littlejohn said:
Take a look at the spec for triax used by the TV folks as camera cable before it became a bitstream. It might have what you want.
I looked at that but I couldn't find any that had the number and combination of conductors that I need.
littlejohn said:
Cables To Go will make up pretty much any end plugs on how ever long of a wire you want, you might ask them about your needs.
I'll check them out. I'm not as concerned with the connectors as much as the cable. I can easily do the connectors myself, but nice clean composite cable pretty much requires a custom extrusion. For termination, I will probably create a breakout-box for the business end of the cable, and a patch-panel for the other end. The cables will have bulk connectors on both ends, probably a composite D-SUB connector such as Digikey part number
A34522. Then it will break out to 1) s-video, 2) composite video, 3) dual Mac-style Mini-DIN serial, 4) 12V power, 5) ethernet, 6) extra conductors for "on-air" lights, etc.
FYI - it's a camera network & control system that uses five Sony EVI-D100 cameras with a big Sony joystick control console (I don't remember the model number at the moment). It's the internet video streaming system for one of our radio morning shows. Our first one had/has three cameras, and has been online for about six months now, and as our crazy/fun goth/punk/pierced&tatooed video producer puts it, "it's da bomb". The second system I'll be installing will have five cameras because that morning show is spread out across three different studios, sometimes with guests and bands playing in the control room. This time around I want nice-looking, clean, & flexible cables because the cameras move around sometimes, and spiral wrap or split loom just looks bad, snags on everything, limits flexibility, and sometimes comes undone.
littlejohn said:
The machinery which jackets cable is expoensive though.. I don't think anyone is going to want to extrude something in the quantity you're talking about.
The manufacturers I mentioned all provide this service as part of their normal operations, but the catch is that it's a minimum of 1000 feet per order. But that's ok; we won't have any problem using that up. The upcoming project will have five cable runs, then I'll retrofit three into an existing installation, and then there will be another five for a future installation, and they will all be anywhere from 20-50 feet. Eventually we will have three morning shows wired up, for a total of 13 cameras, possibly more. I looked into this six months ago, and used the Alpha Cable "Online Configurator", and the computer-generated quote was something around $850.00, which I thought was pretty reasonable.
Alpha already has numerous stock types of composite cable, which are produced on their assembly line with their standard jacket extruder. For custom jobs, they just use different combinations of wire as ordered by the customer, so it's not a very difficult process. And as such, the price isn't that much more than the combined cost of whatever wire is being weaved in, plus a reasonable customization fee. I remember seeing some pictures on their web site of the extruder, and I think I once saw video of one actually running on the TV show "How It's Made" on Science Channel. It looks like a giant spinning robotic octopus with a thick black cable being yanked out of the top of its head and rolled up onto a spool.
littlejohn said:
Why not take individual cables, and put them in spiral wrap?
Did that. See above. Looks horrid, catches on things, etc. Also we sometimes have TV news/morning show crews come to tape/go live when we have a famous guests & musical artists performing in studio. We had the Jonas Brothers here a while back, and the place was packed with stars, security, jocks, and TV & newspaper photogs. There were about 20 people stuffed in the control room, another half-dozen in the producer studio, and a crowd in the hallway watching through the studio windows. So, since the cameras & cables hang from the walls & ceiling, I need them to look good.
