$500 fiber optic HDMI cable delivers flawless 48 Gbps performance across a staggering 990 feet — crushes 8K at 60 Hz and 4K at 120 Hz over long distances
An expensive HDMI cable that's not snake oil?:
Now, these specs aren't special in a vacuum, but the fact that the cable can enable them over (up to) 990 feet — that's the impressive bit. The "entry-level" $116 version is only 3 feet long, and for that, it's quite expensive because you don't need fiber optic for this length. The best deal here is probably the 100-foot cable priced at $150, so only about $30 more for an extra 97 feet of fiber-optic goodness.
Ruipro has made the HDMI connectors on both ends removable, so you won't have to replace the entire cable if a plug breaks. When removed, the end of the cable can slot into keystone jacks and wall plates as well for easy storage. The cable itself is relatively thin for its size, and the connectors are made entirely of metal to ensure durability.
Another benefit of fiber optic is its resistance to electromagnetic interference, though that's not a huge issue to begin with for HDMI, and EMI is notoriously used as the bait to sell those aforementioned miracle cures. Regardless, this is still a solid HDMI 2.1 cable for those who value signal integrity, and even though the starting price is certainly not enticing, the subsequent options are priced rather fairly.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 07, @01:18PM (5 children)
I'm guessing its fully optical. It might not be, but probably is. You can escape a grounding domain and become near lightning-proof with something like that if you're going between buildings (shared wall, I guess), Glass won't conduct much lightning induced current compared to copper. Article is correct they won't sell many at that length for that reason, but I could see huge projectors in public buildings needing something like that.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Undefined on Tuesday April 07, @01:50PM (2 children)
I have serious static electricity problems. It's worth it to me to isolate display and driver inputs and outputs from one another.
Lightning, if it actually gets in the building, is a much bigger problem. For not-so-nearby strikes, I have hope for multiple layers of surge protection. But direct strikes... not really.
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Hover to reveal elaborations.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday April 07, @04:00PM (1 child)
It helps with ground spikes. Lets say the building has lightning rods and surge protectors wired to a star ground point, thats good engineering practice.
Lightning hits the lighting rod, at those power levels the resistance of the ground rods etc is significant, ground potential raises to 2 KV
The AC power won't care, good surge protectors might limit the surge across line and neutral to 200v in the USA and multivoltage switchmode power supplies are fine up to 300V or so. It doesn't matter if referenced to ground the line and neutral are both 2 KV above ground... as long as no GFCI melts down etc.
However the grounded HDMI cable is now at 2 KV compared to the other phase of power in a big building or compared to the building next door, so 2KV on one side and 0V on the other side is a recipe to burn out the HDMI cable and whatever its connected to on both ends. Unless they're connected completely optically in which case one building having a potential 2KV higher than the other for awhile won't matter, its just glass.
(Score: 1) by Undefined on Tuesday April 07, @09:16PM
Yep. All the display and networking connections are optical here. Surge protection everywhere, including the building's main power feed. There's proper building grounding, too.
Doesn't keep me from being nervous when the skies get busy, though.
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(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday April 08, @08:00AM (1 child)
Given that HDMI has to transmit +5V at some point, I doubt it's fully optical.
The only reason I know to use an optical HDMI is because it's basically like fibre networking - you get far larger distance with an optical medium, and no RF interference on the signal so you can run it past power cables, etc.
It's basically a fibre transceiver at each end and sending the HDMI data over the fibre and then converting it back to HDMI signals the other end.
So, either both ends have to be powered, or you have to transmit 5V through it.
Given that the destination device isn't going to power the HDMI cable, I would say that means it has 5V lines just the same as anything else.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sfm on Wednesday April 08, @02:45PM
>> ...either both ends have to be powered, or you have to transmit 5V through it
In checking out their website, it still appears the connections between the dongles
are ONLY fiber. But you make a good point. Likely the transmit end gets 5V from
the HDMI port and the receive end gets 5V from a USB port on the TV.
https://ruipro.store/collections/all/products/ruipro-8k-gen4ak-detachable-full-fiber-armored-hdmi-cable [ruipro.store]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday April 07, @01:22PM
Also worth pointing out Best Buy used to be legendary for selling cheap TVs with "required" $100 HDMI cables, so in that context a $150 fiber optic cable is pretty cheap.
I checked online while posting this and I see Best Buy is still selling HDMI cables for more than $10/foot. "I have no idea at all why brick and mortar retail is dying". Meanwhile "AmazonBasics" brand cables of equal or higher quality run about $1/foot, sometimes as much as $2/foot for weird ones.
(Score: 4, Informative) by GloomMower on Tuesday April 07, @01:38PM
I've seen online many fiber optic hdmi cables and for much cheaper for a while. A friend was looking to extend from the living room a long distance. They don't have the detachable connectors though.
Search on amazon, 100 ft for $50 or 500ft for $155.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday April 07, @02:15PM (10 children)
DNRTFA, how are they sending electronic signals through fiber optic cabling? Are there optical ports that are for HDMI now?
(Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Tuesday April 07, @02:24PM (8 children)
sounds like HDMI < - > optical transducer + logic stuff on both ends
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 07, @04:04PM (1 child)
The pinouts here are miserable but there is 5 volts at 50 mA on HDMI ports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI [wikipedia.org]
Its not much but its enough to run extenders and switchboxes and stuff, most times.
I suspect its much like USB and its not strictly current limited to 50 mA its more like "you feelin' lucky?" I bet you could pull half an amp out of some HDMI ports...
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Wednesday April 08, @01:23AM
I bought a HDMI extender.
I had a USB plug to get power for the extender to work.
IOW: Unless you have USB power at both ends, I can't see how this is supposed to work.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday April 07, @05:14PM (5 children)
My brain went to fluorescent lights, like they made the inside of the glass porus and trapped some kind of gas that can be energized and carry a signal.
(Score: 2) by sfm on Tuesday April 07, @09:58PM (4 children)
The fiber used is (effectively) a solid glass cylinder, about a meter long and 50-micron
in diameter. Typically driven by some type of laser and the light moves down the fiber
due to total-internal-reflection. At the far end, there is an optical receiver that generates
an electrical output signal to your TV.
One end of the cable is electrically isolated from the other end, but that doesn't really
help if both pieces of equipment are plugged into the same outlet.
(Score: 2) by ls671 on Wednesday April 08, @09:43AM (2 children)
Yeah I thought it was total internal reflection only but I found out recently that almost all modern fiber are also wrapped in a reflective envelope to better cope with potential steep curves in the cables layout which would cause the light to escape. So it's total internal reflection + reflection on that coating.
Of course total internal reflection only and no steep curves in the cables are better because total internal reflection involves virtually no loss at all while reflection on the outside envelope is far less efficient.
So remember this when you lay fiber on simply setup an optical cable. The reflective outside layer is kind of cheating so cables will still work with too steep curves in them but it will work better if using only total internal reflection.
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 08, @06:20PM (1 child)
I found out the expensive way almost a lifetime ago that even "indoor" fiber has bend limits and you can quite easily crack it.
I installed some fiber optic ESCON cables under a raised floor and one was dead. The next day my boss gave me another kilodollar cable and told me this time the IBM CE tested it before handing it over so I better route it very carefully.
Everything turned out OK in the end.
I would imagine even with new modern tech there are still bend limits for fiber beyond which it'll snap.
This is aside from the loss problem related to bend radii.
Every time I consider installing fiber at my house for the fun of it I think about how I snapped some escon cables a couple decades ago LOL and think better of it. I'm still using cat6/cat7/cat-wtf copper to run 10 gig ethernet in my home lab.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08, @10:17PM
Modern fiber still has bending limits! For multimode fiber, you really don't want to
to have less than about 3" bending radius. Singlemode fiber is a bit more forgiving.
Never, ever, ever, ever try and route fiber over a 90-deg corner unless you have a
form or conduit to keep it from bending too sharply.
(Score: 2) by ls671 on Wednesday April 08, @09:58AM
Here is a link about my above post I had already saved.
https://fiberopticx.com/refraction-reflection-total-internal-reflection/ [fiberopticx.com]
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday April 08, @08:02AM
These things already exist.
I have several in the school I work in.
They're basically a fibre transceiver at both ends converting to/from HDMI and a fibre optic data signal. Like HDMI over Cat5 but using fibre instead.
They get much better range, and can deal with more interference, but are stupidly expensive and more fragile (bend radius etc.)
(Score: 2) by Bentonite on Wednesday April 08, @01:22AM (3 children)
But that's about how much 300m of fibre and 2 48Gbps transceivers cost when not ordered in volume.
But really, in most cases it would make more far sense to mount the computer on/near the display and have a 1m cable than have the display 300m away from the computer.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ledow on Wednesday April 08, @08:04AM (2 children)
Until you're running something like a threate projector in a school or theatre and that projector is mounted high up on a lighting rig that requires scaffolding to get to it safely, and now you have a computer dangling up there that needs to be quite high powered to do a ton of visual effects, etc. but also requires maintenance and rebooting and if it goes down in the middle of a production you can do nothing about it because you need to put up a scaffold where the audience are sitting to get to it, etc.
Ask me how I know.
These things have a purpose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08, @10:45AM
OK, how do you know?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bentonite on Wednesday April 08, @11:08PM
Sounds like a windows or macos problem to me.
Once a suitable GNU/Linux-libre computer has been setup, it does not need maintenance or rebooting - it just keeps working with no changes provided you don't update (you want to add a remote way to kill the power and reboot, but that's about it).
(Score: 1) by oldeschool on Wednesday April 08, @03:29AM
what is this a Monster Cable sold at Circuit City?