Is running video over cat5 (ethernet) possible?

Prairieboy

Prairieboy

Veteran
Question Folks.
I am changing from TV via my internet provider to Direct TV (14 channels of HD is just not cutting it). Anywho I have a bit of an issue. It is a very old house and up to my office I have two cat5 Ethernet lines, one which will be idle with the switch. And not really wanting Direct TV to drill through my new cement board siding I was wondering if any of you know if there is anyway to up and down convert the signal using the cat5 vs them running a coax along the corner of my house.
Just thought I would toss it out there. Thanks for looking.
 
Keep in mind that most of the "inexpensive" video to ethernet solutions are point-to-point -- the signal can't be routed through a switch. If you want a video over IP solution, that will cost much, much more.
 
Yes you can very easily. But you will need a balun for impedence matching between the cat 5 and the RG79 coax cable. Here is a link for a conveter that will do the job for you. The bandwidth is 550 MHz.. more than enough for HDTV tansmision which is around 100 MHz. If I understood your intention and post correctly. And just to add there are many variations of cat 5 baluns... HDMI, VGA, component..

http://www.hdtvsupply.com/mux-500302.html
 
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Tommy this looks like what I was hoping for. Thanks very much for your input. Basically all I want to do is substitute the coax with the cat5 that is in place, and this looks like it will do the job. Thanks again.
 
As a side job, I install televisions. I do roughly 10 installs a week. I run into this all the time.

cat5 to HDMI: They are $19 for the pair and work perfectly.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10425&cs_id=1042501&p_id=6177&seq=1&format=2

It takes 2 to go from point to point. there are other baluns for other connections such as composite and component that can utilize just one cat5 cable. As others have said, you can't run it through your switch. If you only have 1 cable going to where you need it to go, you can always tie 2 cables to the 1 and pull it through. If you're going coax, yeah, just get the coax balun.
 
For those who might be interested in doing this same thing at your own place.....I would highly recommend a good low skew cable for runs of any length. We run cat-5 in churches all of the time for projection systems and long runs from cameras to mixers. We exclusively use wire from Kramer Electronics. On many occasions we have had to re-run cable that a facility found somewhere else a little cheaper. You can end up with color seperation and text skewing as well. My 2 cents.
 
Prairieboy said:
IS this the same thing?
http://cgi.ebay.com/2-x-Coax-CAT5-C...688?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20b5577330
Would I have to take the ethernet ends off , and wire these in? Sorry, just a bit of a cost savings.
Click to expand...

No these will not work. The bandwidth (Frequency response) is only dc to 5 MHz. These are made for only for closed circuit SD TV that has a 5 MHz wide bandwidth. You need a balun that has adequate bandwidth for HDTV transmission of >100 Mhz. The key is the bandwidth...

BTW- I used to help design baluns such as these when I worked in a cable TV R&D engineering lab...
 
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I promise to go away soon, but this is the response I got from DIrect TV. "That apadter does not have the bandwidth to carry DirecTV signals which range from DC to 2 GHz or so. I'm not aware of any UTP solution for carrying DirecTV satellite signals. Bandwidth of the cable isn't really an issue unless you have something suitable to convert the unbalanced signals from the coax to balanced signals on the twisted pair cable. So the limiting factor is probable the 'balun' that does the conversion."
This beyond my knowledge level. But if there is another solution I am all ears, and have a few pints to offer if you are ever in the twin cities.
 
I wish I had some info for ya. On a side note, it's been way too long. We need to get together for a few one of these days.:beer:
 
Prairieboy said:
I promise to go away soon, but this is the response I got from DIrect TV. "That apadter does not have the bandwidth to carry DirecTV signals which range from DC to 2 GHz or so. I'm not aware of any UTP solution for carrying DirecTV satellite signals. Bandwidth of the cable isn't really an issue unless you have something suitable to convert the unbalanced signals from the coax to balanced signals on the twisted pair cable. So the limiting factor is probable the 'balun' that does the conversion."
This beyond my knowledge level. But if there is another solution I am all ears, and have a few pints to offer if you are ever in the twin cities.
Click to expand...

Razz16mm solutions may be the best if this is what you are trying to do... I'm not sure what setup you are after... Receiver out to another location or dish to receiver?
 
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Prairieboy said:
dish to reciever
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OK.. I got it now... I thought you were trying to go from the receiver to another location over cat5... The balun will work for that scenario because it would be a down converted baseband channel and it has the necessary bandwidth. BUT... From Dish to receiver is another story... You would be going from the dish "Low Noise Amplifier" to the set top receiver, and that requires much wider bandwidth and low insertion loss cabling that works well at microwave frequencies. Although cat5 twisted pair may work ok for this. Something could be rigged up with a 2GHz bandwidth to do what you want, You can buy from an engineering parts supply a 50 ohm microwave balun with a bandwidth from 200 KHz to 17 GHz... but you would have to make a cat5 adapter with 300 ohm to 50 ohm impedance transformation over the 2 GHz band using microstrip. This is not a trivial build... and wouldn't be cost effective for you.... Here's the link for one such microwave freq balun.

http://www.picosecond.com/product/category.asp?pd_id=11&gclid=CNrL-OqdqaYCFcTb4AodVRJ_mw
 
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Thanks again Tommy.
Unfortunately this is much more complex than my optimistic mind was hoping for.
My "main" receiver will be wired normally in my living room. I am assuming that both boxes need to be wired the same way, if that is not the same I can acquire the adapters you mentioned from the start. Thanks for guiding the ignorant through the weeds. I appreciate your patience.
 
Prairieboy said:
Thanks again Tommy.
Unfortunately this is much more complex than my optimistic mind was hoping for.
My "main" receiver will be wired normally in my living room. I am assuming that both boxes need to be wired the same way, if that is not the same I can acquire the adapters you mentioned from the start. Thanks for guiding the ignorant through the weeds. I appreciate your patience.
Click to expand...

Ahh no problem at all. Some of this technology can be daunting if you don't work with it or have formal training. It's been a number of years now since I last worked in engineering, and I have to retrain my brain sometimes to solve tech problems when they arise... You know its the old adage "use it or lose it".

I wish there was a simple way for you to go... If I run into something else more feasible I'll post it... I'm looking into Direct TV myself as an alternative to cable.
 
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