Capturing with wireless audio/video transmitter?

[digital_frog]

Hi all,

I'm considering buying a home wireless audio/video transmitter (one of those gadgets that you can hook up to the back of your dvd/vcr/tv and get a remote signal on another tv in the house) and hook up the receiver to my pc's tv capture card in order to avoid all the messy cables.

I was wondering if anyone has set up a system like this and if the capture quality on the pc would be as good as, say, s-video. I don't want to sacrifice quality just for the sake of losing some cables but if the quality is the same (or at least better than coaxial) then it's worth it for me.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

DF

[Richard_G]

If you can find one with S-Video connections, it should be as good as using cables. I've only ever seen them with composite though.

[Redman66]

We purchased a 2.4GHz wireless setup from cctvproducts.com. The video is not bad if the Transmitter and Reciever are within , say, 10 ft. any further and video degrades rapidly every foot after. This was also indoors a Metal structure test facility with lots people using cell phones (same frequency) and a TELEX RF communications system. So we had more interference. We found it works great outdoors with line-of-sight good to about 1000 yards. it all depends on your surroundings. Check your home for anything wireless that may interfere. (Some cordless phones, most cell phones, wireless networking within the same frequency.) Otherwise find a good price on one or even better borrow or demo one from a manufacturer.

[Redman66]

Oh yeah, Richard is right, i've only seen component/composite (RCA) inputs as well.

[digital_frog]

Thanks for the input. Actually the ones i was considering are from Trust, either http://www.trust.com/home/default.htm?viewpage=products/product.htm%3Fartnr%3D13814%26show%3D1 which uses scart which i guess is slightly better than composite (although I'm assuming the signal loss might bring the quality down to composite or worse) or this one http://www.trust.com/products/product.htm?artnr=12351 .

I think they both use scart and/or composite (problem is my tv tuner card only has composite or s-video but I guess i can get an s-video to scart adapter + rca for audio).

But more importantly what i understand from your posts is that quality will suffer depending on interference (wireless phones, mobiles etc which do exist in the house) so cables are still the best option?

Thanks again,

DF

[Redman66]

From what i've used, yes. Quality will suffer slightly. Interference will make it much worse. We were trying to get away from using long sets of cables as well, but with the quality loss, its just not worth it yet. We're actually started playing around with Fiber optics. Still not wireless, but has more potential for clear video. I think when wireless video gets into higher frequencies (4ghz>), we should see better/lossless video quality.

[bugster]

I think they both use scart and/or composite (problem is my tv tuner card only has composite or s-video but I guess i can get an s-video to scart adapter + rca for audio).


Thanks again,

DF

Scart cables can carry composite/S-video or RGB. It all depends on which pins are connected. The use of Scart does not guarantee any particular signal type.