Product type: Video balun that converts 75 ohm coaxial video to UTP wiring
Product home page: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/s ... r.85273703
Manufacturer: Not known
Price: $4.90
Place where bought: Dealextreme http://www.dealextreme.com/default.dx/r.85273703
Product description from home page:
- Cost efficient and convenient method for connecting shielded BNC devices using unshielded UTP Category/CAT 3, 5e, or 8 cables
- Supports UTP cables rated 2~24 AWG or better
- Use cheaply available unshielded cable instead of expensive shielded cables
- Works up to 1200 meters with powered amplified receivers, up to 100 meters without powered amplified receivers
My comments:
This product does what it promises to do.
It converts the video signal into format that can be transported through unshielded twisted pair wiring.
I did some testing with 200 meters of CAT 5e UTP wiring and video from a small color video camera (PAL) to a small video monitor.
The video quality was good.
I opened one of the units and saw that there was a small three coils toroid transformer + three 1 kohm resistors inside.
Those together do the unbalanced-balanced conversion and 75ohm-100ohm impedance matching.
This device will pass through signals from DC to 10 MHz.
This device does not provide galvanic isolation between UTP and coax sides.
Good things on this product is that this works well and is really cheap: you get a pair of them with less than $5 (including shipping).
The construction quality seems to be OK. Those devices are completely passive, so I don't need to provide power to them.
Considering the price those products are excellent value for money (I have seen quite similar looking products sold elsewhere are around 50 Euros per pair).
