In a prewire that we were not 100% sure what was going on, I ran 2 coax cables to a little area for future whatever.

We ended up installing a 60" Zenith Plasma in the room. The house is controled by Crestron so my Video (i.e Tunner and Sat) are controled from the rack on the other side of the house.

BUT! They want a local DVD player in the room to watch movies. I have the switching control all down, but my issue is this - I only have TWO coax cables - One which i am using for COMPOSITE VIDEO OUTPUT from the DVD and the other i was hopeing to use for DIGITAL COAXIAL AUDIO OUTPUT - but it doesnt seem to be working.

Before i hit the manuals and check my Bitstream setting, can COAXIAL AUDIO be run over RG6?

I have used RG-6 to bus digitial signals to and from around the house using an Extron switcher and Creston for control. The issue here is the wire and connectors. Cheap / medium / 3Meg. quality. This will have an impact on the length. Make sure you have the settings correct in the DVD player! DD- on, DTS- on, etc.

What player are you using?


Dave

A shitty samsung that we had lying around in our office. I have a good budget on the job, and can get a better model, but im sure it will rarely even get used. They also have a 12 seat theater installed in the lower level, but you never know.

So your saying is i can use STANDARD Rg6 COAX with a DIGITAL COAXLAL AUDIO OUTPUT?

Yep!

The word "coaxial", or coax, merely means "sharing one axis", having the same center, concentric. Any shielded, single-conductor cable qualifies. We usually mean an RG type of cable when we say coax.

Shielded cables can have any number of conductors within the shield, and there are even cables with more than one group of shielded conductors, such as an S-video cable, multi-channel interconnects, or RGB(HV) cables.

The specific answer to your question is that most coaxial cables can be used for any signal requiring similar or lower bandwidth. A cable designed for RF will carry audio better than an audio cable will carry RF.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Bingo, as always, Larry!


I spole with a manufacturer's tech type a couple of years ago, and he assured me that a 75 ohm cable would work perfectly with "coax" digital audio (again, it is only called that to separate it from "optical:" it goes over a wire, and its frequencies require that it be a coaxial cable to ensure the signal gets to its destination cleanly).

Coaxial Digital Audio cables are spec'd to a 75ohm coaxial cable. RG-6 can be utilized for this purpose with excellent results. I have done it many times, with no loss of bitstream data, for as long as 300 feet. I always use Quad shielded cable, but you should be able to achieve good results with tri shield for the distance you are running. Another option i would check into though, would be to ditch the Composite video. Especially if you have a cat-5 or 5e cable run between the locations. you can convert a video signal to twisted pair, and get to the display this way, for a far superior signal. (by the way, this conversion only uses 1 pair in a cat-5.)

also, think this way...

cat 5 has 4 pair right?

well, the cat 5 converters that i am referring to have a 75 ohm impedence, and tons of bandwidth...

composite video, coaxial digital, and COMPONENT video run on 75 ohm cabling...

SO.........

1 pair = the "Y" signal on component video (green)
1 pair = the "Pb/Cb" signal (Blue)
1 pair = the "Pr/Cr" signal (Red)
1 pair = the Coaxial Digital Audio signal

therefore, on 1 cat5 cable, you can run a component spread, with digital audio, using 4 pairs of composite to tp baluns.

HOWEVER, I have yet to have needed to try this with HD signals, and I don't think the baluns would pass that kind of bandwidth.

Another option if you do not have a cat5 cable there, is to use a composite to s-video converter at the plasma. These blauns do work, and those from "Ultralink" and "Monster" work well. others are available, but some lesser end models tend to give substandard results. I use mostly the ultralink models, inexpensive, and they work excellent.

If you need further assistance, feel free to email me at [email protected] or send me an IM through Messenger (windows XP, or MSN) at the same address...

hope this helps you out.

LoVoltage