OK my friend and his brother are opening up a new retail business, and I am helping with the equipment install (nothing fancy) of the video and audio. The set up will be 5 LCD monitors on the floor in different locations. What we need to do is run a hi-def signal into a video distribution component that will then take that one source and output up to 5 of the same signal. We have decided that component cables (or even co-ax as long as it is high-def) will be best as the runs will be some distance (less than 100 feet for the longest) and the whole HDMI over cat 5 can get really pricey.

My concern is signal degradation over 5 outputs and length. Given this scenario what do you suggest for us to do?

I sincerely appreciate you input as it would be a tremendous help.

You might ask the moderators to move this to the Home Distribution/Networking forum.
Perhaps some searching in that forum might work also

This might help:

http://cgi.videogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?procscal&1185465459&class&3&4&