Video Cam

in theory, yes. make RCA->1/4 phone cables, boom goes int your snake. You won't get best audio or video probaby, because of the long distance, ubut you aren't recording with thi,s, it's just so you can se what's gong on, right?? ought to work.
 
The video will not travel well down audio-grade cable. Your best bet woudl be to use video runs already installed (they may not be) or to use a wireless AV sender type of device that sends composite video and stereo audio over 2.4GHz radio.
 
I got pretty good results running video out from a basic camcorder like so:
RCA Output > 3 Pin XLR > Through XLR Snake To Booth > Back to RCA > Into TV

This is a good 25 meter run on audio grade cable (probably more like 35 - 40 meters considering the snake cable isn't going straight....

Mind you it was going from a cam in the booth to a commodore monitor backstage so they could see what was going on... it looked perfect but on a bigger TV or projecter you might notice loss... really depends on your setup I guess.
 
we convert the rca into the rf cables that household cable lines are, and we just run that through our catwalks down to wehre we have the tvs
 
um...
Well basically (and depending on the camera, and its size) it's just a screw that fastens it to a tripod base. You could try attaching a tripod head to a c-clamp, or better yet a yoke. Definately going to want to put a safety chain on that sucker though :) (or 2)
 
You should be able to buy or build a simple adapter to get it done. Video signal doesn't really care what type of wire it's on. Modulated signal does, but not AV. So if you need just video you could use adapters to go through the 1/4" or XLR lines on your snake. If you want audio too, build an adapter for each end that puts video on pin 2, audio on pin 3 and both share a common ground on pin 1. Should work fine.
 
i just built a box that the camera sits in and a handle at teh top, something that resembles a yoke that a c-clamp went through and fastened that to the bar.
 
If youre in a school venue (or a theater that was built after the 80s) it should have a local Co-Ax video system built in. I design a show every summer at a high school every summer and by simply plugging a camera with a signal amplifier into the video system: Voila! pre-distributed video throughout the building.
 
BNBSound said:
You should be able to buy or build a simple adapter to get it done. Video signal doesn't really care what type of wire it's on. Modulated signal does, but not AV. So if you need just video you could use adapters to go through the 1/4" or XLR lines on your snake. If you want audio too, build an adapter for each end that puts video on pin 2, audio on pin 3 and both share a common ground on pin 1. Should work fine.

WRONG! Video VERY MUCH cares what type of cable it's run down. If it's not run down cable with the correct impedance, it can be very, very unstable. Can you run video down standard audio cable? Sometimes. I was on a national tour that used plain vanilla BNC to XLR adapters for video monitoring and it did work. Sort of.

See, the problem is, when doing it this way, when it works, it works with mediocre quality at best. But, when it doesn't work (and even if it worked last week, it might decide not to next week) there isn't a thing you can do about it.

If you want to run video down XLR (or any other twisted pair cable), you need a device called a baluns, which translates the video signal into a balanced signal that will be happy running down audio grade cable.

As for mounting one on a batten, I believe Manfrodo is the company that makes a double-articulated camera mount which is available in a C-clamp version (as well as one with a collar to mount on a standard mic stand). They're used for just that purpose all the time, and allow you to get pretty much any pan and tilt combination you need no matter how you have to hang it on the batten.

--A
 
Manfrotto definetely will have a clamp for you. www.manfrotto.com. Manfrotto makes very good gear, be prepared to pay for it, but, the quality is what you're getting here.

One thing I notice in this thread and others here is the "bnc cable", "rca cable", etc cable. BNCs and RCAs are connectors. I could if I was really motivated go about crimping RCA connectors onto some heavy gauge solid core wire. It would have an RCA connector on either end. So does that general purpose audio/video cable that comes with your DVD player. Big time difference in terms of whats between the connectors, which is what counts. Likewise, a pair of XLRs on some RF cable is different from XLRs on some microphone cable. RF cable with BNC connectors is jut as good as RF cable with RF connectors which is just as good as RF cable with RCA connectors. It's the cable in the middle that counts. :)


I'm with Andy though - your camera's composite signal will "work" if you build an adapter from a BNC to XLR or the like, but, the impedance of the cable is not ideal. Would be better off just pulling the right type of cable to the location. Doesn't have to be a permanent install obviously, get some black gaff and make it look nice and be safe.

avkid - unlikely you're going to need a distribution amp here. Even a couple hundred feet, feeding off a camera into a router or switcher you should be OK. It's a point to point signal. You need a distribution amp almost always when you've got a modulated signal thats split, or you're splitting the composite signal multiple times (e.g. a dub rack).

ldsfx - what makes you believe that a cctv system is standard issue for a school? I've been in more than a few of them at least here in the city (think 650 schools), I know of a few that have one. In any case it's not as simple as just plugging the camera into the system. You need to have that signal modulated, which requires either a spare modulator thats on the combiner, or you need your signal routed if the modulators are behind a router.
 
Well... it depends on what you need it for really.
If you're going for projection, it might not be enough quality wise to go through XLR.... but for backstage/booth monitoring it's more than enough in my experience.... of course I'm running it through a permanent snake, which is probably a little higher quality than some random XLR cable lying around. I also have high quality RCA-XLR cable which is MADE for running video through XLR, it's got the correct wire/pin setup-thingy....
Check to see if your school has any long S-Video or RCA cables. I have two 20 meter long S-Video cables in the booth, and there are many more in our TV studio. You might just find one long enough, depending on were you want the monitor (backstage = simple, booth might be harder :))
 
Again, I say, not reliably. On the tour I mentioned above, I lost count of how many complaints I got from the PSM about crosstalk, rolling/other disturbance in the signal due to deterioration of various parts of the signal, etc.

I also have high quality RCA-XLR cable which is MADE for running video through XLR, it's got the correct wire/pin setup-thingy....

Again, this is NOT CORRECT, unless I'm misreading and you had it done with the appropriate video grade coax cable (in which case it's just plain out silly, since there's no gear to connect it to with an XLR, and putting it down a standard audio snake is, as I noted above, not going to work reliably).

What makes the difference is not the wiring/pinout, it's THE TYPE OF CABLE. Audio grade cable does not have the proper impedance and other characteristics necessary to properly carry video signal.

RCA to XLR cables are made to carry unbalanced audio from consumer grade equipment with RCA jacks to pro grade equipment with XLR jacks, or vice-versa. Composite video is rarely ever seen on a connector other than RCA or F-type (in consumer gear), BNC, or (along with audio) triax in pro situations. You will not find a standard commercially made video cable with XLR connectors.
 

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