Running Sky Magic Eye over CAT5?

[Locoblade]

Hi All

Im looking into piping my Sky+ and XBMC from the lounge to our bedroom. Currently I do it via RF but after I upgraded the bedroom TV to something decent, it's made me realise how crap the quality is via RF, so I need to change to something that will give me a decent picture on a 26" HD LCD screen.

The house is Cat5 wired so I was looking at the MadNAT / Muxlab Cat5 solutions for getting the AV output up to the bedroom via a pair of baluns, but although MadNAT do a specific Sky kit that includes an IR blaster / passthrough to get the IR downstairs, this solution only supports Composite video presumably due to the limitations in number of twisted pairs in each Cat5 cable meaing it couldnt do S-Video or higher over one lead.

Id obviously rather use either S-Video or RGB Scart baluns instead (with stereo audio) for a better quality video feed especially as its a cheaper solution overall, but it doesn't have any built in IR functionality so I need to find another way of doing this to control Sky from the bedroom.

One option is to leave the RF as it is now so the Magic Eye continues to control via RF2 on the Sky boxeven though I'd be watching the feed via the baluns over Cat5, but Id like to ditch this so I don't need to feed my already fairly weak RF all around the house via the Sky box before getting back up to the bedroom TV which is also used with inbuilt Freeview so needs a good RF feed.

The second option is to get rid of the RF uplink setup and directly distribute the RF aerial signal to each room from the loft. I could then divert the current RF uplink so it goes direct to the bedroom as a second coax cable solely to connect the Magic Eye (ie the RF aerial feed will be from a seperate cable direct from the loft), but this means rerouting / installing an additional coax in the bedroom which isn't really viable.

The third option is the one Id like an opinion on please, and that is to use one twisted pair of Cat5 to connect RF2 on the Sky Box to my existing RF Magic Eye in the bedroom? From what I understand RF2 on the Sky box supplies a 10v feed to power the Magic Eye so unless the impedance of the cable was an issue or the Cat5 was incapable of carrying the (presumably very small) current draw of the Magic Eye, I can't see why this wouldn't work?

Sorry for the long winded post, thought it might help to give a bit of background on my setup to see if there's a better way Im not thinking of!

cheers
Chris

[davepuma]

I would ask the mods to move this to the home automation or DIY forums as you will probably get a better response there.

[Locoblade]

Cheers, thanks to the mods thats now done

[vex]

Use the MadNat / Muxlabs baluns and keep the coax link in for just IR control and then use the cat5e for the higher quality feed. The sky eyes are so cheap and flexible that I have used them on several different projects and get out of jail options.

Hope that helps.

V.

[Locoblade]

Yeh I can do that, but as mentioned I want to get rid of the overly long link from aerial to bedroom TV which goes from roof aerial to sky box, then sky box back up to the loft to the distribution box, then back down to the bedroom because I think its losing me signal strength ad causing the odd freeview breakup in the bedroom.

I might do as I mentioned and wire in the "uplink" just for IR duties but that means a second RF socket on the bedroom wall, although I did realise yesterday that my RF cables all run up to the loft through a cupboard in our bedroom, so I may in fact just tap into it there and put the magic eye above the cupboard door.

Still can't see why it wouldnt work over Cat5 though, so might experiment with it with a spare bit of cable and if it works, measure the current flow etc.

Chris

[DesG]

You can get an active balun that will give you s-vid and stereo and IR over a single cat5 cable, google for Kat5.

Cheers, Des.