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Video Installations

Do you need a Video, Security Camera or Satellite TV Video Distribution System?

Want to watch HDTV or Satellite TV on multiple TVs in your business, bar or restaurant? Want to view security cameras or play a promotional DVD for customers or employees? A video distribution system can make it happen.

There are many options, and we can design a system that meets your needs. Call or email us today for a free quote or read on for more details on the different options:

Video distribution systems traditionally have been systems that distribute your cable TV or roof-top antenna to TV sets in different parts of your business. We use RG-6 quad shielded coax cable in our installations, since it is the highest quality cable, and it has the best noise rejection capabilities. We also run two cables to every location. This allows flexibility and expansion to be built into the system. But today, video distribution systems are capable of distributing other video sources (Security cameras, Satellite, VCR, DVD or HDTV) to multiple TVs in your business. There are several ways to distribute video:

  • Analog Modulators—A modulator is a device that takes low-level video, and modulates onto a channel that can be viewed on any TV in the system. A modulator can modulate onto any unused channel and is made by a company called Channel Plus. Channel Plus makes modulators that can modulate 1 or more video devices onto any channel that you want. You simply connect the audio and video outputs of your VCR, security camera or DVD to this device, and connect it's output to the cable system. So your VCR could be on channel 50, the Video security camera on channel 52, and the DVD player on channel 54! Since this method of video distribution runs over standard Coaxial cable and you can use any old TV that has an analog tuner, it is a nice low cost alternative. Because of the change to Digital TV (DTV), analog modulators don't make much sense anymore. There are now some HDTV versions available but they are more expensive.
  • HDTV Modulators--Digital versions are now available from a company called ZeeVee so that higher quality video (Component or HDMI) can be modulated on to the cable system within the building. These are expensive, but work quite well as long as the TVs all have HDTV tuners.
  • Composite Video—If you have a newer TV set, chances are that it has line level or composite video inputs. So, instead of using the channel 3 or 4 modulator in your VCR, you probably have it connected to your TV by connecting the "Video Out" on your VCR to "Video In" on your TV set. This is composite video! The reason you connect it this way is because line level video has better picture quality than if you use the modulated output. So, in a composite video distribution system, you distribute the "Video Out" of your VCR or other devices like security cameras to all of the TV sets in the system! The down side to this method, is that the video quality, although better than modulated, is not very good. Also, all of the TVs in the system must have a line level video input, which are found on many newer TVs but not all.
  • Higher Quality Video Distribution—Composite video is fine for some applications like security cameras, but what if you want to distribute high quality video from a central DVD player or HDTV receiver? Component, HDMI or DVI Video Distribution is what you want. Companies like Channel Plus make products that will distribute high quality video and digital audio over a Cat5 or higher cable. It is a 2-part system, the transmitter part would go next to the DVD player, and the receiver would go near the TVs that you want to view the DVD player on. So the DVD player will connect to the transmitter via S-Video, Component, HDMI or DVI Video connections, and a Coax or Fiber Optics cable for the digital audio connection. The TV would connect to the receiver using the same connections. There are also large switching devices that can switch multiple HDTV inputs to multiple HDTV outputs, and these devices are coming down in price.
  • Satellite TV Distribution—Satellite TV can be distributed throughout the system in several ways. The easiest way would be to put a separate satellite receiver by every TV. Then you would use a device called a Multiswitch that takes an input from the satellite dish, and splits it into 4, 8 16 or more satellite receiver outputs. The other option is to put a receiver or receivers in a central location and distribute the audio/video using one of the above methods (Modulator, Composite, Component, HDMI or DVI distribution).
  • HDTV Distribution—HDTV distribution can be done in several ways. It really depends on how you are receiving the HDTV signals. If you have an Antenna that receives local broadcast HDTV signals and TVs in your business that can receive these signals (so they have built in HDTV or digital tuners) then it is very easy to do. All you need is Coax cabling to all of your TV locations, and a good antenna installed on your roof. If you get your HDTV content from a Satellite TV or Cable TV provider, then you can use the same cabling as long as you put a Satellite or Cable TV box at each TV location. You could also just use one Satellite or Cable TV box and distribute the HDTV content throughout the system using a Video distribution system (see Component, HDMI or DVI Distribution above).
  • Distribution Amplifiers—Distribution amplifiers come in many different forms, but all do basically the same thing. It doesn't matter if you are distributing Composite, Component, Digital or Satellite video to multiple TV locations, there are amplifiers that will make sure that the video looks good on all TVs.
  • Video Switching—Want to be able to take multiple video sources (DVDs, Satellite Receivers, Security Cameras) and select which TVs in the system view them? Video switching allows you to control where the video is displayed. Let's say that you own a bar and have 20 TVs and 4 Satellite receivers each showing a different sporting event. By using video switching, you could have game 1 on 2 TVs, game 2 on 4 TVs game 3 on 5 TVs and game 4 on 9 TVs! There are many options here, but some video switchers only support the same types of video (composite to composite or component to component) and some will up-convert all types of video to VGA or some high resolution image. So you could connect composite, component, HDMI and VGA devices in to the system and see them all on a computer monitor or flat screen TV!