How is it that certified products manage to perform so differently from what they claim? Jeff Boccaccio of JPL labs weighs in on the phenomenon.

Some active optical cables (AOC) manufacturers have been unable to keep up with the power requirements necessary for these types of cables, leading to mislabeled and sometimes false claims.

Now that Ultra HD transmission has become commonplace, some overseas cable manufacturers have opted to start a more rigorous testing process for products while on the line.

When a pin hole was discovered within the ground shield of an HDMI cable, DPL Labs learned that problems may occur when running higher data rates through a cable.

DPL Labs noticed some intermittent interoperability problems in one cable provider's active optical cable (AOC), leading the lab to dig deep to find the root cause of the problem.

There is little doubt that HDMI Cable Power will positively impact AV integration of active devices, but those wanting to take advantage of this spec need to read labels carefully.