one of my guys installed a 50 foot HDMI cable. They come marked with an arrow on one side. This one did not have arrow in printed on connector , but used a sticker. The point is it did not work and I told my guys to reverse it. And it then worked. So what is in these devices anyway. I am guessing a chip witch must be getting powered from video source . If someone knows please explain. I use them often in commercial applications and I have had bad ones.
Al D
The only thing that goes through my mind is, “huh?.” What is the manufacturer and model number or name? Could it have something to do with whether the shield is connected at one end or not? I don’t know anything about HDMI cables.
Well one of types of work I do is media rooms / home theatre . And most high quality HDMI cables have arrows on the male tips. The better ones even have a tape attached to it indicating direction. Now most of the time the cables get installed correctly , this time as we did not have a room layout sketch it was done wrong. It did not work either , and so theist here. But it did when it was reversed though …
Al D
curious.
I say active as it really does have direction and was labeled active. Cables longer than 25 feet are marked as such…
Al D
I know little of video, but looked this up as I am curious.
It sounds like the cable has Redmere’s technology. Redmere is a giant cable assembly company in Ireland. They make a chip which is powered by the HDMI signal. It which allows longer runs with out drop-off, as well as extremely thin cables. Apparently, the technology more than doubles effective length - up to 65 feet.
The cables are directional and will not pass a signal if installed backwards; the chip on each end is different.
Even Monoprice sells them. 
There you go, that’s it. It is one of those things that people in the field use but do not know why. Almost all the cable I install are some kind of hi grade cable with arrows just to make you feel better. But there are cables in longer than 25 feet that it does matter. As I am not a designer just my compAny does installs , as such I see all kinds of devices . People still install TiVo ,s in set ups . Also they have these VCR and Smaller tape combo,s machines that can play NTSC and pal. And a whole bunch of other ones too.
Thanks
Al D
I home run a whole bunch of cables when I did a reno and the expensive one [at the time] was the mini coax which seems to have 3 in one?
Never used it yet sine so far wireless has been fine.
Tough to terminate those RG45 cat-6 connectors on ethernet cables.
I dreamed of a contraption that is easy to feed and trims the wires after installing. Did I see that somewhere or should I apply for a patent?
I use the feed throughs. Me not my guys though . I do almost only punch downs and use PRE made patch cables sooooo. Much better.