Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Question about cables!

Do not worry, it is not about speaker cables! LOL

Okay, I am in the process of permanently installing a newly bought front projector. Still wondering, for various reasons, whether I should ceiling-mount or low-mount the projector. Anyway, since I have to run the video cables from the electronics shelves (which is built in the front wall of the room) to the projector (which will be placed close to the back wall), the cable length will be rather significant. According to the current plan, if I ceiling-mount, the cable length will be approximately 30 feet; if I low-mount, up to 70 feet of cable run will be necessary.

I need to run both component video and S-video cables.

So, my questions for any of you who have a similar experience are: (1) Should I altogether avoid running a video cable for as long as 70 feet? Cutting back from 70 feet to 30 feet will have a significant impact in picture quality? (2) At any rate, for the 30 or 70 feet of cable run, what cable brand/vendor would you recommend?

The only brand I wish to avoid is... K$mber K$ble! LOL

I am going to cross-post this in the AVS forum, but I wanted to first try you guys!


Thanks!

KIMBER! KIMBER! KIMBER! KIMBER all the way. To do 70 feet of Kimber well its only about twice your projector cost. Thats cheap. Your flight and hotel in Tokyo cost about as much. Kimber Hero..thats the model...
I LOVE KIMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kidding aside. I also would be interested in knowing since I myself will be doing the same setup. Umm Sushi I was wondering why you were going to run 2 runs. Let your receiver do all the video switching and plug all your DVD, HTPC, SACD, DVD-A and VHS to your receiver and have your monitor out from the receiver send you video signal via component. S-Video has a much inferior video signal. I myself will op to go digital DVI or analog computer connection via a HTPC. Those can definitely hit the highest resolutions. I believe component is the same or quite close.

Approx. resolutions

VHS 300x360
cable TV 460x360 up to 525 lines in US
Laserdisc 560x360
DVD standard around 500 lines
SDTV 640x480p - 704x480p lines (Digital Cable)
DVD Progressive up to 720x480
HDTV 1280 x 720p lines - 1920 x 1080p lines
you might op for a video scaler or go for higher quality signal such as HDTV(up to 1920 x 1080 lines).

All that said you have all those resolution piping into your projector. Your projector will possibly rescale it or not and you get better or worse pictures. HDTV will be compressed to your native Projector resolution. If you pipe your VCR or TV cable or SDTV through your projector your picture maybe not a nice. You will need maybe a video scaler, line doubler to upscale your video signal
to your native 1280 x 720. Even a progressive DVD is not up to par with your projector.

I went for a HTPC setup only because I can natively have my DVD,DIVX, Playstation, pictures from compact flash and cable TV rescaled to the same resolution as the projector I am planning to get. A HTPC can be integrated to a learning remote so no keyboard/mouse is needed. But with a cordless keyboard/mouse you can surf on a 100 inch screen. Or play Johnny Cage 7 feet tall in Mortal Kombat 4 for Sony Playstation. Have WinAMp play my favorite mezmorising Visualization on a 100 inch screen while I listen to Stan Getz or Gilberto.

Saturn

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Kidding aside. I also would be interested in knowing since I myself will be doing the same setup. Umm Sushi I was wondering why you were going to run 2 runs. Let your receiver do all the video switching and plug all your DVD, HTPC, SACD, DVD-A and VHS to your receiver and have your monitor out from the receiver send you video signal via component. S-Video has a much inferior video signal. I myself will op to go digital DVI or analog computer connection via a HTPC. Those can definitely hit the highest resolutions. I believe component is the same or quite close.

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That is still a feature not common to receivers. Denon only has two models that do it. Onkyo/Integra have only two to my knowledge. A lot of the higher end receivers don't do it either. It will depend on his hardware.

Sushi, arstechnica's forum is down at the moment, but I'll look for a thread later on this same subject. About the best I saw was 25 feet for component but I'll try to dig it up for you later.

Hey Semi;

Thats weird my Rotel RSX1065 does the video switching. So does my dads new NAD T752. I thought it was common that you can plug in all your devices to your receiver and have it control which input. Unless I did not get what you mean. But yes none of those receivers do any scaling. I myself have a video scaler. Actually it is a computer component but you do not need a computer. Its a stand alone TV box. Viewsonic has this video processor scaler/ TV tuner. I pipe my signals into it such as VHS, DVD and it rescales from 640x480 up to 1024x768 and pipes it out via RGB computer cable. The picture going into a projector or monitor is great. Even standard TV cable looks nice at 1024x768. This is the cheaper video scaler at $150 CDN. There is a better one that goes up to 1280 and has component inputs. I think this scaler does a good job as real video scalers from $800-$4000 from DVDO Line doubler and Farouja. This video processor is only good for projectors or computer input monitors Plasmas, LCD. I found about this neat device 2 years ago and since then have been passing my cable TV signal through it.

Saturn

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Thats weird my Rotel RSX1065 does the video switching. So does my dads new NAD T752.

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I'm starting to see it in a lot of new hardware, but it's still a relatively new feature in the lower priced markets. Thankfully, this is changing.

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I thought it was common that you can plug in all your devices to your receiver and have it control which input.

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You can, but most won't output anything other than component video out of the component out. Most will upsample composite video to S-Video and the S-Video out can output everything, but upconverting composite and S-Video to component so that it can all be carried through the component out is sadly not very common.

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I myself have a video scaler. Actually it is a computer component but you do not need a computer. Its a stand alone TV box. Viewsonic has this video processor scaler/ TV tuner. I pipe my signals into it such as VHS, DVD and it rescales from 640x480 up to 1024x768 and pipes it out via RGB computer cable. The picture going into a projector or monitor is great. Even standard TV cable looks nice at 1024x768. This is the cheaper video scaler at $150 CDN. There is a better one that goes up to 1280 and has component inputs. I think this scaler does a good job as real video scalers from $800-$4000 from DVDO Line doubler and Farouja. This video processor is only good for projectors or computer input monitors Plasmas, LCD. I found about this neat device 2 years ago and since then have been passing my cable TV signal through it.

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Got a link?

Check out bluejeanscable.com for reasonably-priced high-quality cable. I have a 25'-30' run of DIY component video to my projector and it looks good to me. I don't know about 70'.

Sushi, although this isn't about speaker cables, you can still run into some insanely priced stuff. Cost aside,the lengths you describe don't create any technical problem; the table here may be interest. Looking at various suppliers, it isn't unusual to see lengths up to 100 feet. The Blue Jeans outfit Jason mentioned is one that's relatively reasonable.

Sushi, why don't you drop Joe an e-mail and ask his opinion? He has been running a ceiling mounted projector in his setup for at least 6 to 7 years now.

JohnK,

Wow! The table you cited indeed looks very encouraging...

Of course, everybody knows that Cable TV companies send their 5MHz-bandwidth signal over many miles of coaxial cables. Although the bandwidth is up to 10 times higher in component video, a few hundred feet should be no problem at least in theory.

However, I hear and read so many horror stories about video cables picking up various forms of visible noise/artifacts, which has made me paranoidal...

At any rate, when it comes to cables, I am determined to spend absolutely no more than really needed! LOL

Real 80's man,

That is Joe at Axiom, right? Do you happen to have his email address? You can PM me if you prefer...

Thanks!