Looking for advice on purchasing decent quality HDMI cables. I purchased a 50 ft. cable from Home Depot for about 75 bucks to feed a 60" monitor. Ran it in the wall. It didn't work. I had a 25 footer and it works, but isn't long enough. How do you guys deal with HDMI cable?
HDMI cables
- Thread starter ike5547
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No way bud, they'll squeeze another 25 posts out of this baby
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
- Location
- Tennessee NEC:2017
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrician
HeDidn'tMasterIt
Fulthrotl
~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
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- E
Home Depot Makes Insanity
the cable DID come from there.... sorta like original sin.
- Location
- Tennessee NEC:2017
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrician
Curious... what makes them directional at that length, or any length for that matter?
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
Something else to consider that may cost less, be easier to fish, or can possibly get more length is HDMI over dual cat5e/cat 6 cables baluns
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
50% chance of getting it right. Some are labelled "source" at the source end and "display" at the TV end. Harder to misinterpret that one.
With "input" it could be the input end of the cable or it could connect to the input jack on the TV.
Short HDMI cables are symmetrical and bidirectional.
Inexpensive long cables are too, but they have a length limit.
Expensive long cable, which push the 60' or so limit for "passive" cables have active electronics which amplify and contour the gain with frequency to get the best possible high speed digital signal out the other end. These are totally directional.
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
Warning: That site shows inexpensive ($23) "active" baluns and expensive ($125) "passive" baluns that require a power supply at each end.
Anyone want to take odds on wether they mixed up active and passive?
Well, maybe they did get it right, since the expensive ones include multiplexing IR remote control signals over the same CAT connection.
And the active ones have a power supply input too and claim 140' range compared to just 100' for the passive.
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kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
I have purchased from that site before and one time based on my cart contents they contacted me telling me what I had wasn't recommended to use together (if that was my intention) and gave me alternate suggestions of what may work better.
SceneryDriver
Senior Member
- Location
- NJ
- Occupation
- Electrical and Automation Designer
Long HDMI cables have active electronics inside that use a DC supply present on a pair of pins in the cable to amplify and shape the digital signals so they don't degrade to the point where the receiver (TV) can't reliably decode them.
SceneryDriver
multimediatech
Member
- Location
- 2700 Travis St, Houston, TX 77006
Next time dont get it at The Home Depot
Next time dont get it at The Home Depot
Next time dont get it at The Home Depot. Yes, I am not kidding.
Next time dont get it at The Home Depot
Next time dont get it at The Home Depot. Yes, I am not kidding.
The cable I bought works fine now that I've reversed its direction.
ETA: A little expensive though.
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- Location
- Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
- Occupation
- Service Manager
Not on your life; if I learned something, someone else probably did too!
97catintenn
Senior Member
- Location
- Columbia, TN
I learned they were directional. I've gotten lucky thus far with my installs and haven't had any problems. Thanks for the thread.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
I never knew they were directional either. Had one recently that I didn't install but got asked to check out - customer didn't have TV when the cable was installed but when he did get tv it never worked. I tried to stay out of things since I wasn't running TV or sound on this job (a fitness center), but customer returned TV and got another one and still had same problem and asked me what was wrong - I determined TV worked when connected to a short cable to the satellite receiver but didn't work on the long cable - must be the cable, maybe better call the guys that installed it for you. I didn't know then but now something tells me it was probably installed the wrong direction.
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