Whole house video distribution or can I send a cable TV signal over CAT5?

[BrettS]

I have a pretty simple whole house video distribution setup using the older RF Modulators from Radio Shack that let you select a channel other than 3 or 4 (I don't recall what the model number is right now, and they're still packed in boxes at the moment).

I have several video sources that I use in my home theater (Tivo, VCR, and DVD) and I used a Radio Shack modulator to put each one on a different channel and those channels are available on the different TV's I have throughout my house.

Everything worked well and life was good, but I just moved to a new house. It's new construction, but because we needed to move in right away (and to save money) we bought a house that was already complete, so I didn't have a chance to do any custom wiring.

All of the rooms where I'm going to put a TV have a single RG6 cable run to a central location, and the cable TV signal also comes into this location.

The problem I've run into is this... I believe I need two RG6 runs to my home theater... one to get the cable TV signal to my Tivo and the other for the modulated signals for all of the AV sources in my Theater to be distributed to the rest of the TV's in the house.

I have a Cat5 run going from the distribution point to the home theater, but I don't know if there are any RG6 to Cat5 converters out there, or how well they would work. Alternately, can I use the single RG6 line for everything? Connect a splitter up in the distribution panel that would connect everything together (including the incoming cable feed) and another splitter in the home theater to connect all of the RF modulators (set to unused cable channels, of course), and the input on the Tivo.

Because this house is three stories and has no basement (the theater is on the first floor and the distribution panel is on the thrid floor) running another RG6 cable would be quite difficult, but not totally impossible, if absolutely necessary.

Any thoughts for me?

Thanks much,
Brett

 

[rrockoff]

Brett,

You can run video over your currently unused cat5 cable. You will need something called a "video balun". Searching on Cocoontech and the Internet will find you many hits on this topic. As an alternative, you may also conside going wireless. I have seen these at X10, but I have never tried them. Maybe someone else will chime in on this.

Best of Luck,

Rod

 

[gatchel]

Video over CAT 5 in various flavors.

http://www.muxlab.com/products/products.html


I was also considering this due to the IR passing.


http://www.channelplus.com/product_detail.php?productId=77


There are CAT5 CATV RF baluns. I have not used them though:

http://www.muxlab.com/products/ve_catv_balun.html

http://www.muxlab.com/products/ve_catv_ii_balun.html



You can take any video/audio signal and make it into a channel of your choice other than 3 or 4 with the proper equipment.


http://www.thetwistergroup.com/category/cu...stribution.html

I suggest you look at getting a different modulator that will allow you to use an unused channel and a channel filter to inject the signals into the existing cable lines.

 

[BrettS]

Thanks guys... how about a really cheap balun like this for $14 (including shipping)...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Muxlab-CATV-Balun-5000...7QQcmdZViewItem

Would something like that actually work or would the quality be pretty bad? How much should I expect to spend on a Balun like that? It looks like the balun would only use one pair of the Cat5 cable. If that's the case, could I also use two pair for ethernet or would one cause interference with the other? I can use wifi to avoid using the Cat5 cable going to that room, but if I could use my single cat5 line to avoid buying the wifi adapters that would be even better.

Thanks again,
Brett

 

[elcano]

Cat5 might work depending on distance, but the lower category (CAT3, per instance), better.

The bridges that I have seen using network cable for video transmission send each of the signals via each of the networking twisted pairs (three pairs for Red, Green and Blue).

Notice, however, that each of the twisted pairs is twisted at a different rate. So the Blue pair (per instance) might be more twisted than the red pair. This makes the blue pair longer than the red pair (for a specific cable lenght). At a certain distance, the difference in length is so high that the receiving monitor will not be able to sync the video. There are some bridges with sync compensation, but they are very expensive.

 

[CollinR]

IP based like SageTV use the Cat5 to it's full potential!

 

[Sacedog]

Cat5 might work depending on distance, but the lower category (CAT3, per instance), better.

The bridges that I have seen using network cable for video transmission send each of the signals via each of the networking twisted pairs (three pairs for Red, Green and Blue).

Notice, however, that each of the twisted pairs is twisted at a different rate. So the Blue pair (per instance) might be more twisted than the red pair. This makes the blue pair longer than the red pair (for a specific cable lenght). At a certain distance, the difference in length is so high that the receiving monitor will not be able to sync the video. There are some bridges with sync compensation, but they are very expensive.

This is a problem with using video over multiple pairs in a Cat5 cable. If you are going to use baluns, and you are able to run wire, use a low-skew Cat5 cable, like Belden's Nanoskew.

I agree with CollinR though, Sage is easy, and gives you exceptional video quailty.