Audioholics has a nice in-depth article on the origins of the HDMI cabling standard (and how the designers screwed it up so badly). Despite it’s issues, the standard is rapidly becoming widely adopted, so it’s important to know the limitations. In particular, HDMI can’t be run for very long distances, and is sensitive to couplers, switches and adapters along the way. Happily, Belden has been working on a special “bonded pair” cable technology that addresses the issue of running high bitrates through twisted pairs. This new cable design has been shown in the lab to push HDMI signals to 150+ feet, and is supposed to be available this summer. Check out the article for other best practices for HDMI cabling, and how to get the most out of the conflicted standard.