In today’s technology, HDMI cables are very popular among the home theatre system, conference, even video game that needs the use of an A/V connection. However, some of you may not know which type of cables need to be used in which type of situation. In this blog post, you will get an idea of why do you need fiber optic HDMI cable over a normal HDMI cable.
Normal HDMI (Copper)
Normal or conventional HDMI cables are made of copper. Copper is a cheap material. Don’t be shocked if it has a chance of interference. Depending on the HDMI cable’s quality, it has a distant limit max of 65 feet or 20 meters. There might be issues coming when the distance reaches 50 feet or 15 meters.
Fiber Optic HDMI Cable
Fiber optic or optical cable is a new cutting-edge technology that goes above the normal HDMI cable and beyond limitations. The cables are usually slim, flexible, and light that can deliver top performance in very long distances. If you have heard fiber internet is much better speed than a normal internet, the Fiber optic HDMI works the same way as the internet. Fiber optic HDMI cable is one-directional, which means each end is marked individually for source and display. Therefore, you need to carefully use them.
Normal HDMI cables use electricity to transmit signals, while fiber optic cables use laser. The fiber optic works to transmit the HDMI signals, your device will convert them into pulses of light first. The pulses move at a very fast speed using fiber optics. When they arrive at their target, the light pulses revert to electrical signals. Because light (lasers) moves faster than electricity, the transmission of the signals via a fiber optic cable provides much better performance than a normal HDMI cable.
How to Choose The Best HDMI Cables for You?
When selecting the normal or fiber optic cable, choose the shortest one. The recommended length for the fiber optic HDMI cable is 10 meters. Meanwhile, for better performance on normal HDMI, cable less than 7 meters is preferred. Because for normal HDMI, their signals usually start to reduce at a distance of 7 meters and loss in quality at 15 meters. Hence, if you need a longer cable, fiber optic or optical cable is a good choice for the best quality video and audio.
To mitigate the normal HDMI having issues in specified distance, you can use HDMI splitter although it puts more work, but may also have an issue in maintaining 4K quality, especially over a longer distance. Fiber optic HDMI can give the solution for this type of issue rather than using a standalone normal HDMI cable as well as HDMI extender at peak performance
Conclusion
If you are a video game enthusiast or have a home theater system, HDMI cable sounds enough for the audio and video transmission. As I said before, normal HDMI cables are cheap and made of copper, which is prone to interference. So, if you want a stable and reliable connection as well as long-distance (over 10 meters) while gaming, you will need a fiber optic HDMI cable.
