CABLES MATTER
One problem with home cinema is that the source of the digital stream is over there, while the display is over here—‘there’ could be any distance from a couple of feet to hundreds of feet, so you will need lots of cabling to connect here and there.
The problem is that HDMI 2.x specification is pretty confusing for consumers, and HDMI doesn’t specify supported cable lengths either. Many say 10 feet is the maximum and, while that may be good advice for buying random Chinese HDMI cables from eBay, it isn’t really accurate enough.
Part of the issue is that when HDMI was originally created, 1080p was high-end and HDMI connected a DVD Player to the TV sat on top of it. Combine that with the HDMI 1.x (max 4K @ 30Hz) days and timing wasn’t as critical over long(ish) cable lengths.
With the release of HDMI 2.0 supporting 4K at 60Hz data rates jumped from an already high 10Gbit/s to 18Gbit/s and with HDMI 2.1 to 48Gbit/s. Suddenly blasting all of those bits, even with quality twisted-pair shielded cabling, over more than 10 feet becomes an issue.
Running a wall-mounted projector, even with the player kit directly below, is likely to require a nine-foot HDMI cable. For our installation, we’re more in the 30-foot region, something a casual read online might make you think is impossible.
Cable experts, such as www. infinitecables.com, certify their cables and offer full refunds if they don’t deliver. It supplies passive 8K HDMI 2.1 cables up to 10 feet (for $8), 4K HDMI 2.0 up to 10 feet, and HDMI 1.4 capable of 4K at 60Hz up to 40 feet.
To retain full HDMI 2.0 support beyond 10 feet, you’ll need an active HDMI cable. Active HDMI 2.0 18Gbps capable cables go up to 50 feet, a reasonable 35-foot one will cost you $45. If you need to go longer then active optical HDMI can take this up to 100 feet in length. It bumps the cost to $170 but is worth every cent.
AV amplifier—as covered routing the audio and HDMI inputs—our quiet home theater PC, and any consoles. We’re using a Google Chromecast directly into the AV amp for streaming services and running Plex from the home server.
As we’re renovating the room, we can route the audio cables under the floorboards and behind new baseboards. For the projector, we’re going to route a long HDMI cable up behind cupboards, behind the coving, and around to the projector. This HDMI cable will be 21 feet long (see the box on speccing long HDMI cables to ensure they are up to the job). Be aware some electrical screens have a “trigger” line that connects to compatible projectors, so that’s another thing to route, though many screens just offer a remote. We’re also planning a wallmounted 42-inch TV over the fireplace and have planned for the HDMI, power, and aerial cables to be routed down into the unused fireplace to the AV amp.
With everything hooked up, your home theater is ready to go, almost. You’ll certainly want to give it a few test runs and color calibrate the projector, many people offer base settings online and you can tweak it to taste from there. Reasonable calibration can be achieved with your eye and the supplied series of test patterns and brightness charts.
On the PC side, there can certainly be awkward audio settings, so ensure the correct audio device is being used with the Windows mixer. If you have a nonHDR projector or display but have HDR content, ensure you have the K-Lite codec pack from https://codecguide.com with its MadVR plugin that will re-encode HDR video on the fly. Otherwise, recent builds of VLC use a Tone Mapper that does a reasonable job with minimal CPU use. If you’re watching a lot of local video, try a media center server such as Plex or Emby to help catalog your library—this can be viewed via a networked PC, Android box, Chromecast, or similar streaming box.
Home theater installs are complex beasts and you can understand why there’s a small industry carrying them out. Trying to bring together the best of the audio, visual, networking, and computing worlds, into a bespoke space with decor on top is a daunting challenge. Never mind ensuring it’s all calibrated and set up for the best experience. We haven’t even scratched the surface but, hopefully, this has inspired you enough to try.