Since the early datacom years (circa 1984), baluns (BALanced-Unbalanced) have played a key role in the migration from coax-based cabling systems to structured twisted pair cabling systems (SCS). In fact, the largest adopter of unshielded twisted pair (UTP) technology today is the Ethernet LAN industry. Prior to 10/100BaseT becoming a standard, companies such as MuxLab were developing baluns to adapt earlier Ethernet cabling standards (10Base5 and 10Base2) to unshielded twisted pair.
A balun is basic cabling device that interfaces with a structured cabling system, providing the essential link between traditional coax-based equipment and copper twisted pair cable. Its importance lies in its relative simplicity and its ability to passively or actively connect a wide range of data/video equipment to a pre-existing copper twisted pair cabling infrastructure, thereby overcoming the inherent limitations of UTP and preserving the investment in the cabling system. Over the past ten (10) years balun technology has started to make inroads into the traditional audio-video arena. Today balun technology is having a major impact on the way audio-video (AV) equipment is installed.
Figure 1: Typical Video Balun
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