HDMI over Cat6 in a commercial building

[Kettchxxii]

We just upgraded to HDTVs at the bar I work at and I am tasked with looking into running digital signals to TVs over 30-50 feet away from their receivers. I have seen the monoprice wall jacks that convert hdmi into two cat5/6 ports, but am interested in other options. The routes won't have traditional walls for the wall plates that monoprice sells, but will be half drop ceiling, half exposed. I know I can take them apart, but I am wondering if any of you has any experience doing something like this? Cost is cetainly something that management is going to be looking at.

If a test run pans out we will probably extend this to more televisions at this bar and at the steak house up the street.

monoprice wall mount: http://www.monoprice.com/products/p..._id=1042501&p_id=6177&seq=1&format=4#feedback

Any pitfalls or other products I could look at?

 

[crustybooger]

Using cat5 hdmi extenders are your best bet. I think for that range you might need the powered version though. We have about 15 tvs set up in our restaurant ranging from 10 to 60 feet away and even the tvs that are 30ft away had problems sometimes with the non powered version. hope you dont have too many tvs because these things can add up fast;


http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10105&cs_id=1010504&p_id=4065&seq=1&format=2


best thing to do is like you said and do a test run on one of the sets with the non powered extenders and see how it goes.

 

[valve1138]

If it's only 30 - 50 feet away you could just use a good quality regular HDMI or DVI cable.

 

[J-Will]

If it's only 30 - 50 feet away you could just use a good quality regular HDMI or DVI cable.

Cat 5/ 6 is easier and cheaper to run through walls in a building. You can terminate it after its been run, so smaller holes in walls

 

[J-Will]

We just upgraded to HDTVs at the bar I work at and I am tasked with looking into running digital signals to TVs over 30-50 feet away from their receivers. I have seen the monoprice wall jacks that convert hdmi into two cat5/6 ports, but am interested in other options. The routes won't have traditional walls for the wall plates that monoprice sells, but will be half drop ceiling, half exposed. I know I can take them apart, but I am wondering if any of you has any experience doing something like this? Cost is cetainly something that management is going to be looking at.

If a test run pans out we will probably extend this to more televisions at this bar and at the steak house up the street.

monoprice wall mount: http://www.monoprice.com/products/p..._id=1042501&p_id=6177&seq=1&format=4#feedback

Any pitfalls or other products I could look at?

I have not done what you are asking about, or used the products in question. However I am very curious to hear results, and maybe see how it turns out (pics?).

 

[ShepsCrook]

I'm actually curious about these sort of setups.

I'm looking to wire my new place for networked audio video.

Basically the idea is that if I have a DVD that is playing in the main "theatre" room, I could pull up that same DVD in another room and watch it at the same time. So if I had a room full of people watching something, I could have another room playing the same source at the same time to accommodate more people.

Of course, I'll be setting my place up for gigabit network as I have a NASBox which has a large amount of media (movies and music) which will be a primary source of video. I also saw something posted about a software which allows a central HTPC to output to multiple TVs via the network? I cannot find the post about that either.

What would be needed for this sort of setup. Distance from source to TV would vary depending on where the rooms are located. I'm guessing each possible source would need to have some sort of HDMI or A/V switch that can push out to a central A/V switch to go to all the rooms.

Make sense?

 

[PurduEE]

I've used the gefen products in the past with great success - although they are generally some of the more expensive out there.

One thing to bear in mind that I haven't seen mentioned is that you'll need some sort of back channel for control. All the TVs in my home are wall mounted with the STBs located in nearby closets/cabinetry/etc. I generally run 3 CAT-6 lines to each TV along with power. 2 CAT-6s for video and a single CAT-6 for an IR extender. I messed around a lot with IR extenders last year attempting to get my uverse STBs to work (they're quite picky). None of the RF extenders would work, so I settled on the Microsmith Hot Link XL, which transmits over a cat-5/6.

http://www.google.com/products/cata...ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAsQ8wIwAA#ps-sellers

I highly recommend it.