HDMI Cable Horror

limashaynut

My father who is in his 60's, got the HT bug after watching my HD HT set up. The same man who still has me set the clock on his VCR, wanted to go full bore HT! I told him I would be glad to help out, but I secretly dreaded the endless phone calls on how to do this or that after it was up and running. :eek:

Dad was in the middle of a complete home restoration at the time, and we were able to start from scratch in his large living room. Dad also wanted as much to be hidden in the walls and ceiling as we could. The 50" plasma was wall mounted over the mantle, Polk RTi6s in cherry and on beautiful cherry stands, sub in corner. The Polk SR and SRB were put in the ceiling, with all cables, including the fronts and sub also run in the walls with speaker hookups in wall plates, so far so good. Dad also had a custom built rack system built into the wall with glass doors, now this I loved, but here is were the problem started.

The feeds for the plasma had to run from the rack to the mantle, and to get there had to go up and over a entrance door to the Florida room. Since we were down to the studs, I ordered custom made cables from (I believe) Better Cables, the run was 30'. I luckily had the foresight, to run backups even though we had planned on doing the feed with HDMI, and everything else being 'upconverted' with the HDMI feed. So I also had custom made TV audio, component, composite, and coax cable run in the walls as well.

About two months after getting everything up and running, we lost the signal with the HDMI feed. After a lot of headscratching, and experimenting with direct feeds from a short length of HDMI feeding straight from a DVD player to the back of the plasma, we figured out that the HDMI cable had gone bad, the plasma end of the cable had the connector crap out.

I called Better Cable to talk about the situation, and got a honest answer from them. It seems that while HDMI is a great way to feed digital signals, the specs for construction of the ends is really not up to snuff. The cable itself (Better Cables) is thick and very well made, but the ends are just too flimsy. I was told that this problem has been across the board, and has effected most all manufactures of this cable. He said that they have now upgraded the strength or their cable ends, but a fat lot of good it does us.

He said if we would send the old cable back, he would replace it! I told him I could cut the ends off and send them back, but we would have to rip the walls and woodwork out to send the cable back! He also said that the ends could NOT be repaired! While they would not give Dad's money back, they did send a new improved cable (about $250.00). but it is not practical to use it now.

I use HDMI for HD feed at my house, and I like it, but my set up does not run behind any walls. Why this long post? I guess it is just a word of warning for others, if you can not replace it easily, then DO NOT depend on HDMI as your only feed for your TV. We put in back ups, and I am glad we did, he is now watching his TV with the component feed.

Anyone else out there had a similar problem with HDMI cable?

Willow

As per my other posts regarding HDMI/DVI, I don't like them one bit. They cost a lot more than I wish to spend which is why I use component with amazing results.

bpadget

From someone who's been in the construction business for 25 years. Put communication cabling in conduit. Even in residential construction.

limashaynut

bpadget,

That is a great idea, I guess you mean that you could have fed a new HDMI cable through the conduit. This might have worked, but it went up and over a door, made a 90 degree left to mantel, then a 90 degree right to run across the mantle, and had to come out through the wall to TV. The damage to the cable was on the outside of the wall were it went into the TV, so conduit would not have prevented the problem, but it might have made it easier to fix.

adam2434

Man, that sucks!

I'm glad I also ran component and HDMI through my wall and ceiling to my projector.

I wonder why the bad end couldn't be reterminated with a new plug? I probably wouldn't try it myself (minimal soldering skills), but you'd think a professional could do it.

bpadget

Right. It won't keep damage from happening at the terminals but it does make repairs easier. It also makes upgrading alot easier. If you can get through the back of the wall the cables are in you won't have to tear up the paneling.

limashaynut

The 'damage' was where the conductive end of the HDMI plug attached to the wires in the cable. The conductive end simple had too much wiggle (for lack of a better term) between it, and the insulated plug. Externally it looked just fine, but the wire connections had broken or worked loose inside. Better Cables said that there was no way to fix the end, but I wonder.

If it was optical, then I would understand that it was shot, but it is electrical, and wires CAN be soldered. I am sure it would be tedious, and a pain in the ****, but it could be done. I think I am going to buy another 1 meter HDMI cable, cut the end off (got two shots to get it right), and see if I can repair it with solder, patience and a few curse words, at this point I have nothing to loose but a few more bucks on the sacrificed 'parts' cable.

The reason that the orginal cable went out was due to strain. While there were no hard bends, the cable itself came out of the wall and was looped up to plug into back of the plasma. The female plug on the TV is parallel to the wall, not perpendicular. The cable itself if rather heavy and stiff, and the conductor is rather small and weak, I guess it was just a matter of time.

limashaynut

postscript:

While I like the features that HDMI lets you have, the ends should have been designed better. I think they should have the screw down connectors like the DVI connectors that are used on computer monitors, I think this would avoid problems like the one we had. The computer 'geeks' got it right, so why was this not included in the HDMI design specs?

Speaking of 'geeks', my wife has a laugh (good natured) at all of us on this forum, she jokes that we are all like the guy in the 40 Year Old Virgin!

Ferres

It would be easier to find ways to keep the AV system rack closer to the TV and speakers.