Prewiring for Projector (1 Viewer)

[Joe Dorough]

Good morning. I have a question concerning prewiring for a home theater. I have a room which is 18 by 19 in my basement and I am in the process of prewiring it for a HT. I am about through with the electrical and wiring for speakers (going with 2 front, 2 wall and 1 rear speaker). My game plan is to have a projector located about 10 to 12 feet away from the wall where I plan to locate a screen. I imagine that my basic sources for the projector will be DVD and CATV. From what little I have read it seems like the best way to go is plan to have a A/V reciever feed into the projector. My question at this point is what type of wire do I run from about where my reciever will be to the location where my projector will be? That distance will be about 30 feet. I have been told that I need RGB video component cable but I haven't found any that long at the local 5 and dime. Is that truely what I need and who are typical suppliers for that length?

any help is appreciated
Joe

 

[mark alan]

I have a svideo cable and component cables running to my projector. I would recommend making your component cables out of 75 ohm coax cable with appropriate connectors. Do a search here or on the avsforum and you can find detailed instructions on making cables. It quick, easy, fun, and you get a much higher quality cable at a much lower price.

Since I have a drop ceiling, I didn't have to plan for the future. If you are putting a permanent ceiling, you may want to think about dvi connection and possible computer connection. Better yet, run pvc pipe to provide a raceway for future, unknown connections.

Also, don't forget you will need an electric outlet in your ceiling, and I would strongly recommend a surge protector.

 

[Bill Lucas]

Joe,

You don't get to pick the throw distance. It depends on the projector and screen size you choose.

The *best* way to wire the system is to use a video processor between the sources and the projector. Putting a receiver in the video chain adds no quality to the image. I would invest in a DVI cable. I'd also put in two runs of Extron 5 BNC (Mini-HR) cable. This cable can be configured and terminated as component, S-Video, composite or it can carry a computer signal. I'd also install a conduit to the head-end for future wiring considerations. Good luck.

 

[Bob Hill]

I totally agree with Bill. If you have the option, running some large conduit so you can snake whatever cabling you need to the projector is the abosolute best way to go. I have upgraded my projector cabling twice already and this makes things very easy.

 

[Neil Joseph]

I used a conduit in my setup and I would do component, s-video, and composite runs (for a possible VCR hookup), plus a run for HDTV as well just in case.

 

[JohnWR]

I got on ebay and found a 30 foot component, s-video, and composite cable (less than 70.00 for all 3) and ran them all together to my projector. With my Denon receiver, or any decent receiver, you can switch multiple sources through these, i have dvd and hdtv on component, vcr on s video and put games through the composite

 

[Bill Lucas]

Just to make the point again. You absolutely *can* switch video through a receiver to send to a projector. It is in no way the optimal way to send the video signal. In a perfect world you would send every signal to a video processor that would then send the projector each source converted to the projectors native resolution. Anything less DOES compromise the image. Regards.