fiber connector question - extending HD signals
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| posted by Ken Spickler on Dec. 4, 2014, 12:05 p.m. | ||||||
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| Thread Tags: discuss-at-studiosysadmins | ||||||
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I think of SC as a little bit old-school, but as Saker said, the connector type doesn't make a difference in the signal. What can make a difference is not just single- versus multimode, but also the rating and of the fiber. Single-mode really only has one option: 9/125um. This refers to the size of the fiber core and it's cladding. Singlemode is generally used for very long distances (500 meters to many kilometers). With multimode, however, it gets a bit more complicated. There's the legacy 62.5/125um cable (orange colored patch cables, aka "OM1" for optical multimode), and the newer 50/125um cables. For anything you do these days, 50/125 is the way to go. But the complexity goes further. The original 50/125 patch cables were also orange (aka "OM2"). With the advent of 10GbE, so-called "aqua" cables became common (aka "OM3"). These are also 50/125, but aqua-colored. They are laser optimised, have a wider bandwidth and therefore allow greater distances for the higher speeds. The latest multimode cables are "OM4" and also aqua-colored. These have an even wider bandwidth than OM3 cables. Here's a quick rundown of distances of 10GbE for each OM version (I would expect such converters to have similar requirements): OM1: ~30 meters OM2: ~80 meters OM3: 300 meters OM4: 400 meters TL;DR: tell your vendor to install OM3 fiber. HTH Ken Spickler
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