Before performing any installation of equipment or cabling, it is recommended to go through these guidelines to ensure that the right cable is used and is routed and terminated according to correct standards. This will ensure that you experience a streamlined installation process and will greatly reduce any issues that may occur as a result of poor cabling.

Dual UTP HDMI Extenders work in a very different way from what most people would assume, largely due to the cabling medium used: Cat5e/6 UTP cabling. Cat5e/6 twisted pair cabling is conventionally used for TCP/IP-based Ethernet networks which carry data between servers and clients. When using Cat5e/6 UTP cables with Dual UTP HDMI Extenders, a very different signal is transmitted along these cables.

This signal contains high frequency HDMI data, along with display identification and copy protection data. Since all of our Dual UTP HDMI Extenders carry uncompressed HDMI signal, along with full multi-channel audio support, the bitrate being transferred at any instant is in excess of 6-7 Gbps. When split between two available UTP cables, each cable is carrying about 3 Gbps, which is essentially the limit for most high quality Cat5e UTP cabling.

Given that the UTP cables used to carry HDMI signals are pushed to such extremes, there are certain precautions that should be taken when selecting, handling, routing and terminating these UTP cables. Each of these factors are crucial in determining the quality of the connection between the Dual UTP Extenders.

Which is the best cable to use?
All cabling must be of good quality, from reputable manufacturers such as AMP, Belden, Krone, etc. Do not use sub-quality cabling in your installation as they may result in tedious and costly workarounds if they do not work. The best way to ensure that a certain brand/model of cable will work is to actually test the cables with the equipment before they are routed.

Which Category to use?
The base minimum cable that should be used with all of our equipment is Cat5e. All ratings for maximum cable lengths on our equipment are based on Cat5e cabling, with a 1080p signal at 50Hz. Going up to Cat6 or even Cat6a would be even better due to the larger wires within the cables and support for higher frequencies, but do ensure that all hardware and terminations are consistent with the type of cable used. Eg: A Cat6 cable terminated with Cat5e RJ45 plugs will fare worse than a Cat5e cable terminated with Cat5e RJ45 plugs.

Shielded or non-shielded?
We always recommend the use of shielded (F-UTP or FTP) cabling whenever the cables are