Optical cable runs?

Hi everyone. I've negotiated use of a good sized room that I can use as a studio, however, it's separated from the control room - about 20' away and around a corner. I'm exploring the idea of running optical between the control room, booth and this new studio space to move data and video between the rooms. Do any of you have experience with this sort of setup? Thanks for any thoughts, Shaun McArthur Riverhouse Sounds

shamca wrote:

Hi everyone. I've negotiated use of a good sized room that I can use as a studio, however, it's separated from the control room - about 20' away and around a corner. I'm exploring the idea of running optical between the control room, booth and this new studio space to move data and video between the rooms. Do any of you have experience with this sort of setup? Thanks for any thoughts, Shaun McArthur Riverhouse Sounds

Without specifics my first thought is that it would not be cost effective for that short a run. Andre

Hey Andre - good to hear from you again. I really have no details to give other than what's stated. I'm hoping someone has worked through this and can share relative costs, equipment, assumptions etc. Cheers, Shaun

I haven't actually done it myself, but I did quote optical snakes not too long ago for a church. Just looking at list prices my guess would be that a 32 channel optical cable setup would cost you around US$10,000, and the same thing in analog cable would cost maybe US$1,000. The cost is not in the distance that that optical cable runs, but in the A/D converters and pre-amps on the live-room end, plus the D/A converters or direct console interface on the control-room end. Optical only gets to be cost effective with really long cable runs, hundreds of feet, where the price of the multi-core analog cable rises drastically.

shamca wrote:

Hey Andre - good to hear from you again.

Same here.

I really have no details to give other than what's stated.

I hope you are joking. No idea of how many, or if at all of: line level audio mic level audio channels runs of cat5e cat6 rs232 USB Fireware or of video: image resolution refresh rate chroma sub sampling DVI compatibility HDMI compatibility

Soundman2020 wrote:

I haven't actually done it myself, but I did quote optical snakes not too long ago for a church. Just looking at list prices my guess would be that a 32 channel optical cable setup would cost you around US$10,000, and the same thing in analog cable would cost maybe US$1,000. The cost is not in the distance that that optical cable runs, but in the A/D converters and pre-amps on the live-room end, plus the D/A converters or direct console interface on the control-room end. Optical only gets to be cost effective with really long cable runs, hundreds of feet, where the price of the multi-core analog cable rises drastically.

Thanks Soundman - that's the sort of reality I was after. Shaun