Optical HDMI Cable Promises Distances of Up to 1,000 Feet Without Any Repeaters
For those that require their HDMI cables to extend beyond standard lengths, you'll need to use an HDMI repeater to achieve the distance required reliably. But now, a company demonstrates a straightforward solution using a point-to-point optical cable.
For those of you that need to wire up your home theatre with lengthy HDMI cables, you'll either need to purchase expensive high quality cables or use an HDMI repeater if you're extending to even greater distances. Such solutions could prove to be rather costly and tedious.
However, a company known as Rainbow Fish Fiber Optic has shown that it's now possible to directly replace the copper cable with a single optical fiber strand. Using a specially built HDMI connector that draws power from the HDMI port to power its internal optics circuitry, the company has shown that signal integrity remains even when fed through a distance of up to 1,000 feet.
This is a novel approach to transmitting high frequency data and according to the company, it's certified to support the HDMI 1.4 specification. We do not yet have pricing for these cables but according to the company, they will be priced competitively against copper-based HDMI cables.
A demonstration using a lengthy optical HDMI cable between an Xbox 360 and an LCD TV.
The Rainbow Fish optical HDMI cable.
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.