What does Signal Loss look like on S-video?

[Negativecreep0]

so I ran some cable from my bedroom to my basement cat5 cable and used those quick connect ports to make s-video outlets on my wall, so now my computer upstairs dishes out s-video signal to my tv downstairs, the only thing is when it goes over this 50 foot run of wire, the picture that comes on the tv has little crosshatching lines over everything? like a big grid on my tv? when i plug the pc direct into the compute without going over that long run of wire the picture is fine? Is this degradation due to loss of signal over long run of wire? Should I get a s-video amplifier to remedy this? or is it due to something else? perhaps cat5 cable crossing a powerline or speaker wire line in the wall?

[TOK]

I think it's the CAT5 cable, nothing to do with the S-Video connector.

[Negativecreep0]

any ideas on how to clear the image up?

[TOK]

Replace the cable with RG-6. Sounds like the CAT5 is giving you a wicked impedence mismatch.
You're going to need something to convert the S-Video back to coax, or if your video card has RCA out (yellow) just use a couple of coax/RCA converters.

[Negativecreep0]

I am using quickports by leviton I dont know if your familiar with them, so it basically keeps everything behind my home entertainment center nice and neat.... Will the video from my pc to the tv look any different on a yellow rca plug than a s-video plug? I am mostly watching divx movies basically............

[TOK]

The composite (RCA) inputs don't look as crisp as S-Video on a standard short run -like 5' or so. The RCA is definitely better than results you're going to get over CAT 5 though.
 

[Negativecreep0]

since my run is only 50' will buying an amplifier fix the problem? or if I buy a nice quality 50 s-video cable would that cure the problem?

[J_K_M_A_N]

If you end up getting a long cable, I would suggest buying it here.

Monoprice

They have great pricing. I bought an HDMI cable from them for $5.xx and it worked great.

Good luck.

J_K_M_A_N

[TOK]

since my run is only 50' will buying an amplifier fix the problem? or if I buy a nice quality 50 s-video cable would that cure the problem?

That sounds like the ideal solution.