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[Steve Alves]

Adding two projectors onto our stage rig. Want to send two video feeds from front of house. I want to do it over some sort of a reel snake. Will need about 200'. What are my options and what will give me the most bang for the buck.

Composite, Component, BNC, Fiber??

Product suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks

[Thomas Lamb]

What is your source? What is your input? We often do SDI I'VE BOIGHT BELDEN 1505f on reels from Markertek. We then use converters at the ends that do not have SDI. Analog or HDMI to SDI at the source end and SDI to analog or HDMI at the projector. I've used several different converters the black magic ones have served us well.

[Steve Alves]

Coming out of a new macbook pro with retina. It has hdmi out or I have the DVI out also. I am probably going to get something like a matrox dualhead2go but am not sure yet.

[Thomas Lamb]

Coming out of a new macbook pro with retina. It has hdmi out or I have the DVI out also. I am probably going to get something like a matrox dualhead2go but am not sure yet.

2 black magic HDMI TO SDI CONVERTERS at the computer
2 black magic SDI to analog at the projectors
2 belden 1505f xxx'
You would be good to go.

[Steve Alves]

Ouch, unless I am looking at the wrong black magic, that seems really expensive.. Well over $1000 just in converters..

Did I miss something?

[Bojan Bajsic]

no you didn't. But its reliable and can do 200+ ft runs (2000 for all i care) without problems.

The cheaper route would be
- a macbook thunderbolt (or whatever it is called) to VGA adapter
- and then either run through 200 ft of vga (rgbhv) cable
- or vga-2-CAT5 transmitter -> 200ft of CAT5 cable -> CAT5-2-VGA receiver (there are some that have two VGA outs, or you could just feed the signal into an inexpensive 1:2 splitter)

the Cat5 transmitter/receiver combo can be anywhere from 100$ (Aten or whatever chinese) to 600$+ (like some Extron models).

Both SDI and Cat5 routes get discussed here every 5 threads (There are at least 3 threads on the first page about the exact same situation...), maybe one should do a sticky about "Long video cable runs"

re,

[Thomas Lamb]

Sorry. You didn't give me a budget! As mentioned it is reliable. Yes catv is a possibility (some love it! I'm not a fan). The next possibility is the VGA to RGBHV route! However, 200' of decent quality cable on a reel won't be cheap that way either! It will be just as (if not more so in some situations) as the SDI option.

[Brad Weber]

Coming out of a new macbook pro with retina. It has hdmi out or I have the DVI out also. I am probably going to get something like a matrox dualhead2go but am not sure yet.

The DualHead2Go would make both projectors appear to the laptop as one wide display that is split across the two projectors with half the image on each projector.  Is that what you want or did you want the same laptop image displayed on both projectors?

2 black magic HDMI TO SDI CONVERTERS at the computer
2 black magic SDI to analog at the projectors
2 belden 1505f xxx'
You would be good to go.

Good to go only if you are not presenting any protected content.  You may want to verify how the MacBook Pro reacts if the DualHead2Go used is HDCP compliant as some Apple products automatically enable HDCP if connected to a HDCP device and then you would get nothing out of the HD-SDI converters.


I would tend to use good CAT/UTP extenders (Magenta Research, Extron, FSR, Hall Research, Kramer, etc.).  Depending on where the projectors are relative to one another you might be able to have one long CAT run with the DH2G or a HDMI DA at the projectors or you may need to have the DH2G or HDMI DA at the laptop with two runs to the projectors.  Use something like http://www.rapcohorizon.com/p-92-duracat-cable.aspx or http://shop.klotz-ais.com/quickorder/artikelpdf/RC5__e.pdf for the CAT cable.

[Steve Alves]

Using GrandVJ on the macbook. So protected content wont be an issue. Here is a thought, do not know if it is feasible or possible.

What if the DualHead2Go was at the stage with the projectors? Then one long Thunderbolt cable??

[Thomas Lamb]

Using GrandVJ on the macbook. So protected content wont be an issue. Here is a thought, do not know if it is feasible or possible.

What if the DualHead2Go was at the stage with the projectors? Then one long Thunderbolt cable??

I think that's going to be more expensive. If that is even possible with thunderbolt.

I see you don't have a HDCP issue (I never run protected content so don't really think about it)

RGBHV is my second choice. I'm sure Brad is right and the new CATV solutions are solid one day I will try it again. I just was burned BAD once (in all fairness really at the infancy of the product)
For you any of these solutions will work. No e of them are "cheap".

[Steve Alves]

Looks like I should be able to purchase a 330' Thunderbolt cable pretty soon.

http://www.corning.com/news_center/news_releases/2013/2013010702.aspx

[Brad Weber]

I see you don't have a HDCP issue (I never run protected content so don't really think about it)

Unfortunately, it is not always a factor of the content but sometimes of the hardware.  Some devices like the Mac mini apparently enable HDCP whenever they see they are connected to a HDCP compliant device rather than only when the content calls for it.  Because HDCP is then enabled, if you have something not HDCP compliant after that such as an HDMI-to-HD-SDI converter, CODEC, etc. then those devices can't receive any HD signals.  The newer Matrox DualHead2Go Digital ME and Digital SE versions are HDCP compliant thus they could trigger such a response from some sources.

This has gotten to be such a common issue that AMX, Cretsron and others making digital media routers have included the option to turn off HDCP for individual inputs.  It means those inputs cannot accept HDCP encrypted content but it also means they will not trigger the source device to enable HDCP.

[Thomas Lamb]

I didn't realize that. We run content mostly from MacBook pros and iMacs but have a few minis that I have not had a issue with yet and most of them do run through the system I described. Good to have that to think about should I run into a issue in the future.

[ProSoundWeb Community]