# HT design & cable lengths



## Jack N (Oct 7, 2006)

I’m in the process of designing my dedicated HT. I need to know what is the maximum length of HDMI cable, fiber-optic cable, and RCA cable that I can use?


----------



## fakerus (Dec 23, 2009)

If you go bigger then 50 feet on hdmi you will will need an amplifier for the quality loss.


----------



## spartanstew (May 7, 2009)

fakerus said:


> If you go bigger then 50 feet on hdmi you will will need an amplifier for the quality loss.


There is no hard and fast rule in regards to lenght and HDMI. It depends on a few factors, including the cable. While a run of 50' will probably need to be amplified, runs of 35' might need it as well.


----------



## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

Further FYI, I have installed 35' HDMI runs that did not need amplification. I used a a beefier cable for that run, though.

For RCA cables: I try to use shielded RG59 or RG6 coax with crimp ends if the run is longer than 20' or so (usually a subwoofer run). For a video run, I always get the shielded bundles of three conductor (both Belden and Canare make nice cables for this). The longest I have tested was a 50' run of the Belden for component video + audio (5 conductors) and it surprised me how clear it was. No noise picked up at all.

For fiber, you could probably do a 250' run without too much problem  We routinely do 100' of standard multi-mode at work with no signal loss. Toslink (digital audio) should be comparable in terms of loss and signal strength.

Good luck.


----------



## Jack N (Oct 7, 2006)

That's what I needed to know. Thanks all.


----------

