First, I apologize for the length of this point; I don't want to leave any detail out in case it's important.

I have a ceiling mounted projector in a 15' square room with a 10' ceiling. When I built the house, I had them put in conduit from the front center of the room (where my AV deck and HTPC are), up the wall, across the ceiling, to the projector. I also ran - outside of the conduit because the connectors were too big to go through the conduit - a VGA cable. This is on the first floor of a two story house, and the walls and ceiling are all insulated, so I can't pull outside of the conduit. My HTPC is connected to the projector via that 50' VGA cable and that works great (about 15' of it is coiled up at the front of the room before going into the HTPC).

Now, I'm planning to upgrade to HD satellite, so I wanted to run HDMI cable through the conduit. I went out and bought a 24AWG 33' Dayton HDMI cable from Parts Express. The conduit's only 3/4" diameter, so it was tight, but after a lot of huffing and puffing, we got it through - only to find out the cable was 2 feet short (ARGH!) - turns out when they ran the conduit, they had to make a detour in the ceiling to avoid the air conditioning vents on the ceiling at the front of the room, so instead of having about 4' to spare, I was 2' short.

What I need:
- A 40' cable (or longer)
- That can carry whatever signal a DirecTV or DISH network HD DVR puts out; do they put out 1080p signals? This is a 720p projector I'm using, but I may upgrade in the future and want 1080p capability.
- It'd be NICE if it could carry a Blu-ray HD signal; I'm eventually going to put a Blu-ray drive in my HTPC, but if it can't, I can live with continuing to use the VGA cable.
- I'm trying to NOT break the bank; $100 or less is my goal, and likely unrealistic at this point.

ALTERNATIVELY - is there any way to hook up HDMI output from the Satellite box to VGA so I could use my existing VGA cable? I mean, I'd be willing to bet the answer is "HA - no, HDMI is 1080p digital, VGA is 1080i Analog", but on the off chance, I thought I'd ask...

Normally, I'd just give up and run the cable through stick-on-and-paint raceway cabling up the wall to the ceiling and across - but my screen is in the way. I'd run it under the carpet and up the back wall except I don't want a "hump" in the carpet, I don't know how to do it in the first place, and there a wall sconce lighting fixture smack dab in the middle of the back wall I'd have to route around.

One last note - I'm aware this is a really long run for an HDMI cable, and combined with the need for it to go through a 3/4" conduit with multiple 90 degree bends in it, what I need may not be physically possible with an unboosted cable. Is there a way to boost the cable from either end (so I don't have to cut into the wall somewhere and break the conduit to attach some sort of booster)?

What I need:
- A 40' cable (or longer)
- That can carry whatever signal a DirecTV or DISH network HD DVR puts out; do they put out 1080p signals? This is a 720p projector I'm using, but I may upgrade in the future and want 1080p capability.
- It'd be NICE if it could carry a Blu-ray HD signal; I'm eventually going to put a Blu-ray drive in my HTPC, but if it can't, I can live with continuing to use the VGA cable.
- I'm trying to NOT break the bank; $100 or less is my goal, and likely unrealistic at this point.

ALTERNATIVELY - is there any way to hook up HDMI output from the Satellite box to VGA so I could use my existing VGA cable? I mean, I'd be willing to bet the answer is "HA - no, HDMI is 1080p digital, VGA is 1080i Analog", but on the off chance, I thought I'd ask...


check out http://www.monoprice.com/

they offer the lengths you need at prices that won't come anywhere close to breaking the bank.

I'm sure if it's made they will also have a converter (HDMI - VGA) as well.

there HDMI cables are on par with monster and the more expensive brands so carrying 1080p should not be an issue

Thanks for the response - I'd already found Monoprice (GREAT prices). My only concern is that the 40' length coupled with the 24AWG gauge might not be able to handle the signal; BlueJeansCable's info pages seems to indicate they're only able to run lengths that long that can handle 1080p is to use really thick, inflexible 22AWG wire, and I don't think I could get 22AWG wire through that conduit...I'm also a little worried about the size of the connectors on Monoprice's cables - this cable has to go through a couple 90 degree bends and a few 45 degree ones on a 3/4" conduit...

But primarily I was hoping somebody'd be able to say "You'll probably be ok pushing 1080p through a 40' HDMI cable" or "you can use the existing VGA cable, you just need this mythical Component-to-DB15 breakout from this place (<link>) and get a switch box to switch back and forth between your satellite box and your HTPC". :D

ALTERNATIVELY - is there any way to hook up HDMI output from the Satellite box to VGA so I could use my existing VGA cable? I mean, I'd be willing to bet the answer is "HA - no, HDMI is 1080p digital, VGA is 1080i Analog", but on the off chance, I thought I'd ask...

Actually, there are products on the horizon that use media adapters to send HDMI over coax. However, it will be probably significantly more costly than pulling a new HDMI cable through the conduit that you have in place. You may or may not be okay pushing 1080p60 through a cable that long. Depends on the cable, depends on the components, depends how much noise there is around teh cable. Id say probability is high it'll work fine. If it doesn't, you can try other cables, or you can go to a media adapter/'balun' solution over the coax that exists in place. There is also that easy-pull stuff with the small ends that also does HDMI that might interest you. I've never used that stuff, but it might be interesting. Forget what it's called though, someone else will know a few previous threads brought it up.

Yes you can also boost/EQ the cable at the end. Though really, 40' isn't THAT long, and while I've seen cables fail at that length with finicky equipment at 1080p60, chances are good things will work just fine.

And of course: That can carry whatever signal a DirecTV or DISH network HD DVR puts out

Which will just be 1080i. Bandwidth on that is exceedingly low, so I can almost guarantee you that almost any HDMi cable will work fine for that. The above mainly applies to pushing 1080p60 that far, which can become difficult. If you plan on moving to BRD and need to push 1080p60, you may want to test that as well. Of course you could also push 1080p24 for film which is a lot less. Regardless, you've got solutions available that will work.

And beyond that you could also easily pull some cat5/6 through the conduit and stick media adapters on that for HDMI if everything else fails.

- only to find out the cable was 2 feet short
Monoprice and others sell short male-female extension cables which you could possibly use to extend your 33' cable. For examle, a 3 foot cable is about $12.

If you have transmission problems with high resolution material, you could add a booster/equalizer at the cable end where it connects to the projector.

FYI rix labs claimed their cable is ATC certified up to 40ft for HDMI 1.3 category 2. I need 45ft and is seriously considering rix labs, blue jeans and ultralink HDMI

I highly recomend blue jeans cable. I used one of theirs for a 25' run that I wanted future proof. I have had NO problems with the cable thus far and have used 1080p-60 over it. Which admittedly uses less than half the bandwidth the cable is supposed to provide.

At 40 feet if you want to be future proof I think you really only have 2 choices.

1. Owlink uses a single strand optical fiber to send all the hdmi/hdcp info over. Which should be trivial to pull through your conduit. DirecTV's rackmount HD DVR uses Owlink.
2. A cable with integral amplifier, which is certified for 1.3 Category 2.

If you read the info on blue jeans web site, the maximum length of cable they could get to pass category 2 certification was 25 feet. So while 1080i/720p/1080p-24 might work, it is unlikely that any cable that is NOT category 2 certified for 40 feet is future proof.

At 40 feet if you want to be future proof I think you really only have 2 choices.

The only REAL way to be future proof is to have conduit in place, preferably large conduit.

Ah. Wasn't aware satellite was limited to 1080i. Actually, somebody told me awhile ago (but I couldn't track down anything to verify) that HD Satellite isn't even a "standard" resolution when it goes out, and that it's rescaled to 1920x1080i?

Actually, I've got Cat5e pulled to every wall in my house (Cat5e rolls were cheap at the time, so I ran about 3500 linear feet, coalescing in my wiring closet upstairs); if I had to, I could do it that way - Cat5e at the front of the room, up to my wiring closet upstairs, and back down to the wall the projector is on. Or it'd be trivially easy to just pull Cat5e through that conduit.

However. I ordered the 40' cable from Monoprice, so I'll try to get that to work first; if it doesn't, it goes back and I'll look for HDMI-to-Cat5e stuff...

I run my system over a 60' Blue Jeans BJ-1 cable.

It runs up to 1080p/60 36-bit color with no problems.

The 40' Monoprice cable showed up Saturday. Going to be "fun" pulling it through that 3/4" conduit - I'm not so worried about the flexibility of the cable (odd how the 40' 24AWG cable seems thicker than the 33' 24AWG cable I got from Partsexpress) as I am the actual length of the connector itself. It's also got a pretty thick rectangular cross section which I may shave some of the plastic off of with a pocket knife; I'm worried about it going through the 90 degree bends in my conduit...

Hi emailed Lenexpro electronics abt their flat Atlona HDMI 1.3 category 2 cable. Was told tht it is certified for 50ft. If that is the case then they are the only manufacturer of certified 50ft hdmi 1.3 category 2

I would be very skeptical of that claim unless they showed you the documentation. ESPECIALLY with a flat HDMI cable.

Actually, I've got Cat5e pulled to every wall in my house (Cat5e rolls were cheap at the time, so I ran about 3500 linear feet, coalescing in my wiring closet upstairs); if I had to, I could do it that way - Cat5e at the front of the room, up to my wiring closet upstairs, and back down to the wall the projector is on. Or it'd be trivially easy to just pull Cat5e through that conduit.

This is industrial stuff, but at least it gives you an idea of what can be achieved over Cat 5. I've used earlier generation transformers to run vga signals 150 feet, in a cable loom alongside high current lighting power, with no visible loss at the monitor.

http://www.extron.com/product/prodtype29.aspx

http://www.extron.com/company/article.aspx?id=hdmi201ad_nl

I'd strongly recommend Blue Jeans Cable. I pulled a 45' HDMI cable from my computer to my TV, works perfectly. I also ran a 45' toslink, which ended up being broken; when I told them, they shipped out a replacement free of charge, then asked me to ship back the broken cable in the same box. Incredible service, it was really great.

I don't know if it will fit in your conduit, but regardless of what you go with, I'd suggest using Blue Jeans.

Ah. Wasn't aware satellite was limited to 1080i.All broadcast HD is either 720p or 1080i.