HD-SDI Safe Cable Length?

K

Kholi

Section Moderator
How long can you run an HD-SDI cable before the signal begins to degrade? I'm pretty sure it's nothing like the awesomeness that is Cat-5 (300 - 350 feet) but what length?
 
I had to look this up. Belden and Extron (I think) had some great information. But from what I saw, the top quality RG6 cabling could handle runs of 100+ meters or so.
 
There should not be too much signal degradation over long runs because it is a digital signal. If you have to do an extremely long run, it might help to run it through a distribution amp to keep the signal up mid cable run.
 
There are a lot of factors that go into the maximum length. Some gear auto equalizes. Others don't. Don't forget ground loop issues. In large venues this can be a significant issue. I've had problems on runs under 200ft and in other circumstances gone 800 ft, all on the same RG6 serial digital rated cable.
I'll be getting some Allen SDI rated humstops but we have already went fiber optic in some venues and will probably doing much more of that in the future.
Guess I need to learn how to terminate fiber now.
 
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