Looking for a good long run HDMI cable for my new JVC projector.

[Ras777]

Just a quick update I finally purchased my JVC RS2000 projector. I will need 35 feet of HDMI cable to reach my rack. Right now looking at Mono price and BJC active cable. Any recommendations on a good HDMI cable for this projector would be appreciated.

 

[TLS Guy]

Just a quick update I finally purchased my JVC RS2000 projector. I will need 35 feet of HDMI cable to reach my rack. Right now looking at Mono price and BJC active cable. Any recommendations on a good HDMI cable for this projector would be appreciated.

For a cable this length a hybrid cable is absolutely the way to go. These use fiber optics for the picture and copper for the rest. I purchased a 35 ft Ruipro Cable and can recommend it without reservation.

I do recommend though, with either active copper or hybrid, that you do not power them from the HDMI port. These cables draw far more power than what HDMI boards are specified for. This is why they can not be certified. So you really don't know if you are risking damage or not from expensive and fragile HDMI boards. If you power the cable externally then you have no worries on that score.

We had a good discussion about this when I was planning my studio. I feel from the results I came to the correct conclusion.

 

[Ras777]

The last thing I want to do is risk my HDMI board! How do you separately power HDMI cable? I will take a look at the cable you purchased maybe that’s my best option.

 

[SwedishChef]

I had to do a long (~15m) run a while back and had multiple random problems with long copper HDMI cables. A directional, powered, optical cable, as described above fixed things for me, though I am using one that just draws power from the HDMI port, and haven't worried about it yet. Haven't had a problem. Didn't realize you could easily get one that took some form of external power - hadn't seen that anywhere.

I think you could also get a powered repeater and do a half-length to the powered repeater, and the other half from it to the destination, both regular copper. That might also work for runs in this length and has no power draw concern.

 

[TLS Guy]

The last thing I want to do is risk my HDMI board! How do you separately power HDMI cable? I will take a look at the cable you purchased maybe that’s my best option.

This is he device you need.

I have now been using this for about a month now. I have the above unit plugged into the HDMI out of my pre/pro and the power supply plugged into the power strip on the AV rack. The converter end of the 35 ft Ruipro cable is inserted into the power adapter. It works perfectly and there have been zero issues. The picture is marvelous and ARC works well also. On 4K UHD systems ARC carries the full bandwidth required, which it should have from the beginning.

I strongly recommend this solution for you. It is more expensive but it is the high road. I offer this advice as the best and lowest risk solution.

Note that these cables are directional as the sending end at the pre/pro or receiver is the copper to optical converter. The end at the TV or projector is the optical to copper converter. So make sure you do not get this the wrong way round, or it will not work.

These types of hybrid cables can send HDMI over hundreds of feet with no loss. On the other hand active copper cables suffer progressive loss down the cable.

This system is also the most intellectually satisfying solution. There are other brands of hybrid cables, I just chose Ruipro as they seem to be the market leaders in this area, but I have no idea if they are the "best" or otherwise. All I know is that mine worked right out of the box, and there have been zero issues with it.

 

[SwedishChef]

@TLS Guy - since you have experience with this product, can I ask if you had any HDCP or other issues with it? Since it's pretty inexpensive (compared to the cable I already have), it seems like a reasonable $25 insurance policy for my receiver. But after having had various weirdness with connections not wanting to do 4K, HDR, 60hz, etc. over the years (including from game consoles), I am hesitant to introduce yet more devices to a working signal chain, unless someone with experience vouches for them being relatively problem free. Can you share your experience? (My optical cable is also Ruipro).

 

[TLS Guy]

@TLS Guy - since you have experience with this product, can I ask if you had any HDCP or other issues with it? Since it's pretty inexpensive (compared to the cable I already have), it seems like a reasonable $25 insurance policy for my receiver. But after having had various weirdness with connections not wanting to do 4K, HDR, 60hz, etc. over the years (including from game consoles), I am hesitant to introduce yet more devices to a working signal chain, unless someone with experience vouches for them being relatively problem free. Can you share your experience? (My optical cable is also Ruipro).

As I stated, I have had no HDMI connection problems at all with that Ruipro cable and that includes the C2G power supply. I have had no issue at all. It goes straight from my Marantz 7005 to my OLED LG TV. The trouble is that the power able to be drawn from any HDMI port is not specified. What is specified is all the power and HDMI port is expected to deliver to meet the code specs for HDMI ports. Both active and these hybrid cables require power many times the spec. The pins of HDMI ports a tiny. It seems to me you are courting trouble to power these cables from an HDMI port. Having said that many people have had no trouble doing it. To me however as someone with many years experience in this area, it makes me feel uncomfortable using something relatively fragile and costly beyond spec. Remember it is because of this issue that these active and hybrid cables can not be certified. It seems to me this issue could be grounds for denying a warranty claim for HDMI port or board failure.

As I have said, I have had no issues at all, not even a minor one, with this arrangement. I would point out that C2G are a Legrand company, who make excellent products, especially in the pro arena. In fact my AV racks are from Middle Atlantic which is another Legrand company.

I strongly suspect that they developed this product because of trouble they had had with long run cables in pro installations.

Bottom line is that you have zero worries about this device degrading performance. In fact I would have thought it may improve issues since this device can provide power way over spec. I can think of no good reason not to use it.

 

[Ras777]

TLS Guy thank you for your detailed advice. I am a bit confused about Ruipros products. I went to their site and nowhere does it mention active cables in fact it specifically states that no external power supply is needed. I thought the whole purpose of fiber cable was the fact that it can handle the bandwidth without a power source.

 

[TLS Guy]

TLS Guy thank you for your detailed advice. I am a bit confused about Ruipros products. I went to their site and nowhere does it mention active cables in fact it specifically states that no external power supply is needed. I thought the whole purpose of fiber cable was the fact that it can handle the bandwidth without a power source.

The converters at each end need power. The signal does not need boosting, but HDMI is neither an optical input or output. So there needs to be converters each end, which obviously have to be active and require powering.

 

[Ras777]

I don’t mean to be so skeptical but how does 4K HDR from streaming services get to my house? Even if the cable is super high-quality on the street it still has to go through 150 plus feet of cheap cat 5E cable in my home.

 

[TLS Guy]

I don’t mean to be so skeptical but how does 4K HDR from streaming services get to my house? Even if the cable is super high-quality on the street it still has to go through 150 plus feet of cheap cat 5E cable in my home.

Because Cat 5E has much less attenuation than HDMI. Before these new active and hybrid cables, for long runs you had to convert to Cat and Back. It was HDMI over cat 5 and then over Cat 5E and Cat 6. I moved up to Cat 6 in my last home and used cat 6 here. Cat 5E is OK for now. Cat 5 did not cut it at my last home when we went on the Gigazone.

You need to have your home able to easily upgrade cables as technology changes. Do not put audio or any digital cables in walls without running them in conduit. That means either steel or plastic conduits. In my last home it was a combination of steel and plastic conduit. Here it is steel conduit and tech tubes. Tech tubes run all over the house so cables can be easily changed. DO NOT RUN CABLES BEHIND SHEETROCK THAT IS NOT IN CONDUIT EVER.

 

[BMXTRIX]

The 4K signal that comes to your home is heavily compressed. If you do some googling on it, you will find that the bandwidth of 4K Netflix only runs at 16Mb/s. That's about 1/3 of what Blu-ray 4K runs at. These all use the latest compression algorithms to get the best possible results. But, once decoded, with full audio and video, the uncompressed video sits at up to 18Gb/s. This is a thousand fold increase in the bandwidth.

It is also why there are times that people really do complain about the quality of the video they get from streaming services.

In my opinion, if installing/removing the cable is easy enough to do, I would just get an active Redmere cable and see how well it worked. Nothing wrong with fiber HDMI cables, but they ain't cheap for darn sure. But, I guess if you've already paid for a RS2000, then the $250 or so cable isn't all that expensive.

 

[Ras777]

Thanks to all of you who replied to this thread. The knowledge and experience of the members on this forum is invaluable. I still have not picked a cable yet because of the concern that TLS GUY highlighted above. The fact that active cables steal power from the HDMI port and the sensitivity to voltage drops on the HDMI boards has me a bit spooked. I am leaning towards a hybrid cable with an external power supply but I am not a big fan of introducing more devices into the mix.

 

[BMXTRIIXX]

It is all about the limitations of the physical hardware and the coding behind HDMI. HDMI was not designed to travel 33ft. At least 2.0 that is. On those longer runs I would second the idea of an active or boosted solution. Fiber would make the most practical sense to me but the cost is great. It is a shame you could not move your rack closer to the projector. If you want a laugh stop in at Best Buy and ask them about there 50ft platinum coated gold Ultra series. At $60 you can bet it will be 100% fiber free and probably free of 4k and UHD and possibly 1080p

 

[Blue Dude]

I've used a $40 Redmere cable with good results, all the way up to 18Gbps. It does require a power injector on the source side since my receiver's HDMI port doesn't put out enough juice for it. I used this: https://www.amazon.com/C2G-42236-Powered-Voltage-Inserter/dp/B00LQT760Q to solve that problem and it works fine.

 

[BMXTRIX]

...If you want a laugh stop in at Best Buy and ask them about there 50ft platinum coated gold Ultra series. At $60 you can bet it will be 100% fiber free and probably free of 4k and UHD and possibly 1080p

I don't know. Monoprice has their active copper cables priced at just $52 for 50' length...

Monoprice 4K High Speed HDMI Cable 25ft - CL2 In Wall Rated 18Gbps Active Black - Monoprice.com

Monoprice's Ultra Series Active High Speed HDMI® Cable features the next generation of active HDMI cable technology. It delivers 18Gbps bandwidth and it supports Ultra HD HDMI video transmissi

www.monoprice.com

 

[Ras777]

Well, I ended up following TLS Guy's advice and bought the Ruipro hybrid cable and the c2g voltage inserter. Hopefully, this will be a problem-free solution. Moving my rack closer to my projector was not an option.

 

[Steven S]

What's the word Ras777? How did it work out over the past 11 months?

 

[mjg100]

Ruipro fiber optic and the voltage inserter is a good way to go. JVC was seeing some circuits tripped on the HDMI input. Seems the common factor was the Ruipro HDMI cable (runs a little hot on the voltage). So JVC recommended adding the voltage inserter.

 

[Ras777]

Sorry for never getting back to this thread. Great solution! I have had zero issues.