HDMI cable length...how long is too long ?


I am planning a new HT/Audio installation . I want to know if there is any negatives to using long HDMI cables . I am planning to put about 24ft. of cable between 2 wall plates . Then short HDMI cables to connect the source to one wall plate location and the TV to the other wall plate location . In effect the TV is on one side of the room and the sources are on the other side .

Thank You
saki70
Saki,

Food for thought as I use two very long cable runs -- 25 feet for one and 98 feet for the other.

I use a BlueJeans Series 1 certified HDMI cable for the 25 foot run. It works great. It's HDMI 1.3 certified to 45 feet.

For my longer run, I use a powered HDMI balun that uses 2 Cat5 or 6 cables. It works great. So you can indeed do longer runs without too many major issues but here is what I recommend to you:

1) Run multiple cables and options. I suggest running the following: 2 HDMI cables and 4 Cat6 Cables if you can afford it. For the Cat6 cables, they MUST be the same length and not go through a patch panel or a wall plate and cannot be cut in any way. They won't work through a patch panel and you will have intermittent issues likely with a wall plate. They must be "home run" point to point. So your best bet is to get pre-terminated 25-foot cables. Get them in different colors to make pairing easy. For the HDMI cables, I suggest getting a Monoprice HDMI cable with Redmere. They are DIRECTIONAL, so be careful, but they are designed for longer runs and have a special amplifier built-in. The second HDMI cable I'd recommend is a BlueJeans Series 1. It's stiffer but it's a superb-build quality and certified.

2) I don't recommend going X feet with one cable then going to a plate and then plugging in a second HDMI cable that goes another Y feet. HDMI is truly a terrible connector. it's so fussy and it's a pain to work with; however, it is what it is. So save yourself potential headaches and do not, I repeat, do not try two different cables. Home run the connection point to point.

3) If you have no choice but to split the HDMI cables, then the BALUN may be your best bet. However, I'd also try the same configuration with quality HDMI cables.

So this is what I would do in my ideal world. I'd setup HDMI and BALUN redundant systems. The benefit of the BALUN is future-proofing. Change the hardware on either side of the Cat6 cabling and you can upgrade with the specs as they change.
Thank you for the info .

It appears that a good quality HDMI cable may suffice for the distance that I need .
Given the above info...I would like to know the opinion of using a 25' to 30' cable with wall plates . Will the wall plates and additional short HDMI cables on each end denegrate the signal . Will this set up suffice for 1080p
and 3D ?
Lastly , the Bluejean Series 1 cables have been recommended , these run in the low $100 range . Is there a better cable for less than $200 ?

Thank you
MonoPrice.com sells their Redmere HDMI cables that are specifically for longer runs, 25+ ft. I have heard nothing but good things about these cables and I recommend them for longer runs. A 50 ft. Redmere cable will cost you about $68 + shipping...

http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?keyword=redmere

-RW-
But even with those cables, I don't recommend using HDMI cable from AVR to wall panel -> HDMI to second wall panel -> HDMI cable to projector
Ok... would cat5 work better with the wall plates ?
How futureproof is the Cat5 set up ?