EssentialHABITECH

Visit our online comprehensive European CI resource www.ce-pro.euEssential Install

There are three certainties in life: death, taxes and higher

definition video. Never mind 8K, the introduction of 4K,

or more accurately its 16-9 counterpart 4K-UHD, is not

only inevitable but imminent.

If TV manufacturers and movie studios get their way it will

become the new format standard in homes across the land

by 2017 and with more 4K content filling the channels, your

customers will want it everywhere. So today, you’ll need to

prepare their network infrastructure for a sure-fire certainty

and plan for future 8K as well.

My plea for action may sound a little hollow to some. After

all, the launch of 4K UHD hasn’t exactly been scintillating.

Two years after the initial fanfare there’s nothing much to

watch, apart from YouTube films and clips, some dedicated

4K sites and of course Netflix – even then, 2013’s 4K TVs

(and some of 2014’s) won’t decode its HEVC (H.265)

compression.

So if you’ve been burnt by the initial experience, why

should you be planning your customers’ next network

upgrade, especially when all the new content announcements

are for streaming services from the likes of Amazon Prime, BT,

UltraFlix etc, involving compressed material at Mbps speeds

- a challenge for broadband capacity perhaps, but hardly a

headache for existing CAT 5e copper.

All about bandwidthBut all this, inevitably, will change. It may be about pixels for

your customers, but for CI, UHD is just about bandwidth.

Today’s 4K TVs have Netflix, which requires at least 15Mbps

(for safety it recommends 25Mbps) and as soon as rising

broadband speed makes multiple streams possible, CAT 5e

will fall over.

The introduction of 4K Blu-ray players armed with HDMI

2.0 (expected by 2016) will only compound the problem.

Disc mediums demand bandwidth distribution of a

completely different magnitude. Just as 4K-UHD offers

four times as many pixels as full HD, it also quadruples the

bandwidth required to carry it uncompressed with full 4:4:4

colour sampling at up to 60fps, from approximately 4 Gbps

to around 16 Gbps - way beyond the gift even of 10GBaseT

at 10 Gbps. Using 4:2:0 chroma sub-sampling, it’s possible

to squeeze this down below 10Gbps, but the writing is on the

wall for the older wires within it.

The big question facing installers is not why, but when and

how to introduce new infrastructure capacity. My answer is

now and with a creative mix of new copper and fibre.

The silver lining Forward compatibility for the CAT workhorse means that the

only copper upgrade is by way of another CAT, using RJ-45

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Always run fibre with new CAT wire to prepare your networks for higher bandwidth demands

WINNING THE UHD END GAMEWith UHD set to arrive in two waves, why not plan for both? Habitech’s Jonathan Pengilley argues the case for quality copper with a little fibre on the side...

EssentialHABITECH

Visit our online comprehensive European CI resource www.ce-pro.eu Essential Install

ends, which plug right into existing system hardware. In the

4K scenario there are two options, CAT 6A, designed for

10GBaseT, or CAT 7A. Both are required to support higher

frequency transmission at up to 500MHz and 600MHz

respectively and 10Gbps speeds over a distance of 100m.

Even so, a well-designed CAT 6A will exceed 30Gbps on

shorter runs and CAT 7A will climb to 40Gbps over 50m,

accommodating anything full-fat 4K can muster.

They do this with better build quality involving tighter

copper windings and comprehensive shielding, designed to

protect multiple high speed HDBaseT signal transmission

from insertion (signal strength) and return (signal reflection)

losses caused by electromagnetic interference (EMI) and

Alien Crosstalk (AXT) between pairs, which can seriously

impair S/N performance in a system.

For the highest speed CAT 7A, the paper spec is stricter

still, demanding not only the foil shielding of individual pairs

but a braid around the pair group as well. The integrity of the

shielding and their grounding at both ends are necessary for

AXT noise isolation, so your first challenge is to inspect the

quality and design of competing cables within CAT standards.

Make sure it’s a pedigree CAT…Not all CATs are created equal. While all the added

engineering means progressively thicker and more expensive

cables, the unfortunate reality is that CAT type is not in itself

an indicator of quality, performance or price. Unless Alien

Crosstalk involves Chinese or Russian snoopers, nobody

gets locked up if they cut corners with the aim of producing

cheaper wire.

For instance there are CAT 6As out there that do not

apply the foil shield around each pair and are therefore

cheaper than shielded types. A gear-design in the outer

sheath forces the pairs apart as far as possible to achieve the

“A’ (Augmentation) moniker. This is fine for CAT6A 10Gbps

but HDBT signals will suffer: their asymmetrical transmission

using PAM coding delivers more throughput but relies on the

pair shielding for success! Be careful what you buy.

You can pay too much and more often too little for a 6A

or 7A only to be met with failure once it’s in the wall. And

of course, a retro-fit disaster like this turns any wire into the

world’s most expensive cable. So scrutinise specs, use a

trusted supplier and decide which cable offers you the best

value in the long run, if you’ll excuse the pun.

…and think about fibre If you’re really planning long term I would always suggest

running fibre with the copper. A fibre backbone is very cheap

so why would you not put fibre between Ethernet switches

and behind TVs as well?

The feedback I get from our integrators is that fibre is too

complicated because there are so many different options

and precious little runs on fibre today. Don’t worry about that.

Just pull a Duplex (shotgun) 50/125 multimode OM3 cable to

each TV point and 2 duplex cables to each potential switch

point and you’re covered for the next twenty years. The cost is

insignificant and with fibre installed you’ll be able to offer your

clients 8K TV as soon as it arrives, which is sooner than you

might think – 8K cameras will be pointing at the 2020 Tokyo

Olympics (and at this year’s Rugby World Cup for what it’s

worth) and you can find it on the Internet now: take a Google

gander if you don’t believe me.

Make it a long term upgrade. Nobody is questioning the

certainty of 4K or the size of the payload involved. Without

action, network infrastructure will quickly run out of girth,

especially when it’s carrying the other traffic as well.

My message is to prepare for 4K (and 8K) distribution now

by choosing the highest pedigree CAT wire you can find and

running fibre alongside, because without it there’s no way that

even the highest spec copper could handle 8K freight coming

down the pipe in ten years or sooner. And please, for your

copper upgrades don’t believe everything you read on the

jacket. It’s not necessarily the CAT but the quality that counts.

More information: Habitech +44 (0)1256 638500

www.habitech.co.uk

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The HNCPROPLUS-6A uses 23 AWG aluminium foil shielded pairs within a low smoke, low friction Teflon FEP jacket

The superior HNCPROPLUS-7A wire is like the 6A with the addition of a tinned-copper braid around the four pairs. Both 6A and 7A are built to a high performance standard beyond the CAT spec

Cleerline’s NSF fibre optic cable has a patented polymer coating, which delivers flexibility and ease of termination