I need a cable about 50' in length to go all the way around my room to my pj. my pj supports hdmi and my pc is DVI, is it best to have a long hdmi cable (as its smaller) then convert to dvi at the pc, or long dvi then convert to hdmi at the projector?

are there any drawbacks to either one? seems due to flexability the hdmi would be the better choice, but smaller cable at those length might cause signal loss.

War

EDIT: also want to know what kind of quality/signal loss would i expect using a converter on either cable? how much diff would it be to get a cable with both ends i need hdmi >dvi? I prefer the converter as i can use it as just hdmi cable without converter, or convert it when i connect it to the pc. also since i hope to get a hdmi switching reciever soon.

At 50ft a HDMI/DVI connector adapter could possibly degrade the signal enough to cause problems. You won't know until you try it. Even if you had two pieces of equipment on either end work at 50ft, it's possible a different combo may not work. People here have reported success with 1080i at 50ft with metal cables, but 1080p is another story. :) At this length, fiber optic or CAT5 solutions are the best way to go, but usually more expensive, if you want to run cable once, and once only. There are also cables made with "amplifiers" in the connector (expensive too) and some switches will amplify.

larry

is either one dvi or hdmi better at longer runs? since i am not installing it perminatly the cat5/optical are not options i wish to spend. I am hoping that one or the other dvi/hdmi has better shielding to allow better quality at the 50' range. i noticed that monoprice has built in ampllifer cables starting at 75' but i only need 40' aprox thus the 50. 75 would be overkill.

I believe the DVI spec demands less of the transmitters, so a DVI source will not go as far as a HDMI source. In general I would recommend HDMI sources and HDMI cables where possible; possibly feeding into a DVI destination if that's all that's available on the destination side (note that DVI won't generally carry audio, nor control data).

The other factor to consider is the fact that DVI has no compliance spec or compliance program, so all the DVI cables out there are kind of implemented without any checks or quality standards that have to be met. HDMI does have minimum standards, and we do perform enforcement to the best of our ability for this compliance requirement.

Quick ?- Does it matter whether a cable says DVI-I or DVD-D (for a DVI:HDMI cable). I want to connect my cable box to my HDTV

Thanks, SId

For your purposes, no difference. DVI-I (I standards for "integrated") has the analog pins populated (looks like a "+" on the connector), which converts to VGA with a dongle, while DVI-D (D standards for "digital") does not have the analog pins populated.