Long HDMI cable run.

[rgabriel]

Hi Everyone this is my first post.

I'm in the process of building a home theater setup in my basement downstairs. I want to wall mount my 42" lcd on the wall, I wanted to remote mount all of my equipment underneath my Bar and use ir blasters and a long hdmi cable. My question is, will I have any signal strenght issues with a 30' hdmi cable, and I wanted to use wall plates for the hdmi, do the wall plates cause signal degredation? And lastly can anyone recommend a good cable for this application, I don't want to spend a fortune if I can get a lower priced one that will do what I need it to. The lcd is 1080i, if that helps too.

Thanks in advance,

Gabe

[Race Car Driver]

My cable is about 36ft long and I havent noticed any issues.

However, I havent compared it to say a 3ft cable.

Im using an Audioquest HDMIX or something or another.

[Chris D]

Hey, Gabe. To answer your question, the answer of course, is, "it depends" upon what you try to do with it and the equipment.

If your equipment has weak HDMI signals, over a 30' HDMI cable, you may need a high quality cable and/or power boosting of the signal. For example, my Denon 3910 DVD player has a weaker setup. The first 30' cable I got didn't work, and I had to try a couple different HDMI switchers before I found one that is strong enough.

I just read a report that HDMI bandwith is increasing with 1080p and HDMI 1.3, which means that in the future we may need better quality cables and shorter lengths. However, since you currently are going to run 1080i, you should be fine.

My cable is a 30' Gefen cable, and the HDMI switcher is the Zhd by Parasound, both of which I would highly recommend for both performance and cost effectiveness.

And oh, yeah... YES, you may find that adding extra lengths of cables and/or extra connections like with wallplates may weaken the signal. Again, you may need higher quality cables and/or signal boosters if you try to do this. Like I mentioned, with my Denon 3910 DVD player, I could get it to output straight over the 30' cable, but if I added a weak switcher and an additional cable length to the 3910 (before I got my Zhd) I got signal dropouts and problems.

Hope that helps.

[Azeke]

Welcome to HTGuide Gabe :welcome: . I've heard that the signal starts to degrade at approximately 25', esp for 1080p/HDMI 1.3, as Chris eluded to. There are also HDMI cables made with built-in signal boosters for extra long runs for up to ~ 150'. Just another option to consider. Keep us posted.

Peace and blessings,

Azeke