8K fibre link for a broadcast control room

A 24/7 control room needed 8K60 sources driven across a 40 m run, with no copper in the ceiling plenum and no fans in the rack.

The setup

A broadcast control room with a 6-screen video wall, four operator desks and a machine room 40 m away. Sources are two 8K-capable cameras, a graphics machine and a standards converter. The building has no plenum-rated copper and the rack room is passively cooled.

The problem

8K60 over copper HDMI loses lock past 5–8 m, and the run had to cross a plenum shared with power. Active copper equalisers needed fans, which the rack room could not take, and the operators needed the wall to come back exactly as it was after a power cut.

What we supplied

We supplied the 8K HDMI fibre extender range: hybrid fibre cables with the converter built into the connector head, so no separate sender box is needed at either end. Each link is a single cable run that is plenum-safe, fanless and hot-pluggable. EDID is copied from the sink at install time, so the wall re-locks with the same timings after power loss.

Outcome

All four sources run at 8K60 across 40 m without a repeater. The copper was removed from the plenum entirely, the rack stayed fanless, and a full power cycle restores the wall in under 20 seconds with no operator intervention.

At a glance

• 4 × 8K60 links over 40 m, single cable run each
• No copper in the plenum; fanless at both ends
• Wall re-locks in under 20 s after a full power cycle