[rajpanesar]

Hi,

Recently I have had my entire walls plastered and decided on moving my 46’ LCD on to the wall. In doing this I chased the walls so that the mains, wires would be hidden. Now the electrics are fine and when deciding what A/V cables should be embedded I decided on CAT5/6 distribution methods. Now the work is finished I have 3 sockets and 12 Cat5/6 cables behind the LCD.

I have looked on this and other forums and not really found much information. Is this a bad idea ? Should have stuck with good quality cables rather then all CAT5/6?

Thx in advance

Raj

[Mad Mr H]

Hi,

Composite video runs on 2 cores of Cat5, you can run 4 video feeds down one cat5

1080p usually runs down 2 Cat5 cables


Screened cable is meant to be avoided.

I have to say that for the best quality then the Cat5 video system SHOULD BE AVOIDED.

I go so far to say avoided at all costs as well.


YES from personal experience.


Andy.

[rajpanesar]

Not really what I wanted to hear

But thank you Andy.

Got to re-think a.s.a.p..

[Matt Harper]

I would disagree with that - for the majority of our installation jobs we've used component video baluns (over one Cat5e) to send Sky HD across rooms at 1080p and the quality is always very good.

[rajpanesar]

Hi Matt,

Can you recommend any specify baluns that you think are very good?

Thanks

Raj

[Matt Harper]

It depends on what signal you're looking to send. The ones we find the best for high-def video for the money are actually the unbranded component ones we sell - sending YPbPr 1080p component video plus digital audio up to 150m. We've used these countless times, for Sky HD, PS3s and the like and always turn up a very good quality.

We also have HDMI ones for the same price, just as good quality picture, but need powering and two Cat5 cables rather than one.

You can see the full range we stock on our website, including more technical info.

[lloydsmart]

Sky HD isn't 1080p. It only goes to 1080i/720p. Also, hardly any TVs will accept 1080p through component, only HDMI.

For Sky HD, component baluns and Cat5 should give as good a picture as HDMI would, simply because you're not gonna get 1080p out of it anyway.

[vex]

Mad Mr H, I woudl say that you must have had a very bad experience with video over CAT5e because it is a major solution for most of us installers.

There are plenty of baluns available as Matt says and even some very good matrix switchers with are full compatible up to 1080p. Most of them use 2 cat5e to get all the signals down the cable, although as I have saide elsewhere today SmartE have a very clever multiplexer that gets them all onto a single CAT5e.

Personally I would not go for the cheapest, but equally in a domestic situation the most expencive are not required unless you need something like the SmartE to get you out of a hole.

HTH.

V.