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Long HDMI cable - Would this work?

L

LMR80

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 1, 2016
64
4
I'm planning to connect my Mac Pro to my TV.
Although having fairly recently decided to slap a beefy graphics card into the system and use it for gaming, my main use for the computer is for music production.
Because of this, it sits in my studio.

My current monitor is nothing to shout about for gaming, so I figured I'd use my TV in the living room opposite for that.
I looked into options of streaming the games fro my mac to the other room; purchasing a streaming box like the steam link or the shield, but obviously they have their drawbacks.

What I'm now thinking is to buy a long, ten meter HDMI cable and feed it through to the other room.
I was wondering what peoples opinions on this were?

As far as I can tell from the research I've done online, a repeater for a cable this size to boost the signal wouldn't be necessary, and the sources I found suggested that there shouldn't really be a latency issue.

Anyone had experience doing this?

Thanks a lot.
 
Agree with you.

HDMI is digital so one or off, not analog so better for distance transfer.

We sell at my work 10/20/30 meter HDMI and DVI cables to pubs and clubs.

I do not see an issue as we have sold plenty of long cables.
The other option would be HDMI over cat 5E/6 cables then these are rated to 50mtr distance.

Just my input.
 
Im a Video Systems Technician and work with transfering digital video signals every day.
I would not recommend running an HDMI signal down copper cable that is any longer than 10m.
Anything over 10m at Full HD will end up with bandwidth artifacts and Loss of signal. In some cases >10m cables will work but its not recommended
For longer runs i would recommend optical cable (which is pretty cheap these days) or HDMI over cat5/6 (which is even cheaper) to maintain signal quality.
 
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Reactions: ActionableMango
h9826790 said:
For gaming up to 1080p60, a HDMI USB KVM Extender may make you easier to manage the cables.
Click to expand...

Sounds interesting, I'll look that up, thanks
[doublepost=1470840832][/doublepost]
LMR80 said:
I'm planning to connect my Mac Pro to my TV.
Although having fairly recently decided to slap a beefy graphics card into the system and use it for gaming, my main use for the computer is for music production.
Because of this, it sits in my studio.

My current monitor is nothing to shout about for gaming, so I figured I'd use my TV in the living room opposite for that.
I looked into options of streaming the games fro my mac to the other room; purchasing a streaming box like the steam link or the shield, but obviously they have their drawbacks.

What I'm now thinking is to buy a long, ten meter HDMI cable and feed it through to the other room.
I was wondering what peoples opinions on this were?

As far as I can tell from the research I've done online, a repeater for a cable this size to boost the signal wouldn't be necessary, and the sources I found suggested that there shouldn't really be a latency issue.

Anyone had experience doing this?

Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...
elf69 said:
Agree with you.

HDMI is digital so one or off, not analog so better for distance transfer.

We sell at my work 10/20/30 meter HDMI and DVI cables to pubs and clubs.

I do not see an issue as we have sold plenty of long cables.
The other option would be HDMI over cat 5E/6 cables then these are rated to 50mtr distance.

Just my input.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, I'll bare that in mind
[doublepost=1470840890][/doublepost]
zeeimpulsenine said:
Im a Video Systems Technician and work with transfering digital video signals every day.
I would not recommend running an HDMI signal down copper cable that is any longer than 10m.
Anything over 10m at Full HD will end up with bandwidth artifacts and Loss of signal. In some cases >10m cables will work but its not recommended
For longer runs i would recommend optical cable (which is pretty cheap these days) or HDMI over cat5/6 (which is even cheaper) to maintain signal quality.
Click to expand...

Interesting, maybe I should go with cat5/6 then.
Can I ask what you mean by optical cable?

Thanks
 
LMR80 said:
Anyone had experience doing this?
Click to expand...

I've done exactly this. 10m HDMI cable from HD7950 to my Sony Receiver.

Currently playing Fallout 4 at a solid 60FPS @ 1080p, kids playing various Lego games.

No issues, no extra gadgets needed.

Go for it.
 
zeeimpulsenine said:
Im a Video Systems Technician and work with transfering digital video signals every day.
Click to expand...

I get why cables longer than spec are a bad idea, but since you're an expert I have a question for you that's boggled my mind.

In the AVSForums there are people who have gone with the shortest HDMI cable possible in order to connect their components, such as 6" or 1 foot for those components that are close enough. The theory being that is longer cables are bad, then as short as possible is better in some way. However, in many cases there were HDMI/HDCP problems that were fixed, surprisingly, by switching to a longer cable such as 3 feet.

What is happening where an HDMI cable can be too short?
 
LMR80 said:
Can I ask what you mean by optical cable?
Click to expand...

optical cable is usually LC or SC OM3 Fibre with the appropriate converters for DVI/HDMI, or you can get Fibre with DVI ends terminated to it but it is usually a bit more expensive. For quality 110 OM3 converters check out Lightware.
Tbh for a consumer solution i would probably go with the CAT5/6 boxes. Just get ones that support HDCP.



.... in many cases there were HDMI/HDCP problems that were fixed, surprisingly, by switching to a longer cable such as 3 feet.

What is happening where an HDMI cable can be too short?
Click to expand...

hmm... HDCP in the past has been the bane of my existence tbh. The whole idea behind going the shortest cable is to avoid the bandwidth drop that longer copper cables encounter when sending digital signals such as HDMI/DVI. HDCP is a content protection protocol embedded into the digital signal at the transmission end from the device ie. Video Card, ipad, iphone etc. It generally only sends signals out when there is content that wishes to be protected. If there is any device in the chain that doesn't support HDCP it just shuts down the outputting signal. I honestly cannot see how using a shorter cable would increase the chance of HDCP issues because its a digital protocol. Without being in the room to fault find its difficult to say.
 
I'm not an engineer, but I do have a ~10m HDMI cable connecting my AV receiver in one corner to my TV in another corner of the room (via the wall). I haven't noticed any problems running Blu-Ray. No idea if latency would be an issue with gaming (haven't used it for that), but hard to imagine the 35 nanoseconds would be a meaningful gaming problem.
 
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