Engadget offers advice for people struggling with HDMI signal degradation when running cables over long distances, such as between rooms, floors or across a home theatre setup. Because HDMI signals weaken over distance—a phenomenon called attenuation—cables run beyond around 25 feet commonly suffer flickering, pixelation or complete signal loss, and newer high-speed cable standards are even more prone to this, sometimes degrading after just 9 feet.

The article outlines several low-cost fixes: HDMI couplers, which join two cables together and support up to 8K video and 48 Gbps bandwidth, though they still struggle beyond 25 feet; signal repeaters, which regenerate the signal and can extend a connection to around 100 feet for as little as $20 each, though costs add up when chaining several together; and active cables, which use built-in chips to boost the signal, available in copper or fibre-optic form, with fibre-optic variants using light pulses similar to broadband internet for longer, more reliable runs.