Bandwidth and Speed are very important when discussing the construction of a HDMI® cable. One has to have a general understanding of how these two words pertain to cables as well as how they play into the cables functional capability. Bandwidth and Speed are a very difficult and confusing concept for most people to grasp.

What is Bandwidth? What is speed?

Although bandwidth and speed have much in common, they are different and are frequently and incorrectly used by both consumers and the manufacturers to express the same thought.

• Bandwidth refers to how much data can pass thru a device at the same point and time.
• Speed refers to how quickly a device can create the data.

Now we are starting to get into the more esoteric physics of an HDMI® cable. For many years, mainstream analog audio cable manufacturers talked about “Skin Effect” and how higher frequency’s tend to migrate to the surface of a cable and that lower frequencies stayed in the middle. As it turns out, there is some truth to this statement. Oh, not in the analog audio domain, that is still BS (in our opinion). However, in the high speed world of HDMI surface silver content and the type of dielectric do play a part in the performance of a HDMI cable. Now just throwing a thicker cost of silver onto the copper is not the complete answer. There must be a proper balance. Copper provides a stable high tinsel substrate for the silver plating, this will help the wire to keep its original length and shape which is necessary for the higher bandwidth and speeds (see #1 & #3).

In the previous installments of this series, we have discussed everything needed for the best performing HDMI® cable and to improve overall performance in a system. With that being said without the proper termination quality parts will mean nothing and the cable will not provide top performance.

It is very important to control the heat, silver content, quantity and flow of the solder. Less is more in this application and of course “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”. Extra solder closes the gaps between the connection points and that can/will create its own RF field. To add insult to injury, when it comes to the soldering process ROHS (Federal Lead standards) has mandated that lead be mostly removed from solder for safety reason. Unfortunately this means that solder most be applied at a higher temperature for it to flow. Higher temps mean a greater chance of thermal damage to any board level components.

By RS Staff, October 17, 2015

NewBay Media’s Residential Systems and TWICE have named their 2015 Best of Show Awards for CEDIA 2015, honoring outstanding products exhibited at the show.

NewBay Media’s Residential Systems and TWICE have named their 2015 Best of Show Awards for CEDIA 2015, honoring outstanding products exhibited at the show. Manufacturers submitted products for nomination prior to arriving in Dallas, then a panel of anonymous professional integrator and journalist judges evaluated the entries based on written submissions and visual inspections on CEDIA show floor. A CEDIA exhibiting manufacturer could nominate its product for either Residential Systems or TWICE, or both.

By CE Pro Editors, October 15, 2015

The winners of the 2015 CE Pro Best Awards will be presented during CEDIA Expo 2015. Awards recognize the most noteworthy new products and technologies for 2015.

CE Pro is pleased to announce the winners of the 2015 CE Pro BEST (Best Electronic Systems Technologies) Awards, recognizing the most noteworthy new products and technologies for 2015.

“The BEST Awards offer by far the greatest amount of exposure for every submission ... not just the winners ... more exposure than any other awards program in the custom installation industry,” says Jason Knott, editor-in-chief at CE Pro.

All submissions will appear on CEPro.com and in the December 2015 print edition of CE Pro.

An unbiased judging panel of a dozen credible industry leaders, along with the editors of CE Pro, performed the judging independently. Each of the 182 submissions was judged on its own merits for innovation, functionality, competitive advantages and benefits to the integrator. Since the products were not judged against each other but independently, this year CE Pro is presenting multiple winners for high-scoring products in certain categories.