Sending video signal through a couple of walls.

[gafftaper]

I have a lovely large screen HD TV out in the lobby of my new theater which is wired into the building wide announcement network, and not to my on stage camera. About 40' away I have access to the video feed at my stage manger rack. The problem is there are several concrete walls in between. Installing conduit and punching holes through the walls would get really expensive quick. Is there an HD wireless transmitter capable of going through several layers of cinderblock?

 

[Footer]

Is there cat 5 anywhere close to both places?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[MNicolai]

I don't imagine you'll find a more inexpensive solution than drilling into concrete. It shouldn't be that expensive, particularly if you have access to a hammer drill.

If you hired this out to a contractor, figure most of the final bill would be for the time the contractor spends pushing a drill into the wall.

Don't get me wrong, there are still expenses in conduit, conduit hangers, and firestop (if any of these walls are fire walls), but if you do it internally, I bet it'd be less than the cost of a quality wireless solution, and nothing comes to mind that would get you 40' through concrete.

If you have an existing CAT5E infrastructure, you could potentially route the signals around without making new penetrations into concrete, but you'll still spend a good chunk of change on a quality transmitter and receiver.

You may just want to call an electrician and see what it'd cost. It's probably not as bad as you think.

 

[gafftaper]

The Cat5 is an interesting idea. There are data ports all over the place I just have no idea where they go to. I'll have to ask around to see if there's a patch bay somewhere not too far off that I could use to make point a go to point b. If it's close this could be a simple solution.

Note: It's not through 40 feet of concrete. It's forty feet away and there are two or three concrete walls in between, some cinder block some appear to be poured, but it kind of depends on which way you go. I'm now thinking with a little bit of creative cabling and a hole punched in one cinder wall, I could get it down to having a transmitter on one side and a receiver on the other side of the same solid pour wall.

 

[Footer]

The Cat5 is an interesting idea. There are data ports all over the place I just have no idea where they go to. I'll have to ask around to see if there's a patch bay somewhere not too far off that I could use to make point a go to point b. If it's close this could be a simple solution.

Follow that cat5. Odds are there is a patch panel in a wiring closet somewhere that you can patch accross. It will be at least 300' away from your booth, so there is a start at least. Talk to the IT guy. Then just buy some balums and go at it.

 

[derekleffew]

... It will be at least 300' away from your booth, ...

Did you mean to say, "It will be a maximum of 300' (100m)" away from your booth?

 

[porkchop]

I've seen wireless HDMI equipment but from what I've heard it only works well within line of sight and everything I've seen is mid-consumer grade at best.

 

[porkchop]

Did you mean to say, "It will be a maximum of 300' (100m)" away from your booth?

Derek you should know anything useful that you need will be AT LEAST 300 ft. away from where you need it to be.

 

[Lextech]

Derek you should know anything useful that you need will be AT LEAST 300 ft. away from where you need it to be.

Well, at least 25 feet more then the cable you are carrying or the max length of transmission of the device you want to use. Over CAT 5, 300 feet is about it for the video extenders I have seen. When we tied our three theaters together we used fiber. Much better range.

 

[derekleffew]

What I was getting at was max. length of CAT5 is 100m (330ft.) without hub/switch/booster in line.

 

[Footer]

Did you mean to say, "It will be a maximum of 300' (100m)" away from your booth?

What I was getting at was max. length of CAT5 is 100m (330ft.) without hub/switch/booster in line.

Yup. I mis-typed. I never do that.

 

[gafftaper]

I've got a nice clean signal to the SM panel, and plenty of room to put in some sort of booster or whatever I need to split it off and run it wherever.

 

[zmb]

The Cat5 is an interesting idea. There are data ports all over the place I just have no idea where they go to. I'll have to ask around to see if there's a patch bay somewhere not too far off that I could use to make point a go to point b. If it's close this could be a simple solution.

Are you lucky enough to have a "lighting network" that's separate from the main building network? If so, it would likely terminate in the dimmer room and you would be able to patch it as needed without going through your district's IT department. I've seen this with both Strand and ETC installs where they get separate wall plates that have a DMX connection and a locking Ethernet connection.

 

[rsmentele]

If 330' is not enough, these extenders will send 1080p up to 450' ( I have tried as proof of spec)

http://www.fullcompass.com/product/409614.html

 

[Lextech]

This just showed up for me: http://www.gefen.com/kvm/gtv-whd-1080p-lr-blk.jsp?prod_id=10922
Don't know anything about it but it says 100 feet wireless HDMI signal through walls.

 

[gafftaper]

Thanks, let me know how it goes!

I think I may have a solution. The guy who runs the video system that does all the school commercials (the one this TV is hooked into), thinks that if he add an encoder to the system he can stream video to any TV on the network. If all goes well, I may get this upgrade done for me without having to pay for it!

 

[sk8rsdad]

If you are going that route you may want to look into http://zeevee.com. We acquired a ZvPro at the advice of @museav. After a few teething pains mostly to do with signal levels and our existing wiring are quite happy with the results. Make sure your HD TV is compatible. A QAM tuner is a must.

My only gripe is the cooling fan is the loudest thing in the booth.

 

[pmolsonmus]

Pardon my ignorance but my understanding is that to run video through Cat5 you need a dedicated line separate from the network. I' m basing that on info I received when setting up a green room monitor. Willing to be wrong.
My initial easy solution would be to try an Apple TV -HDMI out to your set. Input could be from an iPhone, iPad or other device on the same network and using mirroring via airplay. Don't know if you have access.

Phil

 

[StradivariusBone]

I had a worship director at the church I part-time at want to use Apple TV for streaming video. It worked, but the audio never synced properly and the latency was very noticeable since the TV's were placed just outside the main part of the building in the surrounding hallways where you can hear the speaker through the doors. Frame rate at times was below 10. The bandwidth on the WIFI network was just not enough to accommodate the stream. We had three Apple TV's feeding from an iMac using AirParrot. I never explored it further because it seemed like a lost cause. My suggestion was to run Cat5 since there's plenty of hardware to use for that, but things were purchased before I could get involved. They no longer use display mirroring and just use the FlickR app to do a slideshow of events.

If you've got Cat5/6 anywhere in the building you could patch it to where you need it. I just did something similar to move a router out on our catwalk and patched our GLD80 into it without running a ton of cable. I just patched the router into a wall plate, patched that run to a run that goes to our control booth and Bob's your uncle as the saying goes. As long as the run to the MDF isn't stupid long, it should work.

 

[gafftaper]

Updated information and new questions.

My camera goes into a Extron Distribuition amplifier in the control booth at the back of the theater. It then sends a signals 100=150' to three TV's in my green room. I get a really nice picture on these TV's.

Part of the greenroom dressing room area is my office. There is a port on the wall of my office which appears to be one of these Extron VGA Extenders (it looks the same but there's no model information in the lower corner as in the picture). I'm told that this port is a direct line to the TV in my lobby which I am trying to get signal to. My predecessor put a splitter on the back of one of these Greenroom monitors, and installed one of these Sewell BNC to 15 pin VGA converters. He then ran a cable to the Extron wall port in order to get signal to the TV in the Lobby. I've set it up and it barely works the signal is really fuzzy and drops out, when you get a signal at all.

So I have everything I need to make this work without punching holes in concrete walls. But I need to do some upgrading or tweaking to make it all work. If I'm reading everything right, that extra wall jack has an amplifier built in so I should be good to go from there back to the TV. My signal is boosted before it leaves that distribution amplifier. So I'm thinking my weak link is either the converter or i need to do some messing around with the settings on my Extron gear.

Thoughts of what my next step should be?