mikefellh
Active Member
How come people here are wrongly calling "extenders", devices that allow you to extend HDMI (or other) signals from one location to another via CAT5/5e/6, etc. cable, "baluns"?
For instance one post specifically calls the "Atlona AT-HD4-SI40SR" a "balun" while the manufacturer specifically calls it an "extender".
A "balun" based on CB's own Wiki are "Transformers that convert BALanced an UNbalanced signals." (SIC) and while certain extenders may do that, that's not what the purpose of an extender is.
I've discussions with the techs from some of the companies that manufacture extenders, and not once did they use the word "balun", they always used the word "extender." One of the extenders I use extends XLR over Cat5e, and while they may have a transformer in it to transform the signal over the long length of Cat5e, it's balanced throughout so there's no unbalancing involved.
Shouldn't we be using the proper term?
For the record my auditorium uses 5 different Cat5e extenders:
- HDMI to HDBaseT going up to BOH projector
- HDMI to HDMI going down to FOH monitor
- VGA to VGA going down to FOH monitor
- USB to USB going down to FOH keyboard/mouse/memory stick
- 4xXLR to 4xXLR going down to FOH mixer
And the DI boxes we use to connect computers to mixers could be called "baluns", they're not referred that way.
p.s. I'm posting it in the "multimedia-projection-show-control" forum because that's where several of the threads misusing the term reside.
p.p.s. How can you add definitions to keywords, "balun" is defined but "extender" isn't but it should be. Also the definition for "balun" is worded poorly, "Transformers that convert BALanced an UNbalanced signals."
For instance one post specifically calls the "Atlona AT-HD4-SI40SR" a "balun" while the manufacturer specifically calls it an "extender".
A "balun" based on CB's own Wiki are "Transformers that convert BALanced an UNbalanced signals." (SIC) and while certain extenders may do that, that's not what the purpose of an extender is.
I've discussions with the techs from some of the companies that manufacture extenders, and not once did they use the word "balun", they always used the word "extender." One of the extenders I use extends XLR over Cat5e, and while they may have a transformer in it to transform the signal over the long length of Cat5e, it's balanced throughout so there's no unbalancing involved.
Shouldn't we be using the proper term?
For the record my auditorium uses 5 different Cat5e extenders:
- HDMI to HDBaseT going up to BOH projector
- HDMI to HDMI going down to FOH monitor
- VGA to VGA going down to FOH monitor
- USB to USB going down to FOH keyboard/mouse/memory stick
- 4xXLR to 4xXLR going down to FOH mixer
And the DI boxes we use to connect computers to mixers could be called "baluns", they're not referred that way.
p.s. I'm posting it in the "multimedia-projection-show-control" forum because that's where several of the threads misusing the term reside.
p.p.s. How can you add definitions to keywords, "balun" is defined but "extender" isn't but it should be. Also the definition for "balun" is worded poorly, "Transformers that convert BALanced an UNbalanced signals."