200' or more, from camera to projector...What's my best option?

Just a technical correction, but there is no such thing as "BNC" cable, BNC is a connector. The cable is generically coax, but there are many different varieties and levels of quality.

As I understand it, this is to take the output from a 768x494 native, 3-CCD camcorder to a 1024x768 native LCD projector for one production. Since both the camera and projector support S-Video, I would think about using S-Video, standard CAT5 cable and CAT5 baluns/interfaces. Running baseband composite video on coax would certainly work, but with cable that would likley be more difficult to run and perhaps with lower resulting image quality. I also would not worry too much about things like Ethercon connectors, if this was for long term use and frequent operation that would be different but for temporary use for a single production it could be difficult to justify.

Back to the OP, you could have an 8'x8' screen as note but it will be an 8' wide x 6' high image being projected.
 
While I'm not sure that you can go a mile with triax, you can easily get 1/4 of a mile. If you want to get some good info on this type of cable you can go here. Basically, a triax is similar to coaxial cable, but with the addition of an extra layer of insulation and a second conducting sheath. It allows a camera and the camera control unit (CCU) to communicate with more than just the transmission of the video and audio signal. For distances of about a mile, they most likely will be using fiber. Some of the new broadcast cameras have a fiber based "triax" cable. It's pretty cool, actually.

A buddy of mine at a local broadcast outfit has personally fired it over a mile at car-racing (and come to think of it, golf probably has long runs too). Not sure which cameras those were and which base stations; I'd guess Philips LDKs with the long-range base stations.

Smpte fiber is nice but relatively fragile. These days, anything that's Really HD in the field, they're firing down fiber; copper doesn't have the bandwidth.
 
Everyone has discussed great points, but I feel somethings have been missed.

Yes audio and video wires run at a different impedance (Z) which can cause reflections and some loss. The BIGGEST thing to remember here is that all coax is a Faraday's cage (regardless of termination). This means that most EM interference will be transferred thru the drain to ground and not pass thru to your center conductor! Regardless, you should always be aware of types of wire and how you run your video... IE putting video next to 14/3 sjoow is not the end of the world (should still be spaced and cross at 90 deg only), but putting it next to 00 feeder where the conductors arent wrapped in circles and typically carry higher currents, you are looking at a large field and hence more signal issues.

300' you may be okay with coax, depends on grade / # shields / shield % / materials. Baluns are great but expensive... the crossover point needs to be a calculation of what you need to cost really... IE running over 1000' of VGA is expensive when you factor all the DAs u need, so a balun would be worth it.

J
 
From doing this myself on a few occasions.

The things clients ask for at the last minute.

I think you will find 300' on a coax is a bit too far for the camera to push alone. You will need to amplify with a DA or process with a active switch/scan converter somewhere along the way. 200' you can probably get away with it.

Let us know.
 
I'm curious what Nick is talking about with making one's own Cat 5 adapter - are you talking about a proper balun or just connecting 2 wires together?
No I'm talking about connecting wires together, I haven't even thaught about making my own one, I have about 10 25m S-Vids so haven't had the need. How would one go about making a balanced one?

Wireless can be hell.

Oops, looks like this turned into a Shipesque post...

I shall create a glossary article of the word Shipesque. It is in common enough use now.

Nick
 
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I did a gig this past Friday. It was a funeral for a police officer who died in the line of duty.

Because of the expected over flow, I was contracted to provide real time video of the service in a church next door. The cable run from the Sony EVI D70 camera in the funeral home to the altar of the church was 416'. I used a Geffen video amplifier and Proflex RG6 Quad shield cable.

Here's a picture from the corner of the funeral home to the church.

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And here's a shot of the screen in the church. I only had a 2200 lumen projector available as my 3K was already out on rental in Washington, DC.

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I didn't run audio down the cable but sent it via a ATW 3131 wireless transmitter to the receiver we had installed in the church years before. With really sharp eyes, you can see the Unipak transmitter sitting atop the monitor speaker we set up for the parking lot.
 
No I'm talking about connecting wires together, I haven't even thaught about making my own one, I have about 10 25m S-Vids so haven't had the need. How would one go about making a balanced one?/QUOTE]

I haven't utterly thought it through, but on the face of it, you should be able to use a coax - XLR AES balun. The XLR side is designed for 110 ohms and so would be about right for Cat5 impendance... Said baluns however are somewhat frightful in their price point...
 
Best bet to keep costs low is the BNC, we use this in combination with a pair of flown projectors in our rig and the quality that we get from the BNC is impressive even over long lengths...never tried using the audio cable to send a video signal as I've found that using a cable to send a signal that its not meant for usually leads to...
1)horrid quality
2)signal dropouts
3)ruined equipment
none of the above 3 results make for a very good showing to your clients...
 
Just to clarify, BNC only refers to the connector on the end, not the cable itself. RG59 cable is quite often used with BNC connectors. I've run composite video down 50m (160') or more of RG59 with quite acceptable results.
 

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