How to Send a Video and Audio Signal Over Patch Cable

by fransch3

21K4310

Intro: How to Send a Video and Audio Signal Over Patch Cable

in this my first Instructable I will show you how to send an audio and video signal over a patch cable.

I used a modded Xbox as a media player with a network cable running around the room to play all my backup copies of movies. The Xbox just started giving service code 13 and 16 and seems like too much hassle to fix at the moment

I have a very old Radeon 9200 graphics card with a video out slot installed in my PC. because of the layout of the room the computer is on one wall and the TV is on the other approx 10 Meters away. I wanted a cheap solution for the kids to keep watching their movies with out having to bring the video player and videos back.

STEP 1:

I have removed 2 network ports from old network cards I had lieing around. sorry about the quality of this picture.

STEP 2:

cut an old cable in half and prepare the cut end by stripping and tinning each of the wires

STEP 3:

choose a layout for your pins. I have used pin 1 and 2 for video signal. pin 5 and 6 for one audio signal and 7, 8 for the other. If this was a long term installation i would use heat shrink on each of the terminals. I found it best to hold the network port in a vice and attach one side first. Then turn it round for the other side. I also considered that I could get away with joining all the Neutrals which would be a good idea if i was using an Straight Through (4-wire) Economy Patch CableStraight Through (4-wire) Economy Patch Cable

STEP 4:

Repeat the process with the other half of the cable. tape up and attach to both ends of a patch cable.

STEP 5:

Now sit back and enjoy. the graphics card is set up so that it will go into theatre mode when a video file is detected. I also have the added bonus that I can surf on a larger screen

10 Comments

charlieb000 14 years ago

i used RF cable... put the video and stereo audio into the AV of a vcr and then transfer the signal via the cable to the tv, tune the tv into the vcr and you got picture., you can have a whole bunch of signals on the same cable if needed.

equinox55 15 years ago

Do you know how to hook up a VGA to a RCA cord so I can go from my computer to tv

fransch3 15 years ago

I have found lots of comments on line about how to do this but i have not been able to get it to work. the big problem is that the VGA card is putting out dot's and your TV see's lines. it is possible in theory to sync the 2 signals together by using a resister across certain pins but in practice...? I work in an electronic retailers store and every Saturday we get lots of people asking exactly this question (well more a sing song sound bite :-) "PC to TV"). to be honest we have one device that will do this (it also takes power from a usb socket) but the loss of quality doing it this way means that you would be better changing the card to one that has an s-video or phono outlet. From experience unless your TV has a VGA socket it can only be used for watching movies and music and showing You Tube videos. problems that you face are Font size, Icon size color temperature and general size format issues. Having said that I have uploaded all the pictures of my latest project using S-video this time which is a lot sharper. I just need to write the instructable now.

puttsy 14 years ago

Hey, Just a quick comment about your title. It seems to be a bit misleading. A Patch cable can refer to many different types of cables including TRS-to-TRS, TS-to-TS, XLRM-to-XLRF, and many others involving more than audio/video. Great Instructable but the title doesn't quite explain the project. I was about 99% going in that it would be a network cable since most consumers commonly mistake it for being the only "patch" cable but patch cables have been around much longer than Ethernet cable. Take phone switchboards for example. Anyway, great instructable, has some nice info, but in the future, you may want to consider using more professional terms instead of standard consumer terminology. Even Prosumer terminology would be more specific. This, however shows even more of the versatility Cat5 cable has to offer.

grantaccess 15 years ago

That's a great idea and I will definitely be trying it out. thanks.

S1L3N7 SWAT 15 years ago

My graphics card has an S-Video out jack on it, do you think this can be done to an S-Video cable too, cause that would be sweet. Great idea by the way!

fransch3 15 years ago

yeah should not be a problem I've been told by the lads at work and you will get a better image. I'm happy at the moment though but just googled pin outs and found this suggestion Pin Out S-Video Luma: 7 & 8, pair 4 S-Video Chroma: 4 & 5, pair 1 Audio Channel 1: 1 & 2, pair 2 Audio Channel 2: 3 & 6, pair 3

S1L3N7 SWAT 15 years ago

Sweet! Thank you so much, now I got to find my S-Video Cable.