Video Cabling 101

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tr3v

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#19283 11-Feb-2008 21:22

Hi - I need to hide the power and video cables that run from my media centre PC / home cinema amp up the wall to my plasma display. I need some suggestons / advice regarding video cabling, as I would like to have everything hidden away without any noticeable signal degradation.

I was thinking along the lines of having component video via wall mounted faceplates. Is this feasible, or should I be looking at some other type of cabling (HDMI? I do not need audio to the screen), or just feed a cable end-to-end through some form of conduit, thereby minimising the connection points.... The display has lots of options for connection, but my PC does not.

Could someone please point me in the right direction?

cyril7

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#110040 12-Feb-2008 09:19

Is the wall currently open (ie gib off) or closed. Is the media center to be more or less directly below the display (ie in the same stud space). My preference concidering all wall exists are normally hidden behind the media centre and panel display is to just place flush boxs and pull uncut/factory terminated cables between, less cable breaks the better. If you want to be a little more tidy then place a single or double mechless face plate on each flush box to tidy things up.

If the media centre and panel are above/below one another and the wall is currently not gibed then bash the 800mm nog out and turn it on its side, makes pulling cables in future much easier. And yes I would recommend a miniumum of 1xHDMI and 1xComponent, but if you can swing an extra component all the better. You should not overlook at least one audio pair, nothing worse than having to crank your AVR up just to hear the news.

Cyril

tr3v

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#110043 12-Feb-2008 09:33

Thanks for your reply Cyril,

The wall is closed, and the media centre is NOT directly below, so I have a rather tricky job of going through at least 3 studs to get from A to B. As you say, the cable exit points are both hidden so I am not bothered about how the faceplates look.

One other question... is there any rule of thumb for placing video cables near power? Can I run them along side each other, or is this to be avoided at all costs?

cyril7

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#110052 12-Feb-2008 10:25

The rules require that you give them 50mm of clearance, which you should attempt to do, that said in reality its pretty common that they come into contact with each other.

From a safety point of view the mains TPS has sufficient insulation to be safe, however most A/V cabling is only rated to 50V, in reality most is more than capable of 230V but rules are rules. From an interference point of view, unless the mains cable has a very large load on it there is unlikely to be any problems with a couple of ft of close coupling, but I always try to ensure the 50mm is observed and where possible 300mm.

One other point, a flush box carrying power must be seperated from a flush box carrying TELV/SELV (ie phone and <50V services such as ethernet, AV etc) by a solid and permant wall member. Therefore it is more proper to have a power flush box on one side of a stud and coax/ethernet/AV flush box on the other side of a stud. This way should a cable break loose from its termination (either power or SELV) then it cannot come into contact with 230V.

Cyril