Friday, January 06, 2006 9:38 AM szurgot

OT: CES/Technology request - Shorter & more consistent cables

With all the awesome things being announced at CES this week, I have a request that goes in a more "consumer" direction. Short patch cables (and power, etc...)

I was moving my HDTV entertainment system to some new furniture last night, and I think, as a rule, I have about 3 feet of cable for every foot I actually use. Why doesn't anybody make and sell cables for things sitting in a rack, where you only have to go one or two feet? You can get 6, 8, even 16 feet cable, but forget about getting one less than 3 feet.

And, man, what is it about component cables? Compound 6 feet by three high quality cables by about 4 components (DVD Player, XBox, PS2, TV) and you've got a lot of cables....

So everybody needs to use HDMI cables for audio and video, and sell a switch box or something so that we can tighten everything up. <grin> Maybe next year.

Comments

# re: OT: CES/Technology request - Shorter & more consistent cables

Friday, January 06, 2006 12:59 PM by Eric Newton

You should've seen some HDMI sets... HDMI is basically a panacea for patch cables... its DVI + Digital Audio, with plenty of bandwidth for a lot more than just High Definition Video.

The specs also call for daisy chaining, and component control bus, so in theory your TV could hook, via HDMI, to a cable box, control the channel, pull up the guide, and so forth.

Oh, and selling 3 feet for every 1 foot of cable use is brilliant marketing, manufacturing, and profit :-)

# re: OT: CES/Technology request - Shorter & more consistent cables

Friday, January 06, 2006 5:41 PM by foobar

A foot isn't long enough between components in a rack. Even two feet is cutting it. You don't want cables to be tight - the ends can literally break off if the cable is too tight.

Go to http://www.monoprice.com for inexpensive cables.

# re: OT: CES/Technology request - Shorter & more consistent cables

Saturday, January 07, 2006 2:50 PM by Chris Szurgot

The components are on a shelf system, a several of them are stacked, and in a couple of instances, it's only 6 inches between the connections. A foot would be more than enough, even leaving slack for other cables.