How-to Distribute Video

[dfeller]

I've actually tried those particular ebay baluns referenced - and had great results although I didn't go anywhere near the 1000 feet claimed. I had a customer that needed component in one location and composite in another from the same source and that same company has that exact product as well.

Normally, though, I prefer matrix switchers with the baluns built in - those normally come with wallplates (for the remote rooms) with tha baluns inside and that keeps clutter down. Avatrix is a good example. The most common stand alone baluns I use, though, are the ones that do component and digital audio over a single line - I always use Cat6, and during prewire stay well away from all electric lines.

David

 

[premiernic]

I used a product by Zector. (PROWLER) It does HI DEF over one cat 5 You could use the COAX for IR if you had to.

 

[programmergeek]

Not the cheapest but the best and will save you a ton of money on cable. and is sort of future proof since you use cat5 cable. any sorce any location in hidef! This si what most of the stores use.


http://www.audioauthority.com/product_list/AVAtrix

I have put about 8 of these in with good results. I have a open box I had to pull a face plate from if anyone is intrested.

 

[bingl]

FYI... distributing HiDef can get costly.
[/quote]


I understand "costly" but does it truly cost +$10K hardware (Pro quote) to distribute 1080P from server to 2 TVs? I only have one 1080P DLP and 2 other 720P plasmas.

I have no experience, but I want to store movies and distribute them. I have 2 coax and 2 cat5 in each room. I happy to just use the TV speakers too. Not fancy 5.1 everywhere.

Is robust and reliable equal to price points at the $10K level? Or can this be done with Honda Accord price and reliability? I know people wrote about SageTV and Sage media extenders, but what exactly is the storage hardware device, connection cables, and controller?

My apologies if I don't get it. Newbie!! Thank you everyone.

 

[AceCannon]

Is robust and reliable equal to price points at the $10K level? Or can this be done with Honda Accord price and reliability? I know people wrote about SageTV and Sage media extenders, but what exactly is the storage hardware device, connection cables, and controller?

My apologies if I don't get it. Newbie!! Thank you everyone.

Well, my solution is Accord priced. (AVSForum thread on my build, which is still a work in progress)

Storage: DirecTV DVR x 2 = $0
Cables: RG59 minicoax (component video) with cat5e x 4 runs per location = $cheap
Distribution: Extron Matrix 200 = $168 from Ebay (just above the fax/printer in the rack pic below)

I added CQC for more advanced control. Works great for us! PQ is certainly more than adequate for us. When the kids gets older and we have more of a need to watch DVD's, there are plenty of inputs left on the Extron.

 

[rickgd]

I have centralized my video distribution and ran hdmi cable from the central location. If you can do it in 50 feet or less then for abou $30.00 on ebay you can buy hdmi cables to make the run. I was skeptical when I bought the first one, but it works perfectly. Since hdmi is all digital it pretty much either works or it doesn't. After success the first time i bought 3 more from the same guy and they all work perfectly. I did buy from another guy on ebay and his wire did not work, so be careful. This is the wire I found to work perfectly.

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-50-ft-15m-INSTEN-P...=item5ad7fc4c9a

I have not tried putting two together for longer runs, but would be surprised if the signal didn't start dropping out.

Doing it this way gives you the best possible signal (1080p) without the risk of noise that you get on an analog wire.

As an alternative you might want to consider HDMI over Cat5e/Cat6.

I found this item

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product....at=1#largeimage

at monoprice.com and for the price figured I cant go wrong. I was very impressed with how simple it was to implement and the quality of the product is very good. I was able to push 1080p to the TV with no issue at all. Image quality was just as good as with my HDMI cable. I would highly recommend them.

Keep in mind it requires two cat5e/cat6 cables.

 

[kertofer]

Krikee, one thing I cannot tell from those pictures is this: Can I remove those from the single gang cover if I want to use multiple of them? I have 3 HDMI signals that I would like to run around the house and if I can remove those then I can put them into a multi gang cover plate. If not its certainly not the end of the world, I just think that would look nicer for several connections! B)

 

[sic0048]

I know people wrote about SageTV and Sage media extenders, but what exactly is the storage hardware device, connection cables, and controller?

I use SageTV and can help explain that some. SageTV is a computer based DVR solution. There are Windows, Mac, and Linux flavors, but Windows is the original and most robust platform. You add tuners to the computer (either PCI, USB, or network based tuners) and SageTV will integrate them into it's GUI. You can record TV via the tuners, play back music, pictures, or videos that are ripped to the network as well. You need 1 SageTV Server license to be able to record TV.

Besides the server software, SageTV also has hardware extenders available. These are devices that connect to the network and connect to the TV. It comes with a remote control and it allows you to control all of the Sage functions and browse all your media, schedule recordings, etc. They are popular because they are relatively inexpensive (compared to buying and running a full computer at each TV), are low powered (draw something like 12 watts), and are much more stable than a computer (no tweaks, viruses, OS updates, etc).

You can also use individual computers at each TV location rather than the hardware extenders. Each computer needs its own SageTV Client license to view TV on it. (However the SageTV server license allows you to watch TV on the server computer, so some people use just that one machine).

I personally have two SageTV extenders that I have hooked into my larger audio/video distribution system. This way I don't need an extender/computer at every potential TV location. Rather there are generally no more than two groups of people wanting to watch TV at the same time, so I can have just two devices. The bigger A/V distribution system allows me to view those two extenders from any TV in the house.

That being said, many people could be well served by simply having a SageTV server and an extender at each TV and not having the additional A/V distribution system. After all, with SageTV I can watch and record TV, play any ripped music on the network, watch any other media (like ripped DVDs, or home videos) on the network, and even watch on-line videos (from YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, etc). That is generally all people want to do anyway.

The only advantage that my a/v distribution system offers is the ability to hook in other a/v devices like a DVD changer (vs ripped DVDs), game stations (like our Wii), or other devices (like an iPod). But the ability to add those extra sources came with a pretty large price tag.