Splicing an HDMI cable.

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I wanted a 30 foot long hdmi cable without having to pay 50 dollars for it.  In the past I have simply spliced different types of cables together.  HDMI cables are another beast entirely.  My boy and I spent 2.5 hours splicing and soldering a 30 foot long cable.  We took a six foot one, cut it in half, and took two Ethernet cables, 27 feet each and spliced them together.  I thought the shielded wires were all grounded so I figured even though the hdmi cable had 19 wires and the two Ethernet cables only had 16 total between the two it would work.  I was wrong, really wrong.  The wires are shielded for a reason.  HDMI signals are digital and very sensitive to spurious signals it would seem.  The cable didn’t work.  I got frustrated so I took another 3 foot hdmi cable and spliced out just one wire.  I took that spliced wire and attached one end to the end of a 27 foot Ethernet wire and spliced it into the other end.  It turns out the signal just couldn’t make it 30 feet.  When I spliced the 3 foot cable back together it worked just fine.  I guess HDMI cables have a length limit like USB cables do.

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