HDTV Over CAT5

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here is a great way for you to get HDTV in a place where you dont want lots of wires or even satellite receivers.

Imagine taking your HD receiver (or even non HD receiver) and putting it somewhere, now you just need to run one wire to your TV, and that is a cat 5 or 6 network cable. Well the future is now.

Introducing the Bobcat from Lynx Broadband, who makes and sells these dongles which converts almost any video signal and send them over to cat 5/6 cable. On the other end of the cable you attach one of the converters which changes the signal from Cat 5 and into a usuable format for your TV.

There are many models available some will even act as an IR repeater if you unit you want to control does not have a UHF remote.

Amazing technology, yet it seems almost too simple!

 

[KE4EST]

Wow all I can say is cool!!

 

[Cegarrett]

r these avail. Now?
How Much?
any "Show Discounts"?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Check them out at http://www.lynxbroadband.com/

 

[VinceT3]

there are methods of running hd over cat5 prior to this, but they weren't anywhere as simple as this.. most of them were on dedicated cat5 lines.. this is a very cool product..

I wonder how many of these can run off a 100mb line? I know Media center has some high standards for HD video over a network..

 

[SKYV]

Skywalker has same idea divice comp./HDTV over cat5 nothing new.I'm looking for HDMI over Cat 5.I know it there, have not seen a brand.

 

[Bountykiller]

Same here. If you could do HDMI or DVI & TOS I would buy one ;0

-B

 

[VinceT3]

Here you go.. expensive though.. 5 bills

http://www.svideo.com/ext-hdtv-cat5.html

 

[Pepper]

there are methods of running hd over cat5 prior to this, but they weren't anywhere as simple as this.. most of them were on dedicated cat5 lines.. this is a very cool product..

I wonder how many of these can run off a 100mb line? I know Media center has some high standards for HD video over a network..

vince, I notice the connector says "cat-5" not "ethernet". I suspect a dedicated cable is still required.

I'm running standard audio/video over cat-5 now, no equipment at all. I just used a solder gun and put an RCA connector at each end of each pair. I'm guessing this product would be a better quality signal though, and I haven't tried my method with component though I think it would probably work for short distances.

 

[Derwin0]

Still needs 2 cat-5e runs boxes if you want sound & video.
Each box basically does 3 lines. Since each line requires 2 wires from the cat5e line, for signal and return, the cat5e run caps out a 4 (4 pairs).
This in turn requires 2 cat-5e lines for component (3 pair for video, 2 pair for audio).

All these boxes do to change an RCA connection to a twisted pair line, with something added to balance and attenuate the line.

 

[Derwin0]

In theory, someone could cut an HDMI cable in half, and solder each end to cat5 cables. Tieing the shield lines together should cut the number of wires down to 14, requiring only 2 cat5e lines to be needed.

 

[charper1]

Another/similar to the original posted item: http://www.svideo.com/500051.html

 

[BFG]

so these are still dedicated cables, ou cant mix it with the network?

 

[Derwin0]

so these are still dedicated cables, ou cant mix it with the network?

Dedicated cables.
A typical 100baseT uses 2 pairs (half of the cat5e), that doesn't leave any room left for the 3 pair needed for component video.

 

[vurbano]

Another/similar to the original posted item: http://www.svideo.com/500051.html

This looks very cool

 

[tonyp56]

I can see everything running on a network in the future. (data, movies, etc.) Likely, moving away from CAT5/CAT6 cable for fiber.

 

[Brewer4]

I've been using these for the past 2 years. Work great. If you just run the one cable and plan on using analog audio, you can run a mono audio cable. The digital RCA can handle composite video or audio. I did have some interference over a long run (over 80 feet). But overall, they are pretty nifty items.

 

[charper1]

although the title says CAT5, I assume we are talking CAT5e at minimum. Brewer, are you using CAT5e, CAT6 or CAT6a?