Let's imagine a "video pipeline" running from the cable company's "headend" to your home. Your cable company built a system so that all of the water is allowed to pass through the system, resulting in a complete transmission of the entire video signal to your home.

The old proverb "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" becomes a reality the minute inferior equipment or too many loose connections become part of the cable signal system. Once some of the signal bandwidth is lost, it is not recoverable. Poor quality cables and loose connections can degrade the video image of the best, most expensive routing and display equipment.

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Coaxial cables, commonly called coax cables, are used by your cable provider to transmit video signals to your home. These cables (Diagram 2) are constructed in a special way to provide optimal signal transfer while insuring adequate shielding from outside interference. The center conductor (dielectric) of a coax cable carries the video signal and the outside conductor (shield) is used as a return wire and shield.

Center conductor thickness is called gauge and is specified as AWG (American Wire Gauge). The smaller the AWG number of a coax cable the better it is at transmitting high bandwidth signals. A smaller AWG means a thicker diameter wire, and in general a thicker wire gives better performance. After market resellers, home electronics stores, hardware stores, etc. do not sell coax cable that is of the same high quality used by your cable company.

Coax cable specifications rate characteristics such as impedance, attenuation, velocity of propagation and shielding percentage. A coax cable''s impedance must match the impedance of the source and destination equipment, which for most video systems is 75 Ohms. Attenuation is specified as the amount of signal decrease per 100 feet of cable at certain frequencies and is measured in decibels (dB). This specification correlates to the bandwidth of the cable. The velocity of propagation is determined by the insulator type used between the center conductor and the shield and is measure as a percent. This number shows the speed of the signal in the coax cable as compared to the speed of light in a vacuum. Shielding percentage shows the effectiveness of the outside shield and / or foil braid. The higher the percentage, the better the cable resists or emits signal interference.

Proper equipment selection is very important to your cable service provider when designing the visual system that brings the signal to your home. Each piece of equipment will slightly degrade the video image, and it is the system designer''s responsibility to assure that the equipment used minimizes the inevitable signal degradation.That''s why your cable company used only the very best cable and equipment available.

Let's imagine a "video pipeline" running from the cable company''s "headend" to your home. Your cable company built a system so that all of the water is allowed to pass through the system, resulting in a complete transmission of the entire video signal to your home.

The old proverb "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" becomes a reality the minute inferior equipment or too many loose connections become part of the cable signal system. Once some of the signal bandwidth is lost, it is not recoverable. Poor quality cables and loose connections can degrade the video image of the best, most expensive routing and display equipment.