Digital Signage & Multimedia

Resolution and Refresh Rate
Video boards for PCs come in a wide array of different resolutions and screen refresh rates, and they all have an effect on what kind of video converter you need.

One of the most important specifications of your video board is screen refresh rate. If you’re unsure what type of video board you will be connecting to, you want a converter that converts screen refresh rates up to 75 Hz. With low-end converters, if you connect to a video board with a vertical refresh rate of anything other than 60 Hz, you have to reconfigure the video board, so it can send a 60-Hz vertical refresh signal.

Hardware Conversion vs. Software Conversion
Video converters can convert PC signals to video using hardware or software. Software conversion is less expensive than hardware conversion, especially where high quality and wide compatibility are not a priority. But conversion software can sometimes interfere with the graphics software you’re using. So if you’re going to use a software-based video converter, make sure your conversion software and your graphics and display software are compatible.

When you’re using a variety of hardware and software, hardware-based units are your best options for video conversion.

Portability
If you’ll be using your video converter for trade shows or other traveling presentations, consider portability carefully. It’s unlikely you’ll want to carry a four-pound video converter through an airport, even if it does offer the best resolution. Instead, choose a converter like our VGA to Video Portable Pro, which offers many of the features of our professional models in a more compact package.

To ensure the best video resolution, it’s important to match your video extension device with a compatible grade of cable. Some multimedia extenders are not designed to transmit video across cable that’s higher than CAT5. In fact, with these extenders, the higher-grade cable may actually degrade video.

The problem is with the cable twists of CAT5e and CAT6 cables. To reduce signaling crosstalk, these higher-grade cables have tighter twists—and more of them—than CAT5 cable does. For this reason, the wire distance that an electrical signal has to travel is different for each pair. This doesn’t normally cause a problem with data, but if you’re sending higher-resolution analog video signals across long cables, you may see color separation caused by the video signals arriving at different times.

To avoid this, you could use only the lower-grade cable with the extenders. But what if you already have CAT5e or higher cable installed in your building, or you simply want the latest and greatest copper wiring? Order an extender receiver that features built-in skew compensation so it can work properly with higher cable grades at longer distances.

Get premium-quality connectors from Black Box. The 24-karat gold plating ensures better signal transmission and no corrosion. The shielding and heavy gold conductors provide improved performance.