Pondering Move of Cable Box...

Ok, here's one for ya...

I have a Time Warner Scientific Atlanta DVR cable box, a stereo TV, and a mini surround sound system in my living room. The cable come from the wall, into the cable box and from there goes to the mini surround sound system via RCA jacks and to the TV via S-Video. There is no audio connection between the box and the TV; is serves merely as a monitor.

Now:

I would like to move the cable box approximately 60' (cable run) from the TV and run a coax cable from the box to the antenna input of the TV. Then, I would connect the audio output from the TV to the mini surround sound system.

Questions:

1. Would the quality of the picture drop significantly when I switch to coax vs. S-Video?

2. Would the stereo signal carry through the coax and then sent from the TV to the mini surround? Having the surround system is a definite plus, even for daily TV (I also have a media setup in the basement). I would think that the signal comes from the cable box

3. I recently did the Cat5 to serial DB9s the other day with success and am feeling a bit self-confident right now. Is it possible to do the same with S-Video to Cat5? I am looking to do this on a very limited budget (i.e. the $1 DB9 connectors and the free Cat5 from the friends in the IT department was huge )

Maybe some other questions will come up - haven't finished first cup of coffee -

As always, thanks in advance,
Jim

GadgetBoy said:

Questions:

1. Would the quality of the picture drop significantly when I switch to coax vs. S-Video?

2. Would the stereo signal carry through the coax and then sent from the TV to the mini surround? Having the surround system is a definite plus, even for daily TV (I also have a media setup in the basement). I would think that the signal comes from the cable box

3. I recently did the Cat5 to serial DB9s the other day with success and am feeling a bit self-confident right now. Is it possible to do the same with S-Video to Cat5? I am looking to do this on a very limited budget (i.e. the $1 DB9 connectors and the free Cat5 from the friends in the IT department was huge )

Maybe some other questions will come up - haven't finished first cup of coffee -

As always, thanks in advance,
Jim

Click to expand...

1. Would the quality of the picture drop significantly when I switch to coax vs. S-Video?

Click to expand...

If you run the cable to the other room, then use it to plug in a cable box at that spot you wont need to downgrade to coax. If it was not to move the box, but use another, then use a splitter and get a new box. This would give you the best of both (S-video or better in both rooms).

2. Would the stereo signal carry through the coax and then sent from the TV to the mini surround? Having the surround system is a definite plus, even for daily TV (I also have a media setup in the basement). I would think that the signal comes from the cable box

Click to expand...

If you do the above it wont matter. If not, I'm guessing stereo would work but not dolby, etc.

3. I recently did the Cat5 to serial DB9s the other day with success and am feeling a bit self-confident right now. Is it possible to do the same with S-Video to Cat5? I am looking to do this on a very limited budget (i.e. the $1 DB9 connectors and the free Cat5 from the friends in the IT department was huge )

Click to expand...

I don't think you can do it that cheap at that distance. I think you can get quickport jacks and do s-video but only for like 20 feet or something along those lines. I think s-video requires baluns which are going to be more money (at least $30-40 I'd guess but haven't looked at these in a while). If you go with the above approach, you can avoid this tho.

You can do a cat5 to s-video and cat5 to rca and have the setup just like you had it. You will need the Leviton "rca 110 quickport connectors" and "quickport s video modules". Both can found HERE with part numbers 40735-R and 40734-SV. These connectors are also available at Homedepot which where I bought mine. I have used them for about 45ft without problems.

Would the stereo signal carry through the coax and then sent from the TV to the mini surround?

Click to expand...

Yes.

Would the quality of the picture drop significantly when I switch to coax vs. S-Video?

Click to expand...

There will some video quality difference between coax and s-video but the difference might not be very significance and depends on a lot of factors like the coax video output quality of the cable box.

You could do a test to see if you are satisfied with the picture quality. Just run the coax from the location of the cable box to the tv through the hallway etc, connect and see if you like what you see. If you do, then do a permanent install. If not you could do the same test using the cat5 approach. You will need two runs of 60ft each of the cat5 since each of the connectors requires 4 wires.

Keep us posted on the results.