My experience with long monitor cables
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My experience with long monitor cables
Just wanted to share my experience with trying to put my computer in another room. I know it is not looked upon kindly by this site, but since its a bad experience, maybe its OK.
My monitor is a 20" LCD @ 1200x1600, with a 1.8 meter cable. Just fine.
I ordered a 5 meter quality cable and received it by mail. First problem. The cable was pretty anonymously packaged in a plastic bag, with a sticker with just a product number. While the product number matched the manufactures number, I didn't feel sure if it was a genuine product, or just a fake copy, with a counterfeit sticker. The cable had no ferrites, though it should have.
Anyway, the image quality with the new cable was obviously degraded. Lots of shadows on icons on my desktop.
I concluded that I had buy it in a store, to make sure it looked like a genuine product, so I went to a store and bought a 3 meter quality cable with ferrites, and went home to try it.
It seemed OK, but closer inspection revealed some color issues in the corners of the screen. Also when i loaded a game in 640x480, there were a kind of fuzziness in the image, mostly visible in the menus.
Another problem. The two cables i tried was missing a power safe connection, so the screen no longer turned off during power save, but kept showing a "no signal" message. A little annoying, and impossible to know before purchase.
I conclude that a modern system can't be moved to another room, unless it is just on the other side of the wall, which in most cases is impossible.
My monitor is a 20" LCD @ 1200x1600, with a 1.8 meter cable. Just fine.
I ordered a 5 meter quality cable and received it by mail. First problem. The cable was pretty anonymously packaged in a plastic bag, with a sticker with just a product number. While the product number matched the manufactures number, I didn't feel sure if it was a genuine product, or just a fake copy, with a counterfeit sticker. The cable had no ferrites, though it should have.
Anyway, the image quality with the new cable was obviously degraded. Lots of shadows on icons on my desktop.
I concluded that I had buy it in a store, to make sure it looked like a genuine product, so I went to a store and bought a 3 meter quality cable with ferrites, and went home to try it.
It seemed OK, but closer inspection revealed some color issues in the corners of the screen. Also when i loaded a game in 640x480, there were a kind of fuzziness in the image, mostly visible in the menus.
Another problem. The two cables i tried was missing a power safe connection, so the screen no longer turned off during power save, but kept showing a "no signal" message. A little annoying, and impossible to know before purchase.
I conclude that a modern system can't be moved to another room, unless it is just on the other side of the wall, which in most cases is impossible.
This is expected with all cables VGA and DVI.
Whats happening here is that basically after 2 meters, VGA and DVI cables start to degrade. Just like HDMI cables. If you take a 1 Meter monster cable VS a 5 meter monster cable. Trust me you'll notice a difference, a very small difference but a difference nonetheless. This comes from experience working at Sears Electronic department. We use to make one TV look better than the other by swapping cables to help one TV sell better than the other.
Best thing to do. If you really want better quality after 2 Meteres, there's only one cable company in the world that lets you do this. WireWorld Cables! But they're freaking expensive. $1 meter of their cable will cost your right up to $300 LOL. But they're cables are the best.
If you're too cheap. Best bet is to buy Monster Cable but buy the higher grades like around 600 to 800. Those should be a bit better at around 5 Meters. Look around ebay and stuff. You'll find monster cables for cheaper than BestBuy or any official retailer. The ones on eBay are mostly real. Monsters cables are actually fairly cheap it's just retailers make about 400% profit on them. (I can buy most monster cables at Wholesale so I know lol)
Whats happening here is that basically after 2 meters, VGA and DVI cables start to degrade. Just like HDMI cables. If you take a 1 Meter monster cable VS a 5 meter monster cable. Trust me you'll notice a difference, a very small difference but a difference nonetheless. This comes from experience working at Sears Electronic department. We use to make one TV look better than the other by swapping cables to help one TV sell better than the other.
Best thing to do. If you really want better quality after 2 Meteres, there's only one cable company in the world that lets you do this. WireWorld Cables! But they're freaking expensive. $1 meter of their cable will cost your right up to $300 LOL. But they're cables are the best.
If you're too cheap. Best bet is to buy Monster Cable but buy the higher grades like around 600 to 800. Those should be a bit better at around 5 Meters. Look around ebay and stuff. You'll find monster cables for cheaper than BestBuy or any official retailer. The ones on eBay are mostly real. Monsters cables are actually fairly cheap it's just retailers make about 400% profit on them. (I can buy most monster cables at Wholesale so I know lol)
Sorry, but I disagree. If you head over to AVSForum they talk a LOT about using long cables in the order of 50ft or more. If you use a QUALITY cable, you can get perfect image quality from well over 2m. There are some people who can run analog and digital lines 30-50ft (how else do you feed DVI/HDMI to a ceiling mounted front projector) with no image degradation.Chocolinx wrote:This is expected with all cables VGA and DVI.
Whats happening here is that basically after 2 meters, VGA and DVI cables start to degrade. Just like HDMI cables. If you take a 1 Meter monster cable VS a 5 meter monster cable. Trust me you'll notice a difference, a very small difference but a difference nonetheless. This comes from experience working at Sears Electronic department. We use to make one TV look better than the other by swapping cables to help one TV sell better than the other.
Best thing to do. If you really want better quality after 2 Meteres, there's only one cable company in the world that lets you do this. WireWorld Cables! But they're freaking expensive. $1 meter of their cable will cost your right up to $300 LOL. But they're cables are the best.
If you're too cheap. Best bet is to buy Monster Cable but buy the higher grades like around 600 to 800. Those should be a bit better at around 5 Meters. Look around ebay and stuff. You'll find monster cables for cheaper than BestBuy or any official retailer. The ones on eBay are mostly real. Monsters cables are actually fairly cheap it's just retailers make about 400% profit on them. (I can buy most monster cables at Wholesale so I know lol)
MonoPrice.com has very high quality cables (all made by them, IIRC) for very low price. Everyone over at AVSForum uses them. Monster Cables are, to anyone who's ever had to shell out money for them, a waste of money, and in some cases perform worse than cheaper no-name cables (don't ask for proof, I don't have any, that was a testimonial).
Quality is not directly proportional to price, it helps to seek advice from the people who test/review these products (electronics) for a living. MissingRemote.com and AVSFourms make reference to a lot of these sites often, so poking around over there isn't a bad idea.
With respect, I would not judge any component (cable, display, or other) based on how it was set up in a store. Even if the display is set up correctly, most of the time they are set up in "burn mode" (from the factory) where brightness and contrast are boosted to give the picture a brighter, livelier picture under the bright store lights (so it sells better). Problem is, it looks totally different when it's at your house in a controlled light environment.
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I'm not sure why you think we'd be against relocating the system to another room. I've been trying to do this for ages, but I've had little success.
With proper cables (and they DON'T have to be expensive), you should be able to get up to 50' away without VGA picture degradation, although the level of quality will depend on your tolerance and the resolution/timings you are running. Higher resolutions and faster refresh rates are more susceptible to degradation.
I suggest you find a company that supplies commercial installations with cable; they will probably have the best prices and will have to sell quality cables to stay in business. Expect to spend about $1 per foot.
With proper cables (and they DON'T have to be expensive), you should be able to get up to 50' away without VGA picture degradation, although the level of quality will depend on your tolerance and the resolution/timings you are running. Higher resolutions and faster refresh rates are more susceptible to degradation.
I suggest you find a company that supplies commercial installations with cable; they will probably have the best prices and will have to sell quality cables to stay in business. Expect to spend about $1 per foot.
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Finally, found the shop that I was looking for. You want a place like Lin Haw... and you'll need to convince them to sell you just one cable. The cables they sell are made by PCCW, and they are good quality.
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By the Lord Harry!!! Is this actually a case of someone using the search function before posting!!!.....Devonavar wrote:I'm not sure why you think we'd be against relocating the system to another room.
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I have a 15 or 20m long VGA cable of average quality running from my computer to my projector and there is absolutley no image degradation that I can see. The projector only outputs 800x600, but on the other hand you had problems even at 640x480.
However I also use a small box (one of these) to boost the signal strength for the long cable, this is the usual way of doing it when you use long cables in installations. To be honest I haven't even tried without the amplifier so I don't really know how much it helps...
Anyhow I don't believe you should need an amplifier for a cable as short as 3m... Can't see any modern graphics card having problems pushing the signal that far, unless you are running of a laptop? They are usually not as good when using long VGA cables and can definetly need an amplifier for a few meters of VGA cable.[/url]
However I also use a small box (one of these) to boost the signal strength for the long cable, this is the usual way of doing it when you use long cables in installations. To be honest I haven't even tried without the amplifier so I don't really know how much it helps...
Anyhow I don't believe you should need an amplifier for a cable as short as 3m... Can't see any modern graphics card having problems pushing the signal that far, unless you are running of a laptop? They are usually not as good when using long VGA cables and can definetly need an amplifier for a few meters of VGA cable.[/url]
I can see people with projectors need long cables, but I can't really see it apply to monitor cables.
Projectors are mostly ordinary TV signals at 704x480 @ 30 Hz, and a large monitor uses 1600x1200 @ 60 Hz. Thats 11 times as much data which need to go over the cable with out noise. Combined with the fact that TV images are mostly in motion, so slight ghosting aren't noticed much.
My problems with 640x480 @ 3 meter cable are only a slight fuzzyness, this is at a refresh rate, probably about 90 Hz.
I would like to hear if anyone has actually succeded in running a 1600x1200 signal through 5 meters of cable without degradation.
Projectors are mostly ordinary TV signals at 704x480 @ 30 Hz, and a large monitor uses 1600x1200 @ 60 Hz. Thats 11 times as much data which need to go over the cable with out noise. Combined with the fact that TV images are mostly in motion, so slight ghosting aren't noticed much.
My problems with 640x480 @ 3 meter cable are only a slight fuzzyness, this is at a refresh rate, probably about 90 Hz.
I would like to hear if anyone has actually succeded in running a 1600x1200 signal through 5 meters of cable without degradation.
I think the best place to ask this question would be over at AVSForums (probably in their HTPC forum). Most of the people there are WELL-versed in configuring HTPC that usually use long VGA/DVI/HDMI/Component runs to projectors or displays in different rooms.
They would be much more help, than you're likely to find here. There's a good group of peeps here, but in general, it's about the silence. This stuff is right up AVSForums alley.
But I would really evaluate what you mean by Projectors. You do know that there are HD projectors out there and that 75% of all HDTVs sold in the last 5 years have been some sort of projection screen (mainly rear-projection). Most, up until about 4 years ago connected via VGA, some still do, others just converted to DVI/HDMI (like Mitsubishi).
Another thing, you never mention what brand/model the monitor is. Is a cheap monitor? Is it a native digital panel. If I were using a DVI-capable monitor, I would connect it with DVI, not VGA. The problem may very well be the monitor (or it's ability to do ADC on a VGA signal) NOT the cable.
They would be much more help, than you're likely to find here. There's a good group of peeps here, but in general, it's about the silence. This stuff is right up AVSForums alley.
But I would really evaluate what you mean by Projectors. You do know that there are HD projectors out there and that 75% of all HDTVs sold in the last 5 years have been some sort of projection screen (mainly rear-projection). Most, up until about 4 years ago connected via VGA, some still do, others just converted to DVI/HDMI (like Mitsubishi).
Another thing, you never mention what brand/model the monitor is. Is a cheap monitor? Is it a native digital panel. If I were using a DVI-capable monitor, I would connect it with DVI, not VGA. The problem may very well be the monitor (or it's ability to do ADC on a VGA signal) NOT the cable.
Re: My experience with long monitor cables
I've had no problems with 5m DVI.stroyer wrote:I ordered a 5 meter quality cable and received it by mail. First problem. The cable was pretty anonymously packaged in a plastic bag, with a sticker with just a product number. While the product number matched the manufactures number, I didn't feel sure if it was a genuine product, or just a fake copy, with a counterfeit sticker. The cable had no ferrites, though it should have.
Anyway, the image quality with the new cable was obviously degraded. Lots of shadows on icons on my desktop.
Re: My experience with long monitor cables
In 1600x1200 ?croddie wrote: I've had no problems with 5m DVI.
No just 1280*1024. Actually it's 6m what I am using at the moment; I'd forgotten.
This site says that the DVI spec is 5m:
http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html
But longer lengths should work fine especially (they say) with newer hardware.
Again from that site:
"In-house tests on varying equipment have produced strong signals up to 9 and 10 meters long. Tests at 12 meters generally resulted in signal loss and an unusuable image on the display, and anything longer rendered no image at all. "
This site says that the DVI spec is 5m:
http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html
But longer lengths should work fine especially (they say) with newer hardware.
Again from that site:
"In-house tests on varying equipment have produced strong signals up to 9 and 10 meters long. Tests at 12 meters generally resulted in signal loss and an unusuable image on the display, and anything longer rendered no image at all. "
Great link, thanks. Seems I have to go DVI. Need a new computer thencroddie wrote:This site says that the DVI spec is 5m:
http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html