RS422 - still with us! My notes

They print nicely - make them full page.

Scene Double 25pin-15pin SVGA

The guys at Scene Double are very helpful - we use a lot of their extenders for sending SVGA a long way and we had to make up a replacement 25 pin (D) - 15 pin (HD) cable. I emailed Ray;

I wondered if you could let us have the pinouts so I can quickly knock them up a new cable.

He replied with suitable engineering forthrightness!

I would not advise knocking up cables with mini coax.

Job done!

Tektronix WVR7120 audio pinouts

Why do Tek lock their PDFs?!

Notes to self - RS422 and balanced audio connectors

I've just finished a job that another SI had done some initial work on. Unfortunately (and although they had used cat5 patch panels) they hadn't used the pinouts that everyone else (Probel, Quartz etc.) uses for sending RS422 over cat5. Anyhow - here are the details in case you ever need to convert. Also - it's best to use the signal earth (pins 4 & 6) rather than the chassis ground (pin 1) - especially if you're running between areas.

Another thing - it's best to use 1/4¨ jacks on mixer inputs as increasingly mixers only have a subset of inputs with XLRs!

Best RS422 tester EVER!

This is the most useful piece of test kit I have ever made! I often have to buzz out RS422 machine controls and since every wireman gets the screens correct (pins 4 & 6 for the Tx & Rx screens) you can rely on them being where you expect. After that it's just a matter of having a 2k, 3k, 7k & 8k resistor on the appropriate pins and you can stick it at the end of the run and see where the pins are missing/swapped over by connecting your multimeter across pins 4 & 6 and the signal pins. I always have one handy (and they often get nicked!)

Bluefish AES breakout cable

We have to make these and I always forget the pinouts!

SCART pins and their functions

Since I use this blog as a repository (via the search box on the right - go on, give it a go!) and a colleague asked me about SCART pins today I thought I'd better squirrel the info away.

1. 1. AUDIO Output Right
2. 2. AUDIO Input Right
3. 3. AUDIO Output Left
4. 4. AUDIO Ground
5. 5. BLUE Video Ground
6. 6. AUDIO Input Left
7. 7. BLUE Video
8. 8. Function Switching (See Note)
9. 9. GREEN Video Ground>
10. 10. Comms.Data Line 2
11. 11. GREEN Video
12. 12. Comms. Data Line 1
13. 13. RED Video Ground
14. 14. Comms. Data Ground
15. 15. RED Video
16. 16. Blanking
17. 17. VIDEO Ground
18. 18. Blanking Ground
19. 19. VIDEO Output
20. 20. VIDEO Input
21. 21. Common Ground / Screen

Note: Pin 8 provides function switching. Applying 9.5-12V to the pin will cause a compatible TV or VCR to switch to the AV (SCART) input. It may also switch on the equipment from standby. Applying 0V or leaving unconnected will switch back to TV. Some TV's also use this pin to select the aspect ratio. Applying 5-8V to pin 8 will switch to 16:9 mode. This may be used by DVD players to set TV to correct ratio. Connect ground to pin 14 or pin 18.

Data sheets for the A450 audio switch and the Crystal Vision Demon pinouts - I use these all the time and never have the details to hand when I need them.

Tektronics WVR7100 & 6100 remote cables - we put in a load of these waveform monitors and I'm a big fan - you fundamentally can't get a more accurate video signal analyser. Anyhow - they come with dire warnings about how you can extend the optional control panel - essentially the manual suggests you should ONLY use the provided 8m cable - kinda daft when most edit suites are more than 30m away from the machine room!
So, here is the pinout for doing it over cat5 - pin 9 is the ground and pins 2 & 8 are +Vcc

9 - brown
8 & 2 - brown/white
1 - orange
3 - orange/white
4 - blue
5 - blue / white
6 - green
7 - green / white

I've tested it to 50m and it seems fine. In my case it is going via a patch in the machine room, a wallbox and a patch in the suite.

For a mid-90's vintage monitor,

Sony PVM monitor remote connectorI spent all day searching for this and my old colleague (from Oasis TV days) Darren Tucker (now chief engineer at Lip Sync) dug it out for me. The part is a HiRose HR10A connector - the RS part number for the twenty-pin male cable mount is 779-734. Sony have since moved on to using RJ45 and D-9 connectors for remote control. Before the 20-pin they used to have a square HiRose connector so it pays to look it up before you buy the ends (which are expensive!).

I'm upgrading a Yamaha 02R mixer - this is the AES pinout.

RS422 over cat5 cable
I cable a lot of TV facilities and the tendency nowadays is to use the ubiquitous cat5 data cable for carrying everything that doesn't require a better grade of cable. RS422 for machine control used to be universally carried on Star Quad cable but now cat5 does the job - here is the pinout I have settled on:

• I avoid the blue pair because that is often used to analogue voice and if you mis-patched you may wind up terminating a data pair in a low impedance.
• The brown pair often carries power in POE (Power Over Ethernet) implementations and if you mis-patch the sending switch sees a low impedance and shuts off the current.
• The orange and green pair carry the Tx and Rx pairs as per ethernet (which expects to see a 110 ohm termination).

That's why I do it thus!