Upcoming Ethernet Over Coax Test -- What Do You Want Us To Test?

It would be great to test in a real environment or at least to simulate one. One big advantage of the technology is probably to re-use existing installations. By experience we all know that the cabling of coax is far from being perfect on site (grounding for example). While analog cameras, transmissions and encoders were able to 'tolerate' a lot of these issues I would doubt it will be the same for EoC.

So 'playing' with the cables and the connectors, use of extension connectors or 'T' connectors would be a great input although I understand it will be difficult to quantify this from a test perspective.

thx

Vigitron MaxiiCopper.

I think any test of EOC devices should include Network Video Technologies new NV-EC1800 series. Not only does it work over Coax but UTP, STP and 18ga/2conductor wire.

One of my customers has standardized on NVT. It can use one transceiver at the head end and four in the field. Coax / TP - same product, just different adapters. We've had good luck with it and all of the configurations. I'd like to see it against other products.

http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=template&key=productfamily&ckey=eoc

http://www.nvt.com/content.php?type=template&key=productfamily&ckey=eo2

Hi Ethan, I would find it useful to know how much power the EoC converters use based on your measurements rather than nominal specs. One of the seemingly attractive reasons for using EoC must be to save costs on replacing old coax with Ethernet cable. However once the cost of EoC converters and their ongoing power consumption is taken into account, I wonder if the cost of recabling might look more attractive as well as eliminate potential technicalities introduced by EoC converters?

I would also like to know how well these EoC converters work with different grades of coax cables. When working with SDI video, I found that floppy SDI cables were OK for standard defintion video but not for the higher data rates of high definition and beyond. HD-SDI required better quality cables which felt much stiffer due to the wider copper core. I'm guessing EoC converters might have similar dependancies to work reliably.

Thank you in advance for what is already looking like a very interesting and useful test.

We have dozens of analog cameras that have coax on both the camera and head end side, with fiber in the middle. We’ve discussed how EoC would fair in this type of scenario? Also, how many EoC adapters support differing control protocols, namely Pelco C.

Tony,

As an NVT rep I am checking on the coax-fiber-coax scenario. I don't think there is an issue since we are dealing with Ethernet traffic. The design may differ depending on whether you are aggregating those cameras into an IDF after the first coax leg before converting to fiber or having to handle each camera individually to the head-end. Just a matter of what models for the application. Of course power would have to be available at each demarc point. The second part of your question about PTZ protocols would not really be relevant as you are no longer dealing with Analog video. With the EOC concept, you have already replaced the Analog cameras with IP. We are not dealing with Encoders here. Your control signals to the cameras would be Ethernet and not Pelco P, D or RS485.

Hope this helps.

NVT T-Bus, particularly the higher end managed models.

Just tossing in a couple thoughts here:

1. The cost of additional power for EoCs was mentioned... looking at the specs for a basic Altronix eBridge 1CRT, they state "12VDC/275mA, 24VDC/110mA, 16VAC/375mA, 24VAC/200mA." - in other words, around 3W. About the same as your average IP camera. Probably not enough to be a major cost factor.

2. I've used PoE eBridges over baluns before, quite by accident: installed them on both ends of a coax run, only to discover later that at one point the run went through station-Z (22/4, untwisted) using baluns. The camera was working flawlessly alongside two others that were using coax the entire length; in fact, the only reason I found out it went through baluns was in the process of tracing another run that was non-functional. Turned out THAT run had been disconnected at one of the baluns, and in fact, both coax feeds were passing through the same 22/4 wire. Those two cameras have been working problem-free for several months now.

Careful - if we disclose too much competitive info, someone could claim the $10,000 prize from Phybridge - http://www.phybridge.com/training/phybridge-challenge.html

Phybridge purchased NVT and the T-bus product is likely to be replaced with the Phybridge CLEER product.