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S-video over Cat 5e


flatgrass

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Hello,

Have lurked here for years, but never seemed to have authoritative information to add to threads.

But, I do have questions, and now is a good time.

Currently have gutted our kitchen and the bathroom above it in an old row home in DC.

With some walls, ceilings, and floors removed and/or exposed; I have the great opportunity to run cabling (coax, UTP, speaker) through what has previously been prohibitive plaster walls. (can finally put the RCW 5s in the kitchen and not have to crank up the Belles in the basement)

Has anyone had experience with running an S-video signal over Cat 5e cable? (quality/strength of signal) I would like to do this instead of running it over dual RG6 runs. Either one will work. Both allow me to standardized the pulls, and are both cheaper than an extremely long S-video cable.

Thoughts or comments?

Thanks,

kevin

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I think that sounds pretty cool. I imagine one day you'll be able to broadcast hi-def signal over those babies too. I can't help wonder if STP will work better though than UTP - not necessary for computer data, but perhaps would reduce video interference?


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If your only purpose is to save money, then I'd probably recommend against the approach. I can't say for sure that it won't work, but if the characteristic impedance is off you're going to dramatically reduce the performance. Essentially you're dealing with transmission lines, not wires.

Isn't the maximum length for an S-Video run about 30 feet? I'd have to go find the documentation again. I went through all this once before trying to find a long enough S-Video cable for connecting my computer to the HT. At 20ft I was already starting to notice some degeneration as compared to a 3 foot cable. But I was also using the receiver as a switcher so who knows what might be different between that and a straight run.

Is it possible to install conduit where you plan on running the wires?

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Thanks for the link. I had planned on patching in a set of baluns at either end of the run I needed to use. I hadn't seen this particular site.

Until starting research on this a few weeks ago, I didn't even know these things were in production.

Still coordinating to see what I can put in the walls, i.e. conduit, or some type of chase/raceway. Would love to have expansion/scalability (do I dare say fiber?)

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pccables.com has really inexpensive s-video cable.

About 4 years ago i spent 15$ on 75ft of it. Still works fine today.

You may want to check them out.

s-video is still an analog format for video. 480p, so as long as you are not trying to improve the image quality at all it could still work out

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