PI Manufacturing has some interesting-looking passive and active baluns:
the
NVA-904AT active cat5 extender/balun (not yet released) has 8 RCA ports on one side, two sets of local outputs on top (one to feed the local TV, one to chain to additional baluns), and BOTH RJ-45 *and* screw terminals for the cables.
There's also a slightly cheaper version without the top outputs, and an even cheaper version that does only component+SPDIF (or if you ignore the colors, analog stereo + two composite or (with adapter cable) one s-video).
Its companion is the passive
NVA-905 receiver.
So far, they're my favorite candidates for a couple of reasons:
* Two RCA outputs per RCA input (in addition to the cat5 outputs) means you can run the cables from the HD-DVR to the NVA-904AT, then run one output to the adjacent TV, and run the other output to transmitter #2. Or if the DVR has two sets of outputs, run one set straight to the TV, run #2 to transmitter #1, and use transmitter #1's pair of outputs to feed transmitters 2 and 3.
* You can terminate the cat5 wires directly to the transmitter and receiver. I'm really not fond of giving mother nature one or two extra opportunities to degrade the signal by adding more crimped connections and a pair of RJ-45 jacks to the signal path.
* You CAN use all 8 ports with two cat5 cables to send component, spdif, analog stereo, and either two composite or one s-video signal (s-video would require a cable with mini-din at one end, and a pair of RCA plugs at the other, like you'd use to connect s-video to an ancient Commodore 1702 monitor). But you don't HAVE to. If all you need is component+spdif, or s-video/composite + analog stereo, you can run a single cable.
* By extension, if you only need 4 of the signals, you can use the other four to feed a SECOND TV's balun (running cat5#2 to that TV instead). Or if you want to be really cheap & have spare 50' s-video cables to burn, use a single pair of baluns, and just connect TV#2 to TV#1's balun with a long "regular" set of cables.
For all I know, it might even be possible to ignore the colors entirely, and use the second set of 4 RCA ports to carry component+spdif, just like the first set.
I have no idea how good the picture quality might be, but IMHO they nailed the feature set for these almost *perfectly*. The only thing they could have done better is to have soldered a s-video port onto it as well (in parallel with the two composite RCA plugs). I'm not sure, but it might even be possible to use the active transmitter with their passive Decora-style baluns at the receiving end.
Opinions, anyone? In particular, any speculation about which of these two scenarios would likely have better video quality:
1) 75' RapidRun 5-coax cable from HD-DVR in living room to panel on second floor, then a 1 to 4 component video distribution amp, and roughly 35 feet of cable to two of the TVs, and roughly 75 feet to #3. The second leg would be either a 35' RapidRun cable, or maybe a pair of passive baluns (particularly for the 75' run, since it's to a TV that's not watched as often).
2) component-video distribution amp in living room (3 feet from HD-DVR), feeding a pair of active baluns with shielded cat5 running continuously between the living room and TV. More or less the same total distance, but in this case the signal chain is continuous from the living room all the way to the TV.
Put another way, I'm comparing a relatively high-end cable solution (with the distribution amp in a less than ideal position), to a balun solution that's mid-priced and just about ideal cable-wise.
My main constraint (besides cost) is the fact that I have exactly TWO half-inch EMT conduits running between the first and second floor (my second floor sits on a suspended concrete slab, so drilling between floors is a nontrivial undertaking that I've never successfully accomplished doing, but destroyed about $60 worth of very expensive concrete drill bits trying to do anyway). The only reason I have the conduit is because it was put there by the builder, then never got used by the electrician who wired the house afterward. I *do* technically have a third bundle of cat5 the diameter of my arm running along the living room's perimeter and up the stairs behind the baseboard, but I don't consider them to be video-quality, and I have a hunch that more than a few of the cables were accidentally damaged when I used my airgun to nail about 10 feet of new baseboard before remembering there was a cable bundle behind it. Oops...