My
theatre is just 10 years old and we have a large Cobranet
network in the
theatre. All the
ethernet cable is Cat6 with
Neutrik Cat5E D series ports throughout the
theatre. I think there is around 100 runs to various locations all coming back to 5 switches (3 different networks) in a rack. They also included a bundle of the
ethercon cables, but cut all the little locking tabs on the
ethercon plug because they said they were getting hung up in the
jack. I
call BS, but it's a little late now. I use standard cat6 patch cables left over from the other
network to go from wall to gear. All the regular computer
network throughout the
venue is also cat6. I believe the only cat5E in the building is the lighting
network, but I could be wrong.
Getting time to upgrade the equipment and will be needing many more runs of
ethernet to various locations that just were not put where they should have been. Most likely will be puling cat6 to all the new locations, but will leave room for future expansion.
+1 for always adding extra
conduit all over the place. Now we will have to bore a lot of concrete to get runs where we need them. I wish I knew then what I know now and had them added in the design, but they really threw in a curve ball with the booth at the very back of the
house instead of the original design mid
house. At least they gave a "
road show" area with connections that I use for everyday lights and sound and pull my gear for touring shows. The other problem was when they went to the digital
snake system, they cut all copper runs everywhere... everywhere. I have no backup if the networked
snake goes down. Still thinking of running a few small copper snakes from
stage to
FOH and from
FOH to booth (where the amps are) in all this new
conduit I now have to have put in.
I think I finally convinced our video guy to just run fiber from all remote cameras back to the video production studio instead of HD-SDI cable,
ethernet and mic lines to all locations. Then he can just get a converter box at both ends for all the lines he needs. Besides, many of his runs ore very near 300' and can't push HD-SDI down some of the lines.