Kitchen TV & RCA over Cat5 - Canadian TV, Computing and Home Theatre Forums

kje · 2007-11-04, 10:18 PM

I am cross posting this from my personal website: kje.ca.
It appears as though I can only include 3 images per post, so I will split this into a couple of posts.

I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, cooking up some hopefully tasty creations. With our recent move, our kitchen was upgraded considerably. In the apartment, I could hear the TV and even watch it, albeit at a viewing angle approaching 180 degrees. In our new place, the TV in the living room isn’t visible from the kitchen, and I was getting lonely and bored cooking while the TV was on in the other room.

Our recent subscription to Rogers’ Digital VIP pack includes a SD digital box that we weren’t going to use in the living room. So we, and by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’, decided to buy a small TV and mount it on a wall in the kitchen. The only problem is that if you look closely at this picture, there is no cable outlet in the kitchen. There is, however, a Cat5 drop here, running from the ground floor.

Moving down to the ground floor, we find the utility room that houses our washer & dryer, furnace, and hot water tank. This is also the room where the cable and phone lines come in from the outside, so our cable modem and wireless router live here too. It’s a big mess right now, but clean-up is on the low-priority to-do list, and I’m not too keen on spending too much on making this room pretty, especially since we are renting.

After some research, and a failed attempt at just soldering the RCA wires to the Cat5 twisted pairs (Yes, I knew there is an impedance mismatch, I just wanted to see for myself), I went to Home Depot and they had what I was looking for:

* Leviton 40735-RYW QuickPort RCA 110-Type, Yellow Barrel, Color White
* Leviton 40735-RRW QuickPort RCA 110-Type, Red Barrel, Color White
* Leviton 40735-RWW QuickPort RCA 110-Type, White Barrel, Color White

classicsat · 2007-11-05, 08:07 AM

You can safely carry audio over Cat5 that way. I'd be wary of carrying video. I'd be tempted to get BALUNs for that.

kje · 2007-11-05, 08:30 AM

Part 2:
What these do is let you use one twisted pair to send one of the three RCA signals, yellow for video, red and white for audio, over one twisted pair of Cat5 cable. There are 4 twisted pairs in one Cat5 cable, so you can use 3 for the RCA signals and have one to spare, which you can run a telephone over if you wish. They were about $5 each, and I needed 6, 3 for each end. Perfect for my situation!

The 40735-R*W units come with everything you need to get them attached to your Cat5, so other than something to strip the twisted pair wires inside the Cat5 cable, you don’t need anything special to get this working.

So in the basement, we have the cable box, RCA wires, and the QuickPort connectors:

There were 3 Cat5 wires there, going to the master bedroom, the guest bedroom, and the kitchen. To figure out which one to use, I guessed. Got it right the first time. =)

kje · 2007-11-05, 08:32 AM

Part 3:
So on we move to the kitchen. It’s the same process, plug some Cat5 into the wall socket, slice off one end and put on some more of my favourite new connectors:

I picked up a 19″ LCD TV, a Sharp LC-19SB24U. It has a really thin bezel, which makes it look quite sleek in the kitchen. To mount it to the wall, I picked up a mount (00K79.21) at the Lee Valley showroom / warehouse here in Ottawa. I found out that Lee Valley has some great prices on these from my favourite home-theatre forum: Digital Home Canada.

I decided to put it on the wall where you see it so that I can put it out of the way when I don’t want the LCD close the kitchen work area. Here it is mounted to the wall:

kje · 2007-11-05, 08:33 AM

Part 4:
So it all worked out pretty well. Here are some shots with the TV in the cooking position and in the safe at home position:

So at this point in time there are a couple of things left to do here, clean up the wires, and implement some sort of IR transmission system so I don’t have to walk down to the laundry room every time I want to change channels!

The last picture I have is of the wire management package that I picked up at Home Depot. I just need to pick up a white Cat5 cable to run from the wall up to the back of the TV:

So, it’s been a fun project… and now I can watch Sportscentre in the morning making breakfast and the Habs while making dinner =). If you have any comments, let me know!

sillyrabbit · 2007-12-25, 07:10 PM

kje,

Just wondering how long a run you could do with this setup.

How long is the run from your tv to your receiver?

How's the final video, any degradation?

kje · 2007-12-25, 07:57 PM

sillyrabbit,

I'm in what is effectively a two level condo (terrace-home in Ottawa terms). The run is from the utility room downstairs where the washer/dryer and furnace are, up to the kitchen, which is up one floor, and towards the front of the house by about 20 feet. I'm not sure how long the run is, but I would guess around 50 feet or so after being run along whatever it's run along inside the walls.

The final video is fine for my needs. It's a standard definition feed on an HDTV (albeit 19"), so I wasn't expecting miracles, but to watch Sportscentre at 6am or the Habs while cooking dinner, it works great!

I still don't have anything hooked up or hacked up to change channels, but a quick run down the stairs once or twice a week when I want to change it from TSN sure beats standing in the kitchen listening to the TV from the living room!

Hope this helps ya, it was worth every effort I put into it!

2007-11-04, 10:18 PM	#1
kje Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21	Kitchen TV & RCA over Cat5 I am cross posting this from my personal website: kje.ca. It appears as though I can only include 3 images per post, so I will split this into a couple of posts. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, cooking up some hopefully tasty creations. With our recent move, our kitchen was upgraded considerably. In the apartment, I could hear the TV and even watch it, albeit at a viewing angle approaching 180 degrees. In our new place, the TV in the living room isn’t visible from the kitchen, and I was getting lonely and bored cooking while the TV was on in the other room. Our recent subscription to Rogers’ Digital VIP pack includes a SD digital box that we weren’t going to use in the living room. So we, and by ‘we’ I mean ‘I’, decided to buy a small TV and mount it on a wall in the kitchen. The only problem is that if you look closely at this picture, there is no cable outlet in the kitchen. There is, however, a Cat5 drop here, running from the ground floor. Moving down to the ground floor, we find the utility room that houses our washer & dryer, furnace, and hot water tank. This is also the room where the cable and phone lines come in from the outside, so our cable modem and wireless router live here too. It’s a big mess right now, but clean-up is on the low-priority to-do list, and I’m not too keen on spending too much on making this room pretty, especially since we are renting. After some research, and a failed attempt at just soldering the RCA wires to the Cat5 twisted pairs (Yes, I knew there is an impedance mismatch, I just wanted to see for myself), I went to Home Depot and they had what I was looking for: * Leviton 40735-RYW QuickPort RCA 110-Type, Yellow Barrel, Color White * Leviton 40735-RRW QuickPort RCA 110-Type, Red Barrel, Color White * Leviton 40735-RWW QuickPort RCA 110-Type, White Barrel, Color White

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

2007-11-05, 08:07 AM	#2
classicsat Veteran Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Kincardine ON. Posts: 3,941	You can safely carry audio over Cat5 that way. I'd be wary of carrying video. I'd be tempted to get BALUNs for that.

2007-11-05, 08:30 AM	#3
kje Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21	Part 2: What these do is let you use one twisted pair to send one of the three RCA signals, yellow for video, red and white for audio, over one twisted pair of Cat5 cable. There are 4 twisted pairs in one Cat5 cable, so you can use 3 for the RCA signals and have one to spare, which you can run a telephone over if you wish. They were about $5 each, and I needed 6, 3 for each end. Perfect for my situation! The 40735-R*W units come with everything you need to get them attached to your Cat5, so other than something to strip the twisted pair wires inside the Cat5 cable, you don’t need anything special to get this working. So in the basement, we have the cable box, RCA wires, and the QuickPort connectors: There were 3 Cat5 wires there, going to the master bedroom, the guest bedroom, and the kitchen. To figure out which one to use, I guessed. Got it right the first time. =)

2007-11-05, 08:32 AM	#4
kje Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21	Part 3: So on we move to the kitchen. It’s the same process, plug some Cat5 into the wall socket, slice off one end and put on some more of my favourite new connectors: I picked up a 19″ LCD TV, a Sharp LC-19SB24U. It has a really thin bezel, which makes it look quite sleek in the kitchen. To mount it to the wall, I picked up a mount (00K79.21) at the Lee Valley showroom / warehouse here in Ottawa. I found out that Lee Valley has some great prices on these from my favourite home-theatre forum: Digital Home Canada. I decided to put it on the wall where you see it so that I can put it out of the way when I don’t want the LCD close the kitchen work area. Here it is mounted to the wall:

2007-11-05, 08:33 AM	#5
kje Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21	Part 4: So it all worked out pretty well. Here are some shots with the TV in the cooking position and in the safe at home position: So at this point in time there are a couple of things left to do here, clean up the wires, and implement some sort of IR transmission system so I don’t have to walk down to the laundry room every time I want to change channels! The last picture I have is of the wire management package that I picked up at Home Depot. I just need to pick up a white Cat5 cable to run from the wall up to the back of the TV: So, it’s been a fun project… and now I can watch Sportscentre in the morning making breakfast and the Habs while making dinner =). If you have any comments, let me know!

2007-12-25, 07:10 PM	#6
sillyrabbit Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 22	kje, Just wondering how long a run you could do with this setup. How long is the run from your tv to your receiver? How's the final video, any degradation?

2007-12-25, 07:57 PM	#7
kje Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 21	sillyrabbit, I'm in what is effectively a two level condo (terrace-home in Ottawa terms). The run is from the utility room downstairs where the washer/dryer and furnace are, up to the kitchen, which is up one floor, and towards the front of the house by about 20 feet. I'm not sure how long the run is, but I would guess around 50 feet or so after being run along whatever it's run along inside the walls. The final video is fine for my needs. It's a standard definition feed on an HDTV (albeit 19"), so I wasn't expecting miracles, but to watch Sportscentre at 6am or the Habs while cooking dinner, it works great! I still don't have anything hooked up or hacked up to change channels, but a quick run down the stairs once or twice a week when I want to change it from TSN sure beats standing in the kitchen listening to the TV from the living room! Hope this helps ya, it was worth every effort I put into it!