Need advice on getting a better video signal

[FocusMM]

Hello everyone. I am needing some advice on how to get a better quality video with the equipment we have.

Here is our setup: We have two Panasonic DVX100B cameras in the auditorium. The output is the composite output and is fed to our control room via RG-59, traveling about 125 feet. In the control room it passes through a preview monitor and into a Panasonic MX-50 switcher. The output of the switcher is RG-59 connected via BNC and is then input to a JVC BR-DV600U where the service is recorded onto a Mini-DV tape.

I have placed a tape in the cameras before and compared what was recorded on the camera tape to the one recorded in the control room. We are losing quality in the control room, mainly the picture is darker and slightly fuzzy compared to the tape from the camera.

Does anyone have any ideas how we can boost the signal or get a better quality final product? Are the DVX100B cameras capable of pushing the video signal that distance? We need to get this resolved because our next step is to send the video output back to the auditorium to be displayed on the side projectors.

Thank you

DeWayne Towe
Life Church
Danville IL

[Arlin]

First thing I would try is replacing the RG-59 with some good RG-6, maybe even RG-6 quad shield.
RG-6 is fairly cheap and easy to terminate.
After that, maybe try adding a composite video DA or booster near the camera.

[tdangelo]

Are you loosing color or is the image darker? If loosing color the change of cables may help. If darker I would suspect termination issues as well as or loss in the MX50. The MX50 is known for being pretty poor regarding video gain structure.

[SterlingAug]

I stopped recording to tape since I moved our iMac to the video booth. I added a 4-pin HDMI to 9-pin HDMI cable and I direct capture the video from the HD camera directly to the hard drive on the Mac. I saved about 2 hours of processing time every week.

[FocusMM]

tdangelo,

The majority of the loss is in the brightness and sharpness of the picture. The color does diminish a bit but is minimal. I spoke with a rep that we buy equipment from and he suggested that we install a balun at the camera to convert the composite to cat5 to run to the control room, then have another balun to convert back to composite. But I have read online that coax would give a better signal path than the cat5? Is this true? So should we boost the signal with some type of amplifier like one of the other posts stated? Or replace the MX-50?

Thanks

[tdangelo]

Is there anyway to unplug the camera from the cable it is currently on and take it directly to your switcher and plug it into the same input on the switcher with a 10' or so new cable? That will be a good test to see if it is actually a cable issue or not. Based on your description, I don't think it is (at least to the extent you are not losing chroma/color).

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by tdangelo

Is there anyway to unplug the camera from the cable it is currently on and take it directly to your switcher and plug it into the same input on the switcher with a 10' or so new cable? That will be a good test to see if it is actually a cable issue or not. Based on your description, I don't think it is (at least to the extent you are not losing chrom/color).

It could also be the aggregate loss of the one long run, the loop through on the monitor, the mixer and all the related terminations. I agree that trying to narrow down the problematic component(s) makes sense before doing anything.

[DTV-Engineer]

Even 125' of low grade RG-59 shouldn't create as severe a problem as the original post suggests; this sounds a lot like the signal is being double-terminated. A proper signal path contains one, and only one, termination: so if your camera output connects to your monitor, and the monitor's loopthrough continues to the switcher input, it is important that the monitor not also terminate the line. You will generally see a switch labeled something like "TERM" or "75 ohm", which should be off unless the video ends there. The switcher has an internal termination which is always present.

On the RG-59 versus RG-6 issue, the only significant difference you will find is in the chroma level: luminance is determined mainly by low frequency response where there is little difference between cable types. If you are finding that your colors are muted, improving the cable can help -- but there is also the downside that while good RG-59 is pretty flexible, RG-6 is less so. This could pose a problem at the camera end.

Finally, the internal processing in the MX-50 is not particularly high quality, especially by the standards of contemporary equipment -- so you will definitely see a difference in sharpness between the component video recorded within the camera, versus the composite output of the switcher.

-- Jeff

[SterlingAug]

Originally Posted by SterlingAug

I stopped recording to tape since I moved our iMac to the video booth. I added a 4-pin HDMI to 9-pin HDMI cable and I direct capture the video from the HD camera directly to the hard drive on the Mac. I saved about 2 hours of processing time every week.

Sorry for the confusion, the cable is a 4-pin firewire to 9-pin fireware.

[Borggren]

My experience with mini DV and DVCAM tape formats, is that if you feed a composite signal with a bad signal/noise ratio to your recorder, you will get a fuzzy and bad looking picture. Your recorder is decoding the composite signal to component, then converting to digital, and then compressing and encoding the signal before it is going to the tape, so you cannot afford to feed a bad quality signal to the recorder.
The MX50 is absolutely not improving the signal quality.
I am sure that the best first step would be changing the MX50 with a better quality switcher.
Changing the cables will only do very small improvements.
If you can see that the picture quality is bad on a small monitor, it will be very bad on large screen.

[FocusMM]

If we end up going the route of replacing the MX50, what would be a good alternative, without breaking the bank? We really only need 3-4 inputs and a couple of outputs. No other bells and whistles like Keying, Fancy wipes. Just the ability to handle an audio feed and fade between inputs through a Take button or T-bar.

[tdangelo]

As others have said and I would agree, my guess is that the majority of your issues are related to termination, not the camera, cables or switcher. That said, my experience with every MX50 I have seen (which is about 10 that I have used) is that they make the image look soft, darker, or both).

If I was getting rid of the MX50 I would not replace it with a standard definition switcher. I think that's a poor investment. I would replace it with a HD switcher. In your input/output class I like Panasonic's HS400, HS410, HS450 and HS50. I have had very good experiences with both the latest NewTek Tricasters and For-A's offerings. I have never used a Ross switcher, but I know many people who have bought them and have very good things to say about them. Personally I am wary of Blackmagic's switcher (and camera) offerings. I know that some might dissagree with me on this, but I see many things in their designs which proves to me that they have a grasp on post-production but don't have a clue as to how production people actually use equipment. I have also heard from people I trust that their build-quality on the switchers is not that great.