We show movies on a patio that is adjacent to my basement's "TV room" where I have my electronics installed. I have been using a 35 foot hdmi cable to connect the indoor dvd player to the outdoor projector. Audio from the DVD player to the outdoor amp is provided through a short run of toslink digital audio cable.
The long HDMI cable for temporary applications is not a terribly effective solution. At that length, the cable is quite heavy and a bit hard to hide. This weekend, the weight of the cable and the constant plugging and unplugging caused one of the terminals to bend to the point of failure so I'm looking for alternative solutions.
I think I have two options. First, I can leave the DVD player indoors and find another 35-40 foot video cable. Should I go with a higher quality HDMI cable from Blue Jeans Cable or should I send HDMI over Cat5/Cat6. The latter would be my preference given the ease of working with cat5/6 cable if I can contain costs. Some systems, like the Gefen, are too pricey ($500) for this purpose.
Second, I can move the DVD player outdoors next to the projector, which means I then need a long (35-40 feet) foot audio cable to connect the DVD player to the amp. Is toslink capable at that distance? Unfortunately, my cheap blueray player that I use for the outdoor movies lacks a digital audio coax output so that's not an option unless I go buy a new DVD player. Finally, should I settle for analog audio connections? So far, I've only used two speakers outdoors but, on the other hand, I have toyed with the idea of trying to kluge together a 5.1 system for the patio. Realistically, that's not a high priority.
Sorry for the rambling message. Any thoughts or recommendations by those that faced similar issues would be appreciated.
The long HDMI cable for temporary applications is not a terribly effective solution. At that length, the cable is quite heavy and a bit hard to hide. This weekend, the weight of the cable and the constant plugging and unplugging caused one of the terminals to bend to the point of failure so I'm looking for alternative solutions.
I think I have two options. First, I can leave the DVD player indoors and find another 35-40 foot video cable. Should I go with a higher quality HDMI cable from Blue Jeans Cable or should I send HDMI over Cat5/Cat6. The latter would be my preference given the ease of working with cat5/6 cable if I can contain costs. Some systems, like the Gefen, are too pricey ($500) for this purpose.
Second, I can move the DVD player outdoors next to the projector, which means I then need a long (35-40 feet) foot audio cable to connect the DVD player to the amp. Is toslink capable at that distance? Unfortunately, my cheap blueray player that I use for the outdoor movies lacks a digital audio coax output so that's not an option unless I go buy a new DVD player. Finally, should I settle for analog audio connections? So far, I've only used two speakers outdoors but, on the other hand, I have toyed with the idea of trying to kluge together a 5.1 system for the patio. Realistically, that's not a high priority.
Sorry for the rambling message. Any thoughts or recommendations by those that faced similar issues would be appreciated.
