Video Baluns and Cat 5

Since I have never used Video Baluns on any install, only coax, I have now run into a job where the previous installer ran Cat5e cable to where I need to put the cameras (lucky me?). About 300 feet away from the DVR. My question is the "setup" part. "Active", "Passive" , etc. Basically, I need to transmit the video from a DVR. Don't run into this too often, maybe only 2nd time, but I need someone who uses these baluns to recommend to me, how to do this over the Cat5e. All wires on the Cat5e in question are empty, never terminated. Thanks!

Since I have never used Video Baluns on any install, only coax, I have now run into a job where the previous installer ran Cat5e cable to where I need to put the cameras (lucky me?). About 300 feet away from the DVR. My question is the "setup" part. "Active", "Passive" , etc. Basically, I need to transmit the video from a DVR. Don't run into this too often, maybe only 2nd time, but I need someone who uses these baluns to recommend to me, how to do this over the Cat5e. All wires on the Cat5e in question are empty, never terminated. Thanks!

300 ft. is no problem for passive baluns. Hookup is very simple - place a balun at each end keeping the (+) and (-) on the same colors of the pair.

You can splice if needed using "beans" or whatever you have for small guage wire. Keep twists in the wire pair as much as possible.

If they can afford it, get Active. Use an Active RX and a Passive TX, or vice versa. I found passive baluns at 200' to be degraded video compared to RG59 Coax; 2 different brands i used. Theoretically you should be able to push them to at least 750' according to manufacturer specs for DVRs, some say even more.

Difference between "active " and "passive". ??? I understand the principle of the words, but does an "active" balun actually have transmission capabilities?? So I would need both if over 200'?

active is amplified ... never used one myself.

You can mix and match .. either have a passive on all cameras, and 1 active Receiver/Transceiver at the head unit, or active on all cameras, and 1 passive Receiver/Transceiver at the head unit.

Active costs much more though, which is why I said only if they can afford it.

Check out NVT and Nitek.

http://www.nvt.com/

http://www.nitek.net/

Difference between "active " and "passive". ??? I understand the principle of the words, but does an "active" balun actually have transmission capabilities?? So I would need both if over 200'?

Active baluns can be at either end of the line - active receivers or active transmitters. Typically, manufacturers recommend passive-passive for runs to 1000 ft, active-passive (active at either end) to 2000 ft. and active-active (at both ends) up to 4000 ft.

Active means powered. They also need access to power, either 110VAC, 24VAC or 12VDC from a power supply.

For runs that short, I have not found any significant difference between active and passive baluns. In fact, some active baluns may not be able to "turn down" their compensation for that short a run and may "over-EQ" the signal. Plus, active circuitry tends to add some noise.

rory,

I don't know in what situations or with what cameras and equipment you have had bad luck with baluns but I manage the techs at a major casino and we pretty much switched to twisted-pair years ago.

We have used passive baluns almost exclusively for new camera installs since then and have encountered almost no problems with good quality CAT-5 up to 500 ft. We've used a number of manufacturers' baluns and noticed little or no difference in the signal between them.

We tried NVT, Vigitron, GVI and VideoEase. In our tests, there was no discernible difference between brands, despite NVT's claim to superiority (at, of course, far higher cost).

We have used active receivers for runs up to 1,500 ft. and there the results have been somewhat less than stellar. We are in the process of replacing a Vigitron 16-channel active receiver with Pelco TW3004AR units because the Vigitron unit adds too much noise to the signal.

In our case, we are very proud of the quality of images obtained on our cameras, especially on table games. We have two of the same make and model of fixed cameras next to each other, aimed at adjacent tables - one with coax and one with twisted-pair and there is no difference in the picture between the two.

One difference may be with the cameras. We have used Pelco CCC1300h series almost exclusively on table games until recently (CCC1300h2, CCC1370h2 and CCC1380h6). We now use them and some Ganz ZCD3000 series mini-domes with built-in NVT baluns for new installs.

We also use Ikegami cameras for low-light, less critical areas because the Pelcos have poor AGC quality (muddy pictures).

Another possible difference is that every input to our matrix and DVR encoders is buffered by a Pelco CM9760-MDA. Perhaps if we didn't use the MDA's our results would be different.

In fact, there are some distinct advantages to twisted-pair. We pulled 500,000 ft. of RG-59 during the casino's initial expansion - 10 to 20 cables at a time. That was very difficult and time consuming. With twisted-pair, we can pull 25-pair anywhere with relative ease and co-locate the punch-downs near the camera power supplies; making the final pulls to the cameras very easy.

Also, we have started switching over to the West Penn siamese (1x18/2 + 2x24/2 TP) cable for the final runs to the cameras which saves even more time.

2 different brands, cant remember off hand, but others on the forum have also had the same results. It was all high quality GE box cameras, 150-200 feet max.

These were baluns, not hubs (receivers/tranceivers) so they are obviously lower quality anyway. Client could not afford NVT type gear.

The only ones I would recommend now though are NVT or Nitek.

also, looks like that Pelco gear you have is a distribution amplifier, we are talking direct camera to DVR with no additional amplification. Thats why you more than likely receive noise using Active, and it is fine using Passive.

http://www.pelco.com/products/default.aspx?id=226

An you are talking a Casino application, we are not

Yes, we have a DA at the end of the chain for all cameras; coax or TP. But transmission is TP with passive baluns at both ends for maybe 1/3 of the cameras - the rest are coax.

Camera - balun - CAT-5 - balun - MDA - Matrix

------------------------------------------------- DVR Encoder

------------------------------------------------- Other (occasionally)

Dont get me wrong now, im not saying UTP is bad, in fact i would agree with a Casino app like that, would typically be better to run cat5 and use cable management and distribution panels.

I was commenting on the Baluns most pick up for $25-50.

From what ive used, and what ive seen from images posted on the forum.

The Balun and Passive quality topic goes back a couple years now

Just got back from wiring my "home made" balun. The small store is close to me, just a few minutes away. Since it is Saturday, I had to get at least one camera wired in. Hate to mention it, but I thought I would give it a shot..........and it worked!! I found some old cable that I used to use, one of those "premade" cables with "mini-coax" on one end. "Siamese" cable to be more specific. I cut the BNC ends off about 12" back, and took them with me. I opened up the Cat5e, and used the Blue/White pair ( really didn't make a difference, I guess). I used a butt splice to attach the 12" piece of small cable (pretty bad, I know) at both ends. Hey!! It worked!! Pretty "hokey" but it worked for now. Have to look at this again soon. Thanks everyone, I almost gave up on this until Monday!!

what kind of distance? I tried 100' without a balun and got no video, just lots of noise, flickering ..

I was commenting on the Baluns most pick up for $25-50.

The ones we use typically cost $25 to $30 each.

The thing about baluns is that, despite the claims by some manufacturers, there really isn't much difference in the design or the costs of the parts.

Basically, a balun is probably $2 to $3 worth of parts. See the schematic and diagram below:

A couple of connectors, a circuit board, a small transformer and a plastic case don't add up to much.

These were baluns, not hubs (receivers/tranceivers) so they are obviously lower quality anyway. Client could not afford NVT type gear.

 

The only ones I would recommend now though are NVT or Nitek.

I agree - NVT are great devices, yet very expensive. So it is worth to know other options In case you ask, my company specializes in video UTP transmission from more than 10 years, so we established great technology and very experienced people who know almost everything about that stuff. We'd be glad to advice in case any of you need help in achieving long distances via UTP (couple thousands ft) or fiber optics (dozens of km).

For example, here is some basic information (FAQ) about UTP transmission (bottom of his page), some of you could be interested:

http://www.polvision.com.pl/faqs.asp?lang=en

Rory, if you like, I can send you samples from our production. Sorry for being commercial here, but it's always better to know about other existing technologies than NVT and Nitek which are very expensive. I'm really sure you'll be delighted because the quality is astonishing. We have parameters even better than NVT (for example we offer direct distances up to 6000 ft and indirect distances - using 2 relay stations - up to 13000 ft, UTP cat5) and the prices are reasonable so you can save money.

See here:

http://www.polvision.com.pl/files.asp?lang=en&find={active%20interface}

(sorry for eventual language mistakes, we don't have much time to work on English documentation)

I would like! Yes I only had the chance like I said to test 2 brands, they were well known brands though carried by major US distributors (not the smaller OEMs). And the only other gear ive seen are based on images provided by others on the forum over the years.

Let me know .. thanks

To be more honest about the length of the Cat5e run, I would probably say it was more likely around 100' ( is that about 30 meters give or take a meter?), as I was up in an attic crawlspace above the store. I believe the original cable installer was putting in cable for the stores' PC from some sort of wireless hub. Not sure about that. I had to give it a shot, since I told them I could get 1 camera up before Monday. Unfortunately for me, the crawl space did not go the length of the store, so I couldn't run the RG59 I brought with me. I was actually amazed it worked. Now, for a longer run, I would have absolutely no idea. A friend of mine took me on a tour of a local manufacturing plant to show me their new camera setup recently. We went to the Security Guard "shack" to see what they watch. The video looked terrible to me, but I was told it was over a mile of older cat5 because the pull was not all new wire.