[mattystorey001]

Hi,

I have always assumed that Cat5 was either used for networking or AV but cannot be used in conjunction at the same time?

Can someone dispell this myth?

I have wired the house up with Cat5 to each room (one connection per room apart from kitchen which has two) for networking but am interested in finding out if it is possible to run AV as well as networking over it.

Many Thanks

Matt.

[bsuttie]

Well a conventional computer network only uses two pairs of the four in Cat5 cable. You can buy adaptors to run 2 PCs over one cable for example.

So in theory you could use two pairs for networking and two pairs for one audio and one video (that's A/V isn't it?) with suitably wired baluns?

That's in theory of course, I've never tried it

OR you could just stream the A/V over the computer network . . .

Brian

[holzer]

unless you are using (or may be upgrading to) gbit ethernet, which uses all 4 pairs... it should be possible to run av over the other pairs on 10/100 networks, although it is not ideal. it used to be common practice to use the other pairs for telephone connections.

i don't know what effect an a/v signal would have on the other pairs, interference wise. i guess for short runs it may work well, but if you're already on the edge of the spec (100m) you may run into problems. STP may also work better than UTP/ScTP/FTP. make sure you get the connections as good as possible, don't untwist the wires any more than necessary, etc.