Hello, group!

Haven't been here in ages... I have a weird situation. My church wants
to put a small camcorder in the sanctuary, to send closed-circuit video
and mono audio to a TV screen in an overflow room.

The camcorder gives me a consumer-grade composite video out via RCA
jack. Audio will be unbalanced, from an aux on our FOH console. The
total distance that the audio and video would have to travel is around
85-90 feet, including going up to the ceiling and back down again.

I happen to have a big spool of Cat 5e cable left over from a
networking project, and have been considering soldering a few RCA
connectors on the ends to see how it works. If this helps to better
identify what I have, it's the kind of bulk Cat 5e cable whose outer
jacket is very loose.

Is cable like this generally robust enough for this application, or do
I have to go order some long RCA cables? I'm not looking for a
high-end pro result, just something that works, and obviously with as
little signal loss and interference as possible. But I thought I'd ask
around here before investing any time in it.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have!

-Mark

I would use an interface device like a transformer. Enter the following into Google search and you will find plenty of sources: audio video "cat 5"


"mjpatey" wrote in message oups.com...
Hello, group!

Haven't been here in ages... I have a weird situation. My church wants
to put a small camcorder in the sanctuary, to send closed-circuit video
and mono audio to a TV screen in an overflow room.

The camcorder gives me a consumer-grade composite video out via RCA
jack. Audio will be unbalanced, from an aux on our FOH console. The
total distance that the audio and video would have to travel is around
85-90 feet, including going up to the ceiling and back down again.

I happen to have a big spool of Cat 5e cable left over from a
networking project, and have been considering soldering a few RCA
connectors on the ends to see how it works. If this helps to better
identify what I have, it's the kind of bulk Cat 5e cable whose outer
jacket is very loose.

Is cable like this generally robust enough for this application, or do
I have to go order some long RCA cables? I'm not looking for a
high-end pro result, just something that works, and obviously with as
little signal loss and interference as possible. But I thought I'd ask
around here before investing any time in it.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have!

-Mark

mjpatey wrote:
The camcorder gives me a consumer-grade composite video out via RCA
jack. Audio will be unbalanced, from an aux on our FOH console. The
total distance that the audio and video would have to travel is around
85-90 feet, including going up to the ceiling and back down again.

I happen to have a big spool of Cat 5e cable left over from a
networking project, and have been considering soldering a few RCA
connectors on the ends to see how it works. If this helps to better
identify what I have, it's the kind of bulk Cat 5e cable whose outer
jacket is very loose.

This may work for the audio (although you're a lot better off with a balanced
line), but it won't work at all for the video.

You need a 75 ohm cable for video, otherwise you're going to have massive
mismatch problems. There are some boxes out there that are basically
electronic transformers to allow you to use cat-5 cable for video.
Markertek carries a bunch of them, and I like the Allen Avionics ones
best. They will probably cost more than 90 feet of RG-59, though.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article .com writes:

Haven't been here in ages... I have a weird situation. My church wants
to put a small camcorder in the sanctuary, to send closed-circuit video
and mono audio to a TV screen in an overflow room.

The camcorder gives me a consumer-grade composite video out via RCA
jack. Audio will be unbalanced, from an aux on our FOH console.

I happen to have a big spool of Cat 5e cable left over from a
networking project, and have been considering soldering a few RCA
connectors on the ends to see how it works.

Cat 5e cable works OK for balanced audio connections, but without
shielding, you're wide open to EMI (can you say "antenna") when using
unbalanced connections. I suspect that it would totally destroy video.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Look into the Active Balanced Series of line drivers/receivers made by
AudioControl (http://www.audiocontrol.com). They make a variety of
devices for converting unbalanced analog audio, digital S/PDIF audio,
composite video, S-Video, and component video to a balanced signal that
runs over one or two CAT5 cables.

Everyone,

Thanks for your input!

From the responses, I think I'll just go buy some real A/V cable.
Maybe we'll find another use for the Cat 5 stuff later.

I knew I could count on this group for great advice. Thanks!

-Mark

mjpatey wrote:
The camcorder gives me a consumer-grade composite video out via RCA
jack. Audio will be unbalanced, from an aux on our FOH console. The
total distance that the audio and video would have to travel is around
85-90 feet, including going up to the ceiling and back down again.

I happen to have a big spool of Cat 5e cable left over from a
networking project, and have been considering soldering a few RCA
connectors on the ends to see how it works. If this helps to better
identify what I have, it's the kind of bulk Cat 5e cable whose outer
jacket is very loose.

All you need are two of these up to about 1000 feet of CAT5:

http://www.etslan.com/aud_vid.php

--
Regards,

Klay Anderson
http://www.klay.com
+801-942-8346

In article . com writes:

From the responses, I think I'll just go buy some real A/V cable.
Maybe we'll find another use for the Cat 5 stuff later.

It works well as MIDI cable, or telephone cable, or even network
cable.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1112729723k@trad...

It works well as MIDI cable, or telephone cable, or even network
cable.

Of course it works as well as network cable. It *is* network cable. :-)

Hal Laurent
Baltimore

Hal Laurent wrote:
"Mike Rivers" wrote in message

It works well as MIDI cable, or telephone cable, or even network
cable.

Of course it works as well as network cable. It *is* network cable. :-)

Sheesh, does this mean I need to pull out all this big yellow stuff?
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Hal Laurent wrote:
"Mike Rivers" wrote in message

It works well as MIDI cable, or telephone cable, or even network
cable.

Of course it works as well as network cable. It *is* network cable. :-)

Sheesh, does this mean I need to pull out all this big yellow stuff?
--scott

Don't know the colors, but are you talking thickwire (I know that's not the
right term, but I can't remember the right one at the moment) or thinwire
Ethernet?

I used to curse the 10-Base-whatever stuff 'cause you couldn't daisy-chain
it like thinwire, but I eventually got over it as the cost of a router
dropped to close to insubstantial. I don't have any thinwire in my house
anymore.

Hal Laurent
Baltimore

Hal Laurent wrote:

Of course it works as well as network cable. It *is* network cable. :-)


Sheesh, does this mean I need to pull out all this big yellow stuff?


Don't know the colors, but are you talking thickwire (I know that's not the
right term, but I can't remember the right one at the moment) or thinwire
Ethernet?

10base5 = thicknet.

10base2 = thinnet.

10baseT = what everyone thinks of as Ethernet now.

"Kurt Albershardt" wrote ...
10base5 = thicknet.

Large coax, big as your thumb, like RG6
N-connectors (or something like that? I can't remember)

10base2 = thinnet.

Smaller coax, like RG59
BNC connectors

10baseT = what everyone thinks of as Ethernet now.

UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) Cat3, Cat5, etc. etc.
4 pair of wires, no shields, in a plastic sheath.
RJ-45 connectors (like telephone, but 8-contact)

And to answer the original question, no reason why he
shouldn't use his leftover UTP for audio and video with
the kind of adapters that are commonly sold for home
entertainment systems, etc. Likely significantly cheaper
than new runs of video coax and a couple of audio
shielded pair, etc.

Scott Dorsey wrote:

mjpatey wrote:

The camcorder gives me a consumer-grade composite video out via RCA
jack. Audio will be unbalanced, from an aux on our FOH console. The
total distance that the audio and video would have to travel is around
85-90 feet, including going up to the ceiling and back down again.

I happen to have a big spool of Cat 5e cable left over from a
networking project, and have been considering soldering a few RCA
connectors on the ends to see how it works. If this helps to better
identify what I have, it's the kind of bulk Cat 5e cable whose outer
jacket is very loose.


This may work for the audio (although you're a lot better off with a balanced
line), but it won't work at all for the video.

Actually, it will... I've run CCTV cameras off simple station wire,
unshielded, un-twisted four-wire cable, for upwards of 200 feet: video
on one pair, 12VDC power on the other pair.

The only significant problem is the fact that it's unshielded and
subject to EMI, which will show up as video noise, possibly ghosting or
other video degradation. Using twisted pair should help minimize this
somewhat, and with a short 90-foot run it shouldn't pick up too much
interference unless it runs too close to larger sources of EMI, such as
flourescent lights, large transformers, parallel AC feeds, etc.

In article writes:

And to answer the original question, no reason why he
shouldn't use his leftover UTP for audio and video with
the kind of adapters that are commonly sold for home
entertainment systems, etc. Likely significantly cheaper
than new runs of video coax and a couple of audio
shielded pair, etc.

This is pretty common in new or upgraded buildings that have Cat5
wiring all over the place, but in a home, it's probalby more cost
effective to pull the right kind of cable where you need it than to
deal with adapters.

Unless such adapters are really good and really inexpensive. You'd
want transformers or some other balanced drivers and receivers for
audio, and a pair of Jensens is close to $150 per channel. THX has a
balancing adapter made from THAT chips, but I think it's around $200
for a pair of stereo ends. And I don't have any idea what it takes to
send video along UTP without significant bandwidth loss.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Kurt Albershardt" wrote ...

10base5 = thicknet.


Large coax, big as your thumb, like RG6

50 Ohms = RG-8/U




10base2 = thinnet.


Smaller coax, like RG59

50 Ohms = RG-58/U

Kurt Albershardt wrote:
Richard Crowley wrote:
"Kurt Albershardt" wrote ...

10base5 = thicknet.

Large coax, big as your thumb, like RG6

50 Ohms = RG-8/U

No, Thicknet (ie. Real Ethernet) was not RG-8. It had a solid center
conductor, it HAD to be yellow and it HAD to have quarter-wave marks
on the jacket. It also had a particular foam dielectric to deal with
the vampire taps. It was a particular sort of 50 ohm cable designed
specifically for the job and didn't have a Radio Guide number (since it
came about 40 years too late for that).

10base2 = thinnet.

Smaller coax, like RG59

50 Ohms = RG-58/U

Actually, Cheapernet was RG-58/C.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Mike Rivers" wrote ...
This is pretty common in new or upgraded buildings that have Cat5
wiring all over the place, but in a home, it's probalby more cost
effective to pull the right kind of cable where you need it than to
deal with adapters.

The OP was asking about a relatively significant run (75 ft IIRC)
in a church where they had just finished running a bunch
of CAT5.


Unless such adapters are really good and really inexpensive. You'd
want transformers or some other balanced drivers and receivers for
audio, and a pair of Jensens is close to $150 per channel. THX has a
balancing adapter made from THAT chips, but I think it's around $200
for a pair of stereo ends. And I don't have any idea what it takes to
send video along UTP without significant bandwidth loss.

I was thinking of something like these.
http://www.hometech.com/audio/tpaudio.html
Even a pair of them (one for each end) is significantly cheaper
than 75 ft of video and two balanced audio cabling.

This company markets cat 5 STP prducts for all types of analog and digital
audio including long runs. The following web site recommends shielded TP,
but in phone conversatiosn with the factory they are saying you really don;t
need a shield at all. I visited a radio station today that has all its
audio wired with cat 3 unshielded. FO figure...

http://www.studiohub.com



Julian


"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
mjpatey wrote:
The camcorder gives me a consumer-grade composite video out via RCA
jack. Audio will be unbalanced, from an aux on our FOH console. The
total distance that the audio and video would have to travel is around
85-90 feet, including going up to the ceiling and back down again.

I happen to have a big spool of Cat 5e cable left over from a
networking project, and have been considering soldering a few RCA
connectors on the ends to see how it works. If this helps to better
identify what I have, it's the kind of bulk Cat 5e cable whose outer
jacket is very loose.

This may work for the audio (although you're a lot better off with a
balanced
line), but it won't work at all for the video.

You need a 75 ohm cable for video, otherwise you're going to have massive
mismatch problems. There are some boxes out there that are basically
electronic transformers to allow you to use cat-5 cable for video.
Markertek carries a bunch of them, and I like the Allen Avionics ones
best. They will probably cost more than 90 feet of RG-59, though.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Matt Ion" wrote in message
news:KtM4e.912277$6l.103479@pd7tw2no...

The only significant problem is the fact that it's unshielded and subject
to EMI, which will show up as video noise, possibly ghosting or other
video degradation.

The ghosting is due to impedance mismatch causing reflections. 75 Ohm coax
is cheap. Just buy the right stuff for crying out loud!

Bill.

Julian Adamaitis wrote:
This company markets cat 5 STP prducts for all types of analog and digital
audio including long runs. The following web site recommends shielded TP,
but in phone conversatiosn with the factory they are saying you really don;t
need a shield at all. I visited a radio station today that has all its
audio wired with cat 3 unshielded. FO figure...

I've got UTP at home going out the window, round the house and back in
through a wall, just to run analog audio from a digital radio tuner
(DAB, so low noise) to the room I use as a studio, so I can listen to
the radio there when I'm not using the sound gear for anything else.
It's driven from a domestic RCA output so I'd guess about -10dBu and
unbalaced of course, and goes into a balanced input on my mixer and the
sound is absolutely clean.

Comments:
1) I think it would be a different story if it ran near a lot of power
cables supplying motors, equipment with SMPSUs, light dimmers etc.

2) The conductors are very close together in UTP, much closer than
typical mic cable. This significantly reduces differential pickup, both
magentically and elctrostatically.

3) Copper shielding does nothing for electromagnetic pickup anyway.

If the radio station routes it CAT3 wire away from obvious trouble like
power cables, it has a good chance of keeping the interference away.

Anahata

Bill Ruys wrote:
"Matt Ion" wrote in message
news:KtM4e.912277$6l.103479@pd7tw2no...

The only significant problem is the fact that it's unshielded and
subject to EMI, which will show up as video noise, possibly
ghosting
or other video degradation.

The ghosting is due to impedance mismatch causing reflections. 75
Ohm coax is cheap. Just buy the right stuff for crying out loud!

Agreed. I was going to post this exact response but you beat me to it!

"Bill Ruys" wrote ...
The ghosting is due to impedance mismatch causing
reflections. 75 Ohm coax is cheap. Just buy the right
stuff for crying out loud!

Solved by the aforementioned devices by changing the
75-ohm video impedance to the 110-ohm UTP
characteristic impedance (and back again at the other
end).

In more and more situations, the Cat5 is already there
because of network wiring. Using the adaptors and UTP
is a short-cut convenience. Nobody is suggesting that
it is a fully-qualified replacement for proper coax and
shielded pair.

"Anahata" wrote in message
...
Julian Adamaitis wrote:
This company markets cat 5 STP prducts for all types of analog and
digital audio including long runs. The following web site recommends
shielded TP, but in phone conversatiosn with the factory they are saying
you really don;t need a shield at all. I visited a radio station today
that has all its audio wired with cat 3 unshielded. FO figure...

I've got UTP at home going out the window, round the house and back in
through a wall, just to run analog audio from a digital radio tuner (DAB,
so low noise) to the room I use as a studio, so I can listen to the radio
there when I'm not using the sound gear for anything else. It's driven
from a domestic RCA output so I'd guess about -10dBu and unbalaced of
course, and goes into a balanced input on my mixer and the sound is
absolutely clean.

Comments:
1) I think it would be a different story if it ran near a lot of power
cables supplying motors, equipment with SMPSUs, light dimmers etc.

2) The conductors are very close together in UTP, much closer than typical
mic cable. This significantly reduces differential pickup, both
magentically and elctrostatically.

3) Copper shielding does nothing for electromagnetic pickup anyway.

If the radio station routes it CAT3 wire away from obvious trouble like
power cables, it has a good chance of keeping the interference away.

Anahata

The way the guy who designed the studio talked about it to me is. well, the
phone company uses unshielded TP and they don't have problems. The 3 things
he did do to prevent problems is to make sure the whole facility has a
common electrical ground and all rooms reference directly back to this ONE
ground source. He uses only Balanced audio. Any unbalanced audio is
converted to balanced. He stays away from parallel runs to AC devices.

Julian

Wow, everyone, thanks for all the great discussion. I've been away
from this thread for a little over a week, due to our 2 1/2-month-old
baby boy preventing me from getting on the computer much.

As it turns out, a friend at church happened to have 250' of decent
Mogami audio cable that his studio was willing to sell us for $80! He
cut it into 2 x 125' pieces and soldered and shrinkwrapped the RCA
ends, and voila! Problem solved.

I tested the cables before running them, and both the video and mono
audio pass signal just fine. Then last night, we ran them up through
the ceiling (took like 2 hours with 3 guys and a really tall ladder).

Because we were wiped out, we decided to save the testing for tonight
after our mid-week service. My concern is that we are passing right
over 2 fluorescent lighting fixtures, and 2 sodium vapor lights (yes,
they glow orange-ish and look nasty combined with the fluorescents, but
we're not a rich church, and they were free!)... so I guess we'll see
how well-shielded the cables are. I'll post later tonight and let you
all know, if you're interested.

I also haven't looked closely to find out exactly what the makeup of
the cables is. I'll find that out, too.

Thanks again for all the intelligent discussion, folks!

-Mark

In article .com,
"mjpatey" wrote:


As it turns out, a friend at church happened to have 250' of decent
Mogami audio cable that his studio was willing to sell us for $80! He
cut it into 2 x 125' pieces and soldered and shrinkwrapped the RCA
ends, and voila! Problem solved.

I tested the cables before running them, and both the video and mono
audio pass signal just fine.

Excuse me? You are running baseband video over a Mogami audio snake pair?

Problem NOT solved.

--
Regards,

Klay Anderson
http://www.klay.com
+801-942-8346

"Klay Anderson" wrote ...
"mjpatey" wrote:


As it turns out, a friend at church happened to have 250' of decent
Mogami audio cable that his studio was willing to sell us for $80! He
cut it into 2 x 125' pieces and soldered and shrinkwrapped the RCA
ends, and voila! Problem solved.

I tested the cables before running them, and both the video and mono
audio pass signal just fine.

Excuse me? You are running baseband video over a Mogami audio snake pair?

Problem NOT solved.

Mogami makes video coaxial cable also. But agreed that it is NOT
clear from the posting exactly WHAT kind of cable he actually used?
"Mogami audio cable" does NOT sound like anything appropriate for
video.

In article ,
"Richard Crowley" wrote:

Mogami makes video coaxial cable also. But agreed that it is NOT
clear from the posting exactly WHAT kind of cable he actually used?
"Mogami audio cable" does NOT sound like anything appropriate for
video.

I know-I have been a Mogami distributor for nearly 30 years. Note that their
coaxial cables are meant for mass production as in molded connectors, mulit-pin
terminations or internal wiring. Not exactly easy for crimp-ons F's from Radio
Shack. He did state it was "audio cable" so I find it hard to believe that it
was coaxial cable.

Although nothing surprises me much anymore.

--
Regards,

Klay Anderson
http://www.klay.com
+801-942-8346

Well, we installed everything, and it worked! I actually have not 80
or 90 feet, but 2 x 125 feet of cable run (1 for video, 1 for audio),
and it works like a charm. And one cable is Mogami, but the other is a
contractor brand which I didn't recognize.

After running the cables up and over the various beams, ducts and other
ceiling structures (including a few 6' fluorescent tubes and some
sodium vapor lamps, too), we connected the video out of the camera and
an unused "tape send" from the console to the input of the TV in the
overflow room, and voila! We have video very similar in quality to
what we had without the long trip through the ceiling. And the audio,
though we're unable to listen too critically (it's TV speakers), was
perfectly useable and free of any obvious hum, buzz or distortion at
normal listening level.

So, because of you who contributed to this thread, we avoided using the
Cat 5e, spent $80 on real A/V cables, and everything is wonderful.

Isn't the Internet awesome?

Thank you, everybody!!!

-Mark

Klay and Richard-

Sorry... on Sunday, I'll check the cables and write down model numbers
to clarify for you what I really have. I tried to remember on my own,
but that never works.

Though I've been a professional audio engineer (audio post and live
broadcast) for around 10 years, my exposure to the finer points of
cabling has been pretty limited. I've managed to do pretty well
without having to actually install anything complicated. That said,
I'd love to know a lot more about it than I do... but I guess that's
partly why I'm here. As the hackneyed T-shirt slogan goes, "God's not
done with me yet!"

I'll try to repost sometime after Sunday morning and let you know
exactly what types of cable we used. Any good resources to teach
someone like me a little more about cabling, studio wiring, etc.?
Cables For Dummies, maybe? ;-)

-Mark