How Long Can HDMI Cable Be Run?

One of the glorious things about the traditional analog video formats is their robustness over distance. Our customers have run analog component video for hundreds of feet without so much as a booster box to keep the signal together. When DVI and HDMI first hit the market, many people had trouble running signals over even modest distances; 15 feet would be reliable, and anything longer was a gamble. That situation has improved, though HDMI will never rival analog video for reliability over distance. Here, we address why that is, and what you can expect if you need to run HDMI cable over distance.

What Does the HDMI Spec say about Length?

A tale used to be heard from time to time to the effect that the DVI and HDMI specs give a maximum distance of 15 feet. This isn't true. The HDMI spec, in fact, gives no explicit length limit, but the requirements of the spec implicitly give rise t