greek to me...  

We'll be proposing a component matrix for right now and haven't decided on exactly what we'll be running to the TVs.  May be a Liberty 23awg 6 mini-coax bundle with 2 Cat5 plus an additional 2 Cat6 (plus fiber, hopefully)

Where do I start?  :)

edit - oh, and what do I do with the fiber that will just be hanging behind the wall, and what about the stuff that's going to end up near the patch panels for the rack?

I can't get past the startup costs associated with terminating raw fiber. We work with a company that has all the fancy tools and I woud just assume call them in to terminate rather than invest to get up to speed with it. My threshold would be more like $500 for the tools, so I'll have to wait a while.

Is there some reason that empty conduits with premade fiber cables wouldn't worK?

This job is partial retro, partial renovation.  It'd be easier to get 10 wires ran than it would be to run a 1" conduit - but I know what you're sayin...

We wouldn't need to terminate this at all right now, but maybe the preterminated runs wouldn't be a bad idea.

Do you have to do anything "special" to protect it?

Multimode is best for pretty much all video distribution and matrix hardware

As for the fiber hanging out in the different locations. Just leaving it taping over it or something like that it fine. Even if it gets dirty by the time you cut what you need to for termination you will have clean material. We ALWAYS like to leave enough to do termination on ground or a good work area, as if you leave 12" of behind the TV 6' in the air you will be kicking yourself

Also the way liberty does their part number it says "6F or "2F" or other numbers... that means how many fiber strands are in jacket. I would suggest a 2 Fiber minimum. Most device now use only 1... but figure down the road you may have some huge bandwidth that needs more... At that point it may be worth comparing 4F to see how much more it is.

Also there is something that is going to be in part # or description rated in MM... that would be the size of the actual fiber and is very important for when you are buying connectors also the bandwidth is different and some device require one vs the other. I would say in a house for video distribution either would be fine because as of now you probably don't know what devices you will need.

50 micron (500Mhz/km at 850nm vs. 160Mhz/km at 850nm for 62.5).

Fiber needs lots of TLC. You can't treat it like copper. While they do sell SC keystone jacks there is no way you're going to get a proper bend radius inside a 4" stud wall...

If I were starting from the ground up, I'd install Chief PAC 510s at all of the displays, and terminate the fiber to a wall mount fiber box like this one:

[Link: molexpn.com]

Then, when it's time to install gear, you have all of your infrastructure in place with a nice cubby to hold your receiver.