HDMI Extender Over Cat 6 Cables

Like many video, audio and data cables, HDMI cords can suffer from signal degradation at longer lengths—30m is generally considered the maximum reliable length. And it’s rare to see an HDMI cable longer than 10m in a store. Even online, cables more than 20m long can be hard to find. If your TV,DStv Explora and other AV equipment are all on the same piece of furniture, this isn’t much of a concern. With a collocated setup, you’ll probably never need more than 2m of cable at a time.

But HDTVs have introduced a whole new way of arranging home theater gear. Flat screens are increasingly thin and lightweight, and their picture-frame profiles make them perfect for hanging on walls. Similarly, HD home theater digital projectors are now affordable enough for nongazillionaires to set up a basement cinema. A clean installation of either of these setups generally requires a bit of in-wall wiring, sometimes even from one room—an AV closet, for instance—to another. And when you’re fishing wires up into ceilings, over doors and under floors, the necessary spool of cable gets long quickly. Here is the alternative.