Re:We built our house for LAN parties
by kllrnohj on Tuesday September 08, 2026 @08:21AM
(#49609337)
HDMI over fiber is readily available. USB is more annoying depending on the speeds you desire, but again USB over optical exists.
And then of course once it's over fiber, nearly any length desired is easily achieved
USB 4/Thunderbolt explicitly supports fiberoptics-based USB-C cables and can carry 4K video, regular USB, and more.
Re:We built our house for LAN parties
by kllrnohj on Tuesday September 08, 2026 @08:25AM
(#49609381)
do you know of any that actually exist? All I can find are active cables that go up to 15 feet which is a lot better than the 3ft of copper but still a far cry short of running to another room easily
I've used Corning's Thunderbolt 3 fibre cable in the 25m length (~80'). It's eye-wateringly expensive, and it works perfectly.
I don't have any personal experience with them, but Amazon and Google are full of options going up to 30m.
I don't see why they shouldn't work; all the translation logic is in the active circuitry at each end, and the low-level protocol and USB-C spec was designed with this use case in mind, so nothing expects a continuous copper connection between both ends. Obviously power delivery doesn't work over that type of cable.
You can get ultra-long HDMI and USB extenders that use fiber optic cables.
Monoprice.com in particular sells these under their "slimrun" line -- that's what I used in the house.
They are often technically not spec-compliant but work just fine in practice.
Re:We built our house for LAN parties
by matheusmoreira on Wednesday September 09, 2026 @07:50AM
(#49624960)
> ultra-long HDMI and USB extenders
No extra latency from these?
Also, since saying goodbye to my dad in hospital last year, whenever I hear about people enjoying time with their own fathers I feel really happy. I would have loved to build a house with my dad!