PC location & cable distances.

karltimber

howdy,
I have a friend who is building at the minute and plasterboard will be going up in 3 weeks.
He will put in a tower MCE pc (yet to be built) with a dual Dvi graphics card to play content on two different tv's -main tv & kitchen.

There are two locations for the pc:
1: the office which is 15meters away.(preferred location)
2: cupboard at eves of house in a bedroom at about 6m away.

questions:
Is it ok to use a 15m hdmi cable (maplin) and a dvi-hdmi adaptor from GC over this distance to an lcd?
Is it ok to use a 15m usb cable (if available) for the IR remote as above?
Is it better to locate the pc at the 6m location ?

he really doesn't want the pc near the tv, even a quiet htpc.
any other suggestions would be helpful.

K

ps- also asked at avforums, thx

bazwaldo

Max for ordinary USB cable is 5m. Any longer you have a choice of using USB repeaters which can be concatenated. They are 5m each and peats have them cheapish. Or you can use USB over cat5 where the dongle costs about 50 or 60 euro. Maplin has them or also where I got one which is some shop near the south circular in dublin which was cheaper. I could track down the website if you want. Using cat5 you can have 50m of cable.

Haven't a clue about HDMI.

SouperComputer

TBH, if he's not afraid of spending a few bob, you can get devices that will send video over CAT5, that would be my choice, and put the PC in a location that is well ventilated and accesible.

Theres no "official" max length for HDMI. It depends on the cable quality and also the qualty of the hardware in the sender/recipient of the signal. Its definately a YMMV deal. IIRC 10M is generally OK. Again tho, the CAT5 option is a really good way to go and its going to be more flexible and expandable.

Does he plan having both locations using the remote? That could be a little messy...

bazwaldo

For my old 2005 MCE, I had the PC in the attic and had a few cat5's down to the living room hidden. I used the USB over cat5 for my remote, but plugged in 2 infrared receivers so that I could use MCE in the living room and another room. I had to install a tool called HIP I think it was to get this to work. I found the info on thegreenbutton. After a few days of the PC being on, HIP would screw up but a reboot sorted it for a few more days.
For video I used muxlab dongles (theres a proper name for these which I can't think of) for having composite/svideo over cat5 . Then sound worked direct on cat5 too without any need for a dongle. It was a bit of a pain to setup laying cables and making custom some custom cables but worked well for 2 years after that.

karltimber

bazwaldo wrote: »

I used the USB over cat5 for my remote.

can you go over this a bit more - what connections did you use etc,

thx

K

etcetc

after 10 metres unless you have good hdmi lead quality falls

start by looking at gefen product range

subway

does he realise he will be watching the same content on both tvs?

since a mce pc can be put together for a few hundred euros would he not just put a pc in both rooms and run cat 5 to share content?

karltimber

subway - yeah -
It's just to have the option of watchin recorded tv on either tv.

HDMI cables upto 30m can be got from various sources, as would be needed for a hd projector, but it's the 15m distance for the IR remote that MCE uses that I need to sort out.
USB over cat5 -seems the only way but don't know anyhting about it.

Thx
K

subway

why not something like an ir repeater?
that way you can avoid messing around with the mce box and 2 ir receivers

bazwaldo

For USB over CAT 5;

maplins
49 sterling

This is where I got mine
OneSource
45 + vat euro

Both links are to the same product. They are all silver coloured.

I ran the cat5 cable. Put in some boxes on the wall with cat5/rj45 sockets. About 2 euro each from eurosales (great for buying electrical goods at trade prices). Connected them up using a punch tool which I bought off ebay. Then connections where;
PC USB -> usb/cat5 dongle -> network cable -> wall socket
wall socket -> network cable -> usb/cat5 dongle -> MCE IR receiver

mossym

www.bluejeanscable.co.uk for the hdmi cables, as good as it gets.

fully tested to 1080p, have a 12m one running for my projector. at that length all hdmi cables are not equalt, so these guys only sell what they are sure will work.

mathias

Its very encouraging to see an honest HDMI cable seller for once , prices on that site are very reasonable indeed.

Its absolutely true that after 15m or so there is heavy attenuation in HDMI signals so long cables will be more expensive , 150 or so is not unreasonable for a 30m cable thats tested at 1080p.

Compare that to monster , who charge that price for a 2m cable rated the same!

karltimber

Thx Mossym

If it is approx 10m - which do I go for ? Series 1 or 2 - not sure

and the cat5 cable between these ext - normal straight thru cable or cross-over ?

Thx again

K

ps - here's another site also -http://ukhdmi.com/index.php

mossym

if it's going in wall I'd go for series 1, i did, last thing you want to do is have to tear down walls cause the cable doesn't work .

have seen the ukhdmi site. TBH though, I've gotten a lot of my cables from bluejeans, and every one has been top notch, from s video to sub cables to hdmi to speaker cable. i trust them completely, and their shipping is quick from the usa. I'll continue to use them

bazwaldo

For the cat5 cable. I have a feeling that either works as it only uses 4 wires of the eight. I can't remember. Easy to test when you get it. How I have it means straight through when fully connnected.

Cross over cable - straight through between sockets - cross over cable.

You could also just buy a long n/w cable instead, or make the long cable. I bought a crimp tool (about a tenner) from ebay too and a box of cat5 is cheap and making a cable is easy enough. A few hundred metres of cat5 for 50 quid or so.

I read http://www.swhowto.com/CAT5_Ch2.htm for instructions on how to make the cables and do the sockets.