HDMI or Cat6? Help needed

[Potman]

Hi, I currently have two Sky HD boxes in my living room. One supplies the panel in the room and the other is watched throughout the house via a coax amplifier in the loft.

As I have an HD panel in my bedroom, I would like to get the signal in the room. As it is ceiling mounted, resiting the box isn't an option as it would mean putting it in the loft which wouldn't be great as it locks up every few weeks.

Therefore, I have two choices, either run a 20m HDMi cable through the cavities in the house, into the loft and back down into my bedroom or do the same with Cat6 cables with HDMI converters.

The problem is I have heard some pretty strong opinions about each. I have been told that Sky HD can have compatibility problems with the cat6 route and that I could suffer signal degradation using such a long HDMi cable.

Can anyone offer any advice as my installer is due round on Monday and I am currently sat on both pieces of kit unsure which to return.

thanks in advance,

MK

[hornydragon]

Erm move the second HD box to the bedroom use a shorter HDMI cable and keep the distribution via the loft AMP.........(when you say ceiling mounted, what is ceiling mounted?)

[Jamz]

I'd say Cat5 would be the cheapest and easyest way of doing what you need.

Most Cat5 to HDMI converters have an amplifier built in them, which will give you as good quality as if the box was 1m away from the panel

[Potman]

Hi, the panel is mounted on a bracket which is suspended from the ceiling. All of the wiring to it is fed through the pole into the loft so unfortunately, I dont have anywhere to put it near the tv.

MK

[kumack]

Put the box in the loft with the distrubution amp and watch tv via short hdmi lead and an ir extender for the remote or even just a magic eye hooked to co-ax but not plugged into the tv, just let the magic eye be viewable.

As far as the box locking up on you get a homeasy remote socket for about 10 quid with remote, and you can use that to reset the box, its RF rather than IR so works through walls and ceilings.

Cheap and the easiest option and trust me you'll get addicted to all the home easy stuff.

[Markie Boy]

Ive gone the CAT5 route at home, feeding my living room with all the Av sources based in the Theatre Room, in total requiring 28m run, so CAT5 was the solution and it works without any degredation or issues.

[ElGato]

Originally Posted by Markie Boy

Ive gone the CAT5 route at home, feeding my living room with all the Av sources based in the Theatre Room, in total requiring 28m run, so CAT5 was the solution and it works without any degredation or issues.

When you say CAT5 do you mean CAT5e? Or does it not make any difference in these situations?

I only ask as I am considering a re-wiring of my home LAN, and at the moment it's either replace like for like, with CAT5e or move up to CAT6.