Qvis Apollo HD - Passive hdmi baluns not working at 48 ft.

Hi Guys.

I recently ungraded to a 8 Channel Qvis Apollo HD DVR. I ordered some hdmi baluns from monoprice.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10105&cs_id=1010504&p_id=8121&seq=1&format=2

They are passive baluns that are rated for 98ft over cat 5e or cat 6. I ran (2) 50ft cat 5e cables and terminated them myself. Well I wasn't getting any video at all. I used my cable tester to make sure that both of the cables were ok. Both cables were 50 ft long. I started to wonder if they meant a 98ft run or 98ft worth of cable. Between both cables I had 100ft. I ended up cutting and recrimping the cables at 48ft each. It still did not work. I had (2) 6ft cat 5e cables at the house that I ended up testing with, the hdmi baluns worked perfectly with the (2) 6ft cables. The only thing that might be questionable is the fact that hdmi baluns are rated as version 1.2.

Would that even mater? I wonder if the hdmi signal coming out of the apollo is strong enough to send it down the lines. Hmmmm....

Anybody have any advice? Thank You.

Happy New Year to you all!

The cables you tested that are 6 feet did you make them yourself? What wiring diagram are you using to wire the two long cables? You cannot just match both sides of the cable in any color code that you want. They have two diagrams for wiring network cable that you have to follow.

(1) 6ft cable came with the dvr in the box. The other 6 ft and both of the 48ft cables were made following 568B color code. 568B is what is required for the baluns also. As mentioned, all terminated cables were tested with tester and all passed.

I have used similar items and they have worked flawlessly with termination A and B. You did not mention what you used to test your cables. The cheap testers from ebay (which are pure junk) will test that each side has the same termination on both ends but will not test for connectivity. Since time is money for me and usually everyone else I would have already bought something different from another company and ruled that a defective unit.

Can you even run HDMI to 48' without some kind of amplifier?

I had purchased a 75ft hdmi cable from ebay just to test and see if it would even work without any noticeable video loss and it had a built in amplifier in the end of the hdmi cable and we tested it back and forth with a shorter hdmi cable and could not find any noticeable loss.

Surprisingly it really did not have any noticeable loss but I also think it depends on what is on both ends. We were using a high end graphics card that has a hdmi out built into the card and we saw no difference in picture but did not test it with any kind of DVR's.

We do only install QVIS dvr's so I am curious if the graphics card on the dvr's can work with a longer hdmi cable (75ft)

I have used similar items and they have worked flawlessly with termination A and B. You did not mention what you used to test your cables. The cheap testers from ebay (which are pure junk) will test that each side has the same termination on both ends but will not test for connectivity. Since time is money for me and usually everyone else I would have already bought something different from another company and ruled that a defective unit.

Since you are curious, here a link to the tester that I used. http://www.testequipmentdepot.com/testum/testver/tp600.htm?gclid=CL76k7_Uta0CFQduhwodeUtAmQ

Today I tested by running (2) 48ft CAT 6 cables. I was eager to see video from the dvr, but no go!

I decided to connect the hdmi balun into my cable box and the picture came right up! I then went back to the original CAT 5e cables that I had run. Yup, picture was working great from the cable box's hdmi out via the hdmi baluns.

So I guess I figured out the the power that is coming out of the hdmi port on the dvr box is not enough to send it down 48ft. So now I guess I'll have to go back and order an active hdmi balun instead.

Also check they support the display the DVR is set to.

Following up....I ordered an active hdmi extender from Monoprice. http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=101&cp_id=10105&cs_id=1010504&p_id=6532&seq=1&format=2#description

It worked like a charm once I plugged in the power supply for the hdmi extender. I'm using the (2) 48ft CAT 5e UTP that I had originally ran. No need for shielded though they do recommend STP for longer runs.