Which HDMI ???

Associate
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1 Jan 2019
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Hi everyone. We are currently refurbishing our living room. Which will include mounting an OLED and tracing in 2 HDMI cables into the wall. They will plug into a 4K sky box and possibly the new PS5 when I comes out. Although I have no immediate thought on buying an 8k tv at some point they will be affordable so to future proof myself what kind of HDMI cables should I buy? I need 2 cables between 7 and 10 meters in length?

any help appreciated
 
Man of Honour
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You can't yet future-proof for 8K HDMI cables. We know some of the specs, but not enough to cope with whatever might be in the works as future 8K developments.

4K UHD HDMI is a bit of a minefield. There is a spectrum of signal bandwidths ranging from the basic UHD resolution output from Sky through to 4K UHD with HDR and WCG and high refresh rate that (potentially) a higher-end console could output. You could well buy a 7m cable that works just dandy for Sky, but falls over as soon as the signal demands more bandwidth because it's doing HDR or WCG.

Trying to buy a 10m cable that will cope with anything within the 4K UHD realm you might throw at it will cost you a packet. You're looking at either active cable (some electronics to correct for the signal losses), or an optical cable which aims not to lose anything in the first place. Either solution will easily be in the £100 - £200, and maybe more just for something that works reliably out of the box. That, or you can spend a whole bunch of time buying cheaper cables, testing them, then sending them back when you find out they fall over as soon as they're asked to do some real work.

Side note, if you're checking out fibre optic cables online, and you come across claims for signal cable shielding, give the firm and its products a wide berth because they know naff all about cables. Optical cables do not require shielding from electronic interference. They're a light signal, not an electrical one, so it can't be affected by RFI/EMI.

For distance work there are two viable solutions, IMO. Fibre optic or CAT cable with HDMI baluns.

Fibre optic is exactly what it sounds like. The cable converts an electrical HDMI signal in to light pulses. The light is then converted back to electrical HDMI at the receiver end. Fibre is a fixed standard. That means if you buy a 4K 48Gb/s cable today then it won't ever go higher than that if we ever get external 8K high freame rate with dynamic HDR and WCG as external source signals to connect.

The other choice is to run two or three cat cables - probably shielded CAT 6 - and then add electronic boxes on either end to convert 4K UHD high bandwidth to a signal that will travel over the CAT cable.

Using CAT cable leaves more scope for future development. The baluns are doing the compression/decompression work, so you can change or upgrade those end pieces easily as your needs grow. The catch with baluns is whether the boxes drop any quality during the conversion process.

The bottom line is that, for now at least, standard copper-based HDMI cable is right at the edge of the performance envelope for full feature 4K and currently unsuitable for all but very basic 8K.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Nov 2003
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3,370
Ruipro has 4k and 8k cables up to 15m in distance.

I'm not sure if the 8k cables have landed in the UK yet, but they should be soon.

They also offer a lifetime warranty on the cable with next day instance replacement. Won't even ask for the old one back.

You will however pay £100 for the 4k one and around £200 for the 8k, but one of the only companies who will actually fully test the cable to the max.

Work fine in walls and round multiple bends etc, very versatile cable.

Did have a cheaper 10m fibre one myself but broker after 6 months. Ended up buying the ruipro one and had no issues since running full hdr, Dolby vision, 10 bit, Atmos etc.
 
Associate
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16 Apr 2015
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You can't yet future-proof for 8K HDMI cables. We know some of the specs, but not enough to cope with whatever might be in the works as future 8K developments.

The other choice is to run two or three cat cables - probably shielded CAT 6 - and then add electronic boxes on either end to convert 4K UHD high bandwidth to a signal that will travel over the CAT cable.

Using CAT cable leaves more scope for future development. The baluns are doing the compression/decompression work, so you can change or upgrade those end pieces easily as your needs grow. The catch with baluns is whether the boxes drop any quality during the conversion process.

The bottom line is that, for now at least, standard copper-based HDMI cable is right at the edge of the performance envelope for full feature 4K and currently unsuitable for all but very basic 8K.

Hi, do you have any links for these boxes pls, or what term i should put into the search engine?
 
Associate
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16 Apr 2015
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8K over cat 6?
Hi, from what @lucid said (apologies all round if i misinterpreted this) "the other choice is to run two or three cat cables - probably shielded CAT 6 - and then add electronic boxes on either end to convert 4K UHD high bandwidth to a signal that will travel over the CAT cable."

I wondered what boxes were needed to convert. Im looking at refurbing my own front room (when i can afford to anyway) and i am possibly looking at having a PJ installed, so a cable from amp up through a wall(either chased in or behind some ducting), over the ceiling to almost the far wall, then down to the PJ would be about 8 or 9m. As per original poster im after first an 8k capable amp, whilst theres no (affordable) 8k tvs out there, and i dont know state of play of 8k projectors, if im getting all my cabling hidden i thought id try to get current best guess as to whats suitable installed now and hopefully save myself taking it all out for replacement when(/if) i get an 8k pj
 
Soldato
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18 Nov 2007
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Deepest Darkest Essex!!
No idea on that. I'm still on 1080p. If 4k/8k had existed 15-20 years ago I would've bought into it, but not now unless I have to replace any hardware that I already have. My eyesight isnt what it was now i'm in my mid 50's & neither is my hearing, so I'm of the school where I spend ££££'s just to get that 'bit extra' where in reality my knackered 5 senses wouldn't be able to tell the difference these days.

It getting to the stage at some point in the future where they are going to reach where we won't be able to tell any difference in resolution (say 8k/16k) or screens will have to be so big to get the benefit, then we wont get the benefit of the screen because its too big.

Like this for example;

 
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