[pnMedia]

Hi and thanks for the help.

I just took delivery on one of these HDMI cables, 40' length.

The cable is very thick and heavy. The shielding/insulation (on the surface) appear to be fairly substantial. The connectors match the build quality of the cable and appear to be well made.

What are your thoughts on something like this? Of course the real test will be when I get this hooked up to my projector. I'm just trying to get a feel for what I need to spend for a cable of this length and whether a $25 cable will meet my quality expectations.

Thanks again.

-paul.

 

[smcmillan2]

At 40' I would have opted for a RedMere cable: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10255&cs_id=1025507&p_id=9171&seq=1&format=2 (Actually, for anything over 25' I use RedMere.)

But, as you stated, the real test will be once you receive it.

 

[pnMedia]

At 40' I would have opted for a RedMere cable: http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=102&cp_id=10255&cs_id=1025507&p_id=9171&seq=1&format=2 (Actually, for anything over 25' I use RedMere.)

But, as you stated, the real test will be once you receive it.

She's connected already . So far the image quality looks as good as I would expect. OTOH for $35 bucks I may pick up what you recommend and see if there is a discernible difference.

Thanks for the tip.

-paul.

 

[smcmillan2]

She's connected already . So far the image quality looks as good as I would expect. OTOH for $35 bucks I may pick up what you recommend and see if there is a discernible difference.

Thanks for the tip.

-paul.

You won't see any "image quality" differences between those 2 cables. They're digital, either it works in your setup or you get dropouts/nothing.

The RedMere cables are active cables, to ensure the signal makes it all the way to the other end to eliminate dropouts/nothing over longer distances.

 

[pnMedia]

You won't see any "image quality" differences between those 2 cables. They're digital, either it works in your setup or you get dropouts/nothing.

The RedMere cables are active cables, to ensure the signal makes it all the way to the other end to eliminate dropouts/nothing over longer distances.

Thanks again. I ordered two of the RedMere's anyway! I like the fact that the cable is on the thin side. The cable that I bought on eBay is very think and I could not get it to fit inside the piece of aluminum track that is secured to back wall - routing various cables up to the projector.

-paul.

 

[Otto Pylot]

Passive High Speed HDMI can only currently be certified for up to 25'. That basically is your "guarantee" that all HDMI 1.4/2.0 specs will be met. However, you can go longer if you use a thicker gauge cable, which you apparently purchased. The downside of that is you lose cable flexibility due to the wire gauge and also increase the stress on the inputs. As stated, the Redmere cables are active cables meaning that they have a little chipset in the sink end (tv) side) that draws a little power to propagate the signal over longer lengths without any loss. The cables are also much thinner so there is no flexibility issues or input stress issues. The are uni-directional so pay attention to the orientation. You won't damage anything if you install them backwards, you just won't get a signal.

Are you installing your cable in-wall by any chance?

As far as eBay goes, I don't trust them for quality cables. Gold connectors btw don't make a difference. It's more marketing than anything else. The description also lists the cables as standard, not high speed. High speed is what you want.

 

[pnMedia]

Passive High Speed HDMI can only currently be certified for up to 25'. That basically is your "guarantee" that all HDMI 1.4/2.0 specs will be met. However, you can go longer if you use a thicker gauge cable, which you apparently purchased. The downside of that is you lose cable flexibility due to the wire gauge and also increase the stress on the inputs. As stated, the Redmere cables are active cables meaning that they have a little chipset in the sink end (tv) side) that draws a little power to propagate the signal over longer lengths without any loss. The cables are also much thinner so there is no flexibility issues or input stress issues. The are uni-directional so pay attention to the orientation. You won't damage anything if you install them backwards, you just won't get a signal.

Are you installing your cable in-wall by any chance?

As far as eBay goes, I don't trust them for quality cables. Gold connectors btw don't make a difference. It's more marketing than anything else. The description also lists the cables as standard, not high speed. High speed is what you want.

Thanks. I live in a converted industrial space type apartment. I don't have allot of in wall flexibility. I try to be as neat as possible, running all the projector cables through a flexible plastic hose that's snaked neatly around the perimeter of the room. The cables are then routed up to the projector through an aluminum track secured to the rear wall. The projector (Epson HC3000) is rear wall/shelf mounted.

I spent about two hours last night running some tests. I have a FIOS box feeding one projector input and a Sony WiFi Blu-ray feeding a second input. At some point I may consider a single feed to the projector - if I can find an HDMI "hub" or switcher that will be to my liking.

The cable referenced in this thread is passing the FIOS video. I'm using a different cable for the Blu-ray feed. In fact that cable is thinner with far less substantial shielding.

I found the picture quality to be better when viewing Netflix streamed from the Blu-ray deck compared to the FIOS video. Note that I also view FIOS on a 46" Samsung LED Tv and the picture quality is pristine. Better than you can imagine.

On the projector my customized Cinema mode settings looked fantastic when viewing The BlackList on Netflix, streamed from the Blu-ray deck. When viewing movies on FIOS (HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc.) my Cinema mode setting yielded a picture that was way too dark.

Is it safe to say that this discrepancy is not resulting from the difference in cables, and more in line with the sources? I don't have a problem creating customized settings for all sources, and it would make sense that this may be necessary.

In any case this recent cable quest is not that big of a deal considering how little money I've spent including the Monoprice purchase. In fact this sort of search for a good quality HDMI cable is quite interesting to me, considering how much money I've spent over the years purchasing top of the line audio/video cables all routed through a Lexicon MC-12 controller. Since this legacy device lacks HDMI switching - I'm obviously routing HDMI directly form the source(s) to the projector ...

-paul.

 

[Otto Pylot]

The flexible plastic hose is your conduit so that's good. You don't need CL2 rated cables because this won't be in-wall. I would run a pull-string in your conduit as well. If you ever have to replace a cable, or want to add another one, just tie one end of the string around the cable and pull it through the other end. A heckuva lot easier than trying to snake a cable, especially at 40'.

Source is always a concern. The video from your blu-ray player is not compressed whereas your FIOS is. And depending on how much compression is applied, your pq will suffer.