Has anyone got a link or made their own S-video cable?

[DrewKaree]

I lost my bookmarks in my format, but I didn't have a choice.  It's the one thing I didn't back up

I KNOW I had found a page on how to make an S-video cable from Cat5 shielded, and I'm fairly certain it was from a home theater customization site, because the lengths they were building were ~50'. 

I'm gonna need an S-video connector cable, and would like one somewhere in the 25' range, so I need to find this again.  A PS/2 extender cable works, but not for those lengths, and I haven't found one longer than 15' either.

Has anyone done this or can point me in the right direction?  All efforts on my part have led to me figuring out how to make an S-video to RCA cable, but I can't locate anything like what I'm talking about, and I KNOW it exists

[NanoMonkey]

I searched for a while to find 20+ ft. S-Video cables. Two sites that sell them are:
http://www.totalsignal.com 25' for approx. $17 shipped
http://www.monoprice.com 25' for approx. $12 shipped
The cables from totalsignal look to be better quality, but it's hard to tell from just a picture. I have not compared the cables; I ended up putting my project on hold for the time being, so I never ordered a cable from either site.

Hope this helps.
~NanoMonkey

[tivogre]

This is an EXCELLENT quality cable:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=181-682

$18.40 for a 25' length.

[brian23]

You can try this:

http://www.smarthome.com/7805S.html

Or this:

http://girasoli.org/albums/web-projects/aak.jpg

[quarterback]

http://girasoli.org/albums/web-projects/aak.jpg

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[DrumAnBass]

50 ft s-video for $24:

http://www.pacificcable.com/S_Video.htm

[Hoopz]

This may be a stupid question but I am not very famillar with video cables.  Is there any loss of signal for an extended legnth like this?

[whammoed]

CableWholesale has some too:
http://www.cablewholesale.com/catalog/s-videocables.htm

Drew, are you just trying to save $12 bucks by making one or are there other reasons?

[DrumAnBass]

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Video :

"S-Video signals tend to degrade considerably when transmitted across more than 5 meters of cable with some cheaper S-Video cables."

[DrewKaree]

Yes, but the site I saw laid out how to do it using shielded Cat5 cable and had no noticeable signal degradation until they hit the 50-60 foot mark.  At 50, the "purist" type person started to dislike the signal, but everyone could agree that 60' was the limit for the cable.  This was for S-video only.

The reason they were using Cat5 was its ease of running it through walls.

That's what I'm really looking for - diagrams/examples of creating my own cable.  I know I could buy something, but I've got other uses I want to use the Cat5 cable for, and the places I've seen that sell the stuff I need have a smallest-size of a 250' spool.  I have a use for that much, but without the diagrams/examples of the S-video, there's 75' going to waste.  Obviously I can find some future use for it, but I was really hoping to find that damn web page again.  There were some other VGA hacks I was considering on there too.

And to probably derail this thread and pray I find an answer to all these questions.....anyone use an online bookmark "service" that they like?  Chipmark seems to suck big time, and I don't want to have this happen again. 

Oh, and that S-video balun WOULD work, but if I have to shell out money to buy one of those things, I'd just rather sink that money into more cable or connectors.

Thanks so far for all the help guys.  I'm hoping someone amongst us has the silver bullet I'm looking for

Drew, are you just trying to save $12 bucks by making one or are there other reasons?

Man, I'm lagging from being up so friggen long!  I just realized my post didn't go through cuz you answered!

Yeah, the money isn't really the issue, in fact, the cable isn't all that cheap.  Ease of pulling through walls and running audio as well are the reasons I'm looking for this again.  I just also happen to have a use for an S-video cable and figured I'd kill 2 birds with one stone

[DrewKaree]

The standard Cat5 stranded is almost useless for this application, IIRC.  It's the shielded or....sleep is setting in....whatever the heck makes this particular Cat5 special, that makes it useful for stuff. 

I'm gonna be pulling wire through an existing house for somebody, and the guy's one of those fussy freaks who's always asking you "why are you using that instead of x" when you know the guy doesn't know ANYTHING about the answer you're giving him.

I could tell him "because grapes that are grown on Mars have half the radioactive content of a Pop Tart" and the only reason he'd question the answer is because he's heard the words "grapes", "Mars", and "Pop Tart"

[Barkuti]

Looking for the AV Science Forum?

RGBHV over shielded Cat 5 success!

That's the thread that got me into building my own Sub D-15 -> SCART RGB connector, using shielded Cat 5e (FTP cable, Foil screened Twisted Pair). I made it 16,5 feet long and the video quality is jawdropping. I have a shielded audio cable running in paralell with it. You can notice a slight audio signal loss through all that lenght, but the video is excellent.

Doing S-video is even easier, only 2 signals plus grounds.


Cheers

[DrewKaree]

Looking for the AV Science Forum?

RGBHV over shielded Cat 5 success!

Those are the ones I came across too in my searches.  The page I found started with a VGA pinout and somewhere in the links within that site were mo betta examples.  I may be relegated to foundering through it via AVS.

[Barkuti]

C'mon, making a cable is a very easy task. Connector pinouts are easily googled. You have plenty of wires in a FTP cable for your needs.

If your video source generates both S-video and composite signal, you can carry both in your FTP cable. No need for any kind of converter. Use all remaining spare wires as grounds, and wire all grounds together (shielding included). So, you could wire chroma, luma and composite signals, and yet have the shielding plus 5 wires as ground. Should work like a charm.


Cheers

[cholin]

One big thing though, make sure you keep the wires inside the cat 5 twisted as long as you can.  They retain their independance from noise better when they're twisted together....

Other than that, how hard can it be to make an S-video cable?  Buy a 6" male - male connector, cut 'er in half, attach your new wires and let em run through the house....

[DrewKaree]

It's not hard, in fact I found out you can use a PS/2 extender cord for the same purpose.  It's just one of those things, I guess.  For some reason, I feel the need to look at "THAT" page again.

[Barkuti]

Forgot to add. The wires inside these network cables come in coloured twisted pairs (hence the name). This is part of the secret, as running a ground very close in paralell with a signal line improves by a hefty amount the signal integrity at high frequencies, allowing much higher bandwidth transmission.

The classic color scheme is orange, green, blue and brown wires twisted to white/stripe coloured counterparts. For example, the wiring could be done like this:

Solid orange: Composite video
Striped orange: Ground
Solid green: S-video chroma
Striped green: Ground
Solid blue: Ground/unused
Striped blue: Ground/unused
Solid brown: S-video luma
Striped brown: Ground
SHIELD: Ground

If not carrying the composite signal, you can also ground both those wires too. Or just leave unused pairs unconnected, available for future use(s). A twisted wire ground per signal wire plus shield.

Hope this helps.


Cheers