We saw a lot at CEDIA 2005 and will be talking about it on these pages, but some of the best stuff, to my way of thinking, came from some of the smaller booths. One such example I came across at the
ACCELL booth. They announced a new line of
long HDMI and DVI cables and you can see some of their products
here. Note: I'm not saying that ACCELL is the only manufacturer offering long digital cables but this is just a starting point.
In the past digital cables longer than 10 or 15 feet required other considerations to boost the signal and were generally very, very expensive. Now with new technologies you can get cables over 100 feet without significant signal loss. And why am I so excited about this? My present HT configuration has a projector (with digital input) up on the ceiling and the electronics far enough away to make a 10-15' cable impossible to use. In fact it will take at least a 60' run to get a digital signal from my electronics to my projector without the wires being intrusive. I suspect there are many others with the same cable length issues and these new long cables open up the digital world to us. Using a proper scaler, you can have a one cable video solution.
Scalers are also getting better (I was suitably impress with DVDO's upcoming iScanVP30 to consider it for my scaling and switching needs.) There is information about it
here. While not cheap at a little under $2K it offers a lot of flexibility for the money.
So with longer digital cables now reaching the market at reduced prices, those with Front Projectors have more digital options than before if your equipment placement is limited.
