Installs Everything over Cat5e/6

[JohnGrosshans]

We are staring to use the school gymatorium for a church and need to run cabling for a back of house audio/video/lighting booth.
The big question that I have is would it be benificial to just run EVERYTHING over Cat5e/6. We will have an M7cl which has 3 expansion slots so we could pop three MY16AT cards in and have 48 channels of inputs from the stage over 6 cat5e/6 cables. Video Balun's are getting cheap as well so throw that in to get video from the video switcher to the projector and there are DMX over cat5e solutions available as well.

I do know that cat5e and ESPECIALLY cat6 cables are NOT designed to be wrapped but when the gymatorium was built we had a floor pocket installed at mid court for av with conduit already run. It's just empty so the wear and tare of wrapping up the cables each week is not an issue.

In the long run this seems to be a price effect solution with the most upgrade potentials. Is there any issues that you "the all knowing CB.com members" could see as a negative for this thinking?

Thanks,
-JG

 

[themuzicman]

If you can justify the cost of running completely cat5 and have people who can troubleshot it, why not? I don't know where you heard you can't coil cat5, my entire FOH run on my last tour was 10 cat5, power, and a few analog com/return lines, and I coiled that at least 200 times without issue. Just get them ruggedized.

I'd recommend still running a handful of analog lines just in case (CYA!), especially because your only comm over cat5 solutions are very expensive to buy and difficult to troubleshoot.

 

[JohnGrosshans]

Thanks @themuzicman get insight. We are trying to make things as multipurpose as possible. For example our video swithcer to projector are on cat5 as well so the idea would be we would run a few extra cat5 in the conduit so that if we ever had someone bring a laptop and want to use it from the stage we could just pop on the Baluns and boom you have a direct line from the stage to the switcher. I think that's a beautiful thing!

Good point on the ruggedized cables read one too many articles of people just using the cheap-o stuff and breaking them when they tried to roll them up (once again though not really an issue for us since it will be in conduit under the floor).

We still have the multi-pin snake from our old yamaha that will attach just fine to our new board so if need be we could make that run again.

Out of curoiousity what was your FOH rig for your tour? We are seriously looking at the M7CL-48ES (so we don't have to use any card slots) with 3x SB168-ES stage boxes.

-JG

 

[RickR]

Perhaps someone with greater IT background will correct me but CAT rating is a data transmission rating not a physical rating.

Stranded cable is for frequent flexing, solid cable is cheaper. I believe CAT5 & CAT6 are available both ways. They are also available in heavy jackets for portable cords as well as thin casings for conduit runs. Shielded or not is another option and there are many others.

We use many terms casually and sometimes loose track of details that can make a big difference.

 

[TJCornish]

Thanks @themuzicman get insight. We are trying to make things as multipurpose as possible. For example our video swithcer to projector are on cat5 as well so the idea would be we would run a few extra cat5 in the conduit so that if we ever had someone bring a laptop and want to use it from the stage we could just pop on the Baluns and boom you have a direct line from the stage to the switcher. I think that's a beautiful thing!

Good point on the ruggedized cables read one too many articles of people just using the cheap-o stuff and breaking them when they tried to roll them up (once again though not really an issue for us since it will be in conduit under the floor).

We still have the multi-pin snake from our old yamaha that will attach just fine to our new board so if need be we could make that run again.

Out of curoiousity what was your FOH rig for your tour? We are seriously looking at the M7CL-48ES (so we don't have to use any card slots) with 3x SB168-ES stage boxes.

-JG

The M7 isn't a great choice if a digital snake is important to you. Format converters like what would be required for the MY16-AT (ADAT) cards would mean third party preamps and no remote gain control. The M7-ES is somewhat better, but really isn't price competitive these days. For the same money and significantly more functionality, look at Allen&Heath ILive, for about half that look at the A&H GLD - which is also arguably more functional and better sounding than the M7, and at the low end, the new Soundcraft Expression and even the Behringer x32.

Unless you like downtime and potential show disruptions, cheap CAT5 cable isn't a good choice. I use TMB Proplex rugged CAT5 cables which are great, but about $1.50/foot.

If you have a permanent install you can indeed do a lot of things over the various versions of twisted pair cabling, but if you know what you need, it is often cheaper and easier to just put the right cabling in.

 

[TJCornish]

Perhaps someone with greater IT background will correct me but CAT rating is a data transmission rating not a physical rating.

Stranded cable is for frequent flexing, solid cable is cheaper. I believe CAT5 & CAT6 are available both ways. They are also available in heavy jackets for portable cords as well as thin casings for conduit runs. Shielded or not is another option and there are many others.

We use many terms casually and sometimes loose track of details that can make a big difference.

You are correct - there are a lot of very different cables that can be called CAT5 or CAT6. Adding to your list would be fire rating for installations in plenum locations.

For devices that are intended to be spanned via twisted pair cabling, pay special attention to any manufacturer qualifications. Many digital snake systems require shielded cable. Other devices specifically disallow it. Solid wire has better signal transmission properties and is almost always required to meet spec for full 100 meter runs, but is more fragile than stranded cabling. Standard IT practice is solid wire in the walls, stranded patch cables.

 

[Chris15]

I'd consider the Yamaha CL series before an M7...

When I was working for one of the big auido companies, we were just using stock Cat5.
And the reason was simple - when it breaks, chuck it out.
If it's a pain to roll at the end of the gig, chuck it out.
It also meant less crying when cables got damaged by others.

In an install, just make sure whatever is in the floor or in walls gets terminated to a fixed connector, then use a sacrificial patch lead from there to your gear - when that dies, replace it (and keep a couple of spares on hand in preparation for that)...

 

[FMEng]

Whether Cat5/6 is good for video depends upon what type of video and the quality required. VGA over Cat5 is only OK. The colors skew because each of the pairs have a different twist rate, making them slightly different lengths. Cat6 is worse in this regard. The amount of skew is proportional to the length of the run. Belden and Mohawk make "low skew" cable specifically for VGA video, but it cannot be used for data. For NTSC composite video, I would expect fairly good results because it only uses one pair.

 

[museav]

We are seriously looking at the M7CL-48ES (so we don't have to use any card slots) with 3x SB168-ES stage boxes.

Nothing wrong with the M7CL-48ES with the Yamaha stage boxes and some people really like not having layers for the inputs but there are a number of competitive alternatives so I would check a few options out before making any decisions.

One thing I find that some seem to not initially consider is how they are going to physically integrate stage boxes and stage cabling. Where do you locate the stage boxes and how do you get the related analog and network cabling to and from the stage? How do you get the CAT/UTP cabling to and from any video sources or displays on stage? Maybe that was considered when the gymnatorium was designed but in some cases conduit and cabling paths developed based on analog connectivity may not support network connectivity and stage boxes as well. For example, you could have several floor boxes or wall plates on stage that daisy-chain together and then run direct to the FOH floor box, that may work fine with analog connectivity direct to the mixer but not fit a stage box type approach as well. So don't forget to think about how you are going to physically address all the stage connectivity.

I have a venue going in that is all CAT/UTP from the stage to FOH and recording for audio, inluding stage monitoring, as well as CAT/UTP for all the video on stage (both inputs and outputs). The projectors are both CAT/UTP and HD-SDI and the cameras HD-SDI so that they can run straight HD-SDI for i-mag and production or mixed HD-SDI/DVI/HDMI for graphics and computer presentations. That made sense in that particular case but I would not say that it would necessarily have always made sense, especially if there had been existing infrastructure and cabling.

I'll also echo the concerns that "CAT" cable comes in a multitude or varities and what is acceptable or best for one application may not be acceptable or best for another. Then there is differentiating data, network video, analog video, network audio, etc. connections and cabling in actual use. Around 10 years ago I joked about opening up a floor box to find a multitude of RJ jacks for data, audio, video, control, voice, etc. and the users being completely confused on what to connect to what since the same jack fit them all. It's turned out to not be a joke, I'm currently working on a classroom where all the connectivity for the instructor will be a wall plate with probably a dozen RJ-45/CP8C jacks for AV (HDBaseT), control, data and voice.