Myth vs Reality – Putting Cat5E-Based A/V Structured Wiring In Its Place

[admin]

Sending audio, video and control signals over twisted pair cables have become common practice in the contemporary marketplace. There is a good reason for this. Twisted pair cables are cheap, ubiquitous and comfortably familiar to anyone with any level of installation exposure to data networking and telephony. UTP-based A/V installations are appealing for their perceived low cost and performance advantages. Widely accepted as a panacea that banished the need for task-specific cables to the equipment closet of history, those who universally advocate the use of balun-based infrastructure would do well to remember the words of Plutarch; “To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.”


Discuss "Myth vs Reality – Putting Cat5E-Based A/V Structured Wiring In Its Place" here. Read the article.

[jebeltra]

Thanks for the article. I have been intrigued and honestly see baluns as my only option as DIY with a budget but with wide ambitions. I like pristine quality but have budget and practical limitations. There is so much Coax I can ran through my walls.
I've read forums where people have had great results with component results and I've tried it in a previous home but using it as a composite solution with smallish CRT remote TV sets. It worked, but again the TV sets did not give the chance to "evaluate" the quality of the result.

My questions: New house, want to put everything in a closet and was planning using baluns now for Component and HDMI. My budget limits me to CAT6 and bluejeancables.
1. How far can I ran HDMI before getting significant signal degradation? My budget limits me to bluejeancable type of HDMI. I am about 30 feet away and was thinking Baluns to not only save on raw cable and for simplicity, but also to limit interference since the cables will run through the basement with lots of power lines - and I can't run all intersections to power at 90 degrees
Of note, Bluejean sells HDMI cables of up to 100 feet!!!

Same for Component. I thought component had even a shorter run before running into interference and signal degradation.

[jebeltra]

I've read very favorable reviews in your site to a USB over CAT type of solution. I would really like to read a review of CAT solutions for component and HDMI transmissions. I have found chinese hdmi over CAT for as little as $50-$100 compared to the $500-$1000 offered by the "name" brands (products also made in China btw).

Come on, I am sure many readers are interested in these solutions. I would even pay (a big no-no on the WWW) to read about the performance difference between a 100' Bluejean HDMI cable vs a "name brand" vs a cheapo HDMI over CAT 5 solution

Jorge

[KurtBJC]

I thought component had even a shorter run before running into interference and signal degradation.

Component video, when run in coax, is extremely robust over distance--much, much more so than HDMI. We've had people run it hundreds of feet with no booster and no trouble.

Kurt
Blue Jeans Cable

[rowlow]

Excellent article and 4 yrs old to boot. I have experienced through school of experience most if not all of the considerations discussed in Myths vs. Reality over the past 4 yrs. It seemed that I recall a tech support indication that by giving up IR pass through I could get away with a single cat 5 run to monitor and use a balun or RX/TX "engine" as solution. Additional cabling unacceptable in environment. Is there a product currently available to pull this off?