"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:30:00 -0700 (PDT), RubberBiker wrote:

Regarding video distribution - what are the pluses/minuses of using
HDMI rather than cat5e ?

How far will HDMI go? I suspect it's only a short distance spec
measured in metres...

Five meters is the normal standard.. you will have to pay £5-£7 for a lead
good enough to do that.
It will probably work over twice that but it might not if there is a lot of
interference from motors, etc.

There is no gain in audio or video quality if you buy £100 hdmi leads but
some might work over a longer distance if they have used better cable rather
than just dressing up cheap cable as most do.

You can buy hdmi extenders that use cat5 between the extenders, they weren't
cheap when I looked but claimed to do 100m.


Would it be worth saying something about terrestrial tv/satellite tv/
coax/distribution amps?

That is whole new ball game with many variations depending on what
the requirements are.

It might be worth adding that putting in at least one quality coax
cable to every room is a good idea due to the disruption that putting
cables in makes.

What about cabling in home cinema?

Surely that would be dedicated to the "cinema room" and comes in with
the (short?) distance capabilities of HDMI?

--
Cheers
Dave.