Last updated on January 23rd, 2024 at 02:33 am
Despite the versatility of an HDMI connection, carrying high-quality video and audio through a single, there’s a drawback.
HDMI cables show their prowess only up to a certain length.
Exceed that length and the AV quality begins to degrade.
Depending on cable quality, video quality begins dropping when cable length exceeds anywhere from 15 feet to 50 feet.
But then there’s a solution at hand to prevent this problem. It comes in the form of an HDMI extender.
As its name suggests, an HDMI extender helps you extend an HDMI cable connection without the said accompanying quality loss.
The Way to Extend an HDMI Connection
The way to extend your HDMI connection beyond a certain length is through an HDMI extender.
The HDMI extender device comes in a pair – a transmitter and a receiver.
Both these devices have to be connected to an AC power supply. So make sure you have extra power outlets at your disposal.
To connect the HDMI extender transmitter and receiver, you do not need a lengthy HDMI cable. If you’re going to extend your HDMI connection by 100 feet, you would not need a 100-foot cable.
Instead, you would need an Ethernet (RJ 45) cable.
If you’re not familiar with the cable, it’s the one you use to connect your computer to a modem/router to connect to the Internet. Very much like a telephone cable, but slightly larger.
As such the HDMI extender device is also called HDMI over LAN (Local Area Network) Extender or HDMI over TCP/IP Cat5/Cat5e/Cat6/Cat7 Ethernet Cable
TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol.
Cat stands for the Ethernet cable category. The higher the category of a cable, the higher the bandwidth and data transfer speed it supports.
Before we see how the HDMI extender connection works, be reminded that you should buy an HDMI extender that’s HDCP compliant.
How the HDMI Extender Works
Step 1
Connect the HDMI output from a video source (cable set-top box, Blu-ray player, Android TV box, or game console to the HDMI input of the transmitter portion of the HDMI extender.
Step 2
Insert an Ethernet Cable of your choice, preferably Cat5e/6/7 into the Ethernet cable slot of the transmitter.
Step 3
Connect the Ethernet cable to the Ethernet input slot of the HDMI extender receiver device.
Step 4
Plug an HDMI cable into the HDMI out slot of the receiver. Connect the other end of the cable to an HDTV or computer monitor.
With the above connection, you would be able to enjoy an extended HDMI connection without any video quality loss.
Watch the video below to get a clearer picture of how an HDMI extender works.
Also, check out how a wireless HDMI extender works if you don’t want to go through the inconvenience of handling lengthy cables.
