Video over cat5?

[coolpoppa]

Hi all, I'm new here, if there is already a post explaining this please direct me to it. I recently installed a home theater where I tried using a Cat5 cable as the video feed to the projector, rather than the normal 4 RG6 cables with compression ends on them. My reasons for doing this was as follows:
Had to fish through several joists, cheaper and easier than 4 coax lines, wanted to see if it would work.
Results:
Along with the cat 5 I ran an extension cord to power the projector. I soldered rca connectors on the ends of the 4 pairs, and checked each for a video signal before restoring the crown moulding. The picture quality seemed great when we watched Hoodwinked and the owner was very impressed with it. It also looked much nicer as well than a bunch of coaxes.
I read on another site selling baluns that if you do not use baluns the impedance would not match and you would get a jacked up picture. Is this the case? Is wiring video with only cat5 a ghetto solution?

[DigitalJunkie]

I've used Cat-5 in a few similar mysterious ways,for long audio/video runs,DC power and everything inbetween..Usually with acceptable results.
One trick,ground all of the un-used wires.It helps kill noise.
It may even be better to run two Cat-5 cables,that way you can ground half/most of the wires,and use the others for your signals.
Try to keep the pairs "paired up",Ground one of the twisted pair,and use the other for the signals..that way each signal wire is twisted with a ground wire,also helps reduce noise and crosstalk.
(For example,you might run a signal down the blue/white wire,and ground the solid blue wire,Another signal on green/white,ground solid green,etc.)

When I first got a Dial-up 'net account,I went out to the phone box on the side of the house,and grounded all of the unused wires. (They used cat-5 for the phone wiring here.) We had 2 lines,so only half of the conductors were used..I grounded the other 4 and the crosstalk in the phones went away(you could hear dialing on one phone,in the other phones earpiece!),and my modem connection went up! A pretty steady 50k+ connection speed,Before it was "stuck" at ~33.6k tops.

[coolpoppa]

Junkie- Thanks for the reply. A few questions tho. In my installation I used all the pairs to get 4 solder type rca connections 3 for component and 1 for composite. Forgive my ignorance but don't the rcas require 2 wires to send a signal? Sorry if I sound like an idiot, but could you explain the difference between ground and negative, and what the two connections used on the rca ends are (I assume either pos/neg or video signal/ground.) If I did run 2 cat5 how would I wire the video signals so they are properly grounded? Again sorry for the amature questions I'm picking this up as I go along.