Video Cable Extenders; Minimum Requirements And Guidelines; Third-Party Options - SMART Board 4000 Series Installation Best Practices

CHAPTER 6
CABLE ACCESSORIES
NOTE
These are hypothetical examples based on standard calculations. Differences among cables,
computers and other hardware can cause actual performance to exceed or fail to achieve these
numbers.
An improperly extended USB connection is likely to work only intermittently or not at all.
SMART products have built-in diagnostics to help you understand when this is the case. For most
SMART products, check if the indicator light is not solid green to tell if an issue is USB related or
SMART Product Drivers software isn't running correctly.

Minimum requirements and guidelines

SMART provides support only for its own USB extenders and recommends using the active USB
extension cable or CAT 5 USB extender, as they have been designed and tested to work with
SMART products. However, if this isn't possible, use products from well-established, reputable
companies.
Use only active USB extenders. Active extenders help maintain the signal strength as the data is
transmitted across longer distances.
SMART can not provide support for USB extension beyond the supplied USB cable, or the use of
non-SMART USB extenders.

Third-party options

Refer to Appendix A: Third-party referrals on page 69 for a list of companies that sell this type of
equipment.

Video cable extenders

Use an active video extender if you need to extend the length of a digital or analog video
connection further than the cables provided with the SMART product, or if you need to extend the
connection beyond 23' (7 m). An active extender will help maintain the signal integrity as the audio
and video data is transmitted across longer distances.
Although high-quality passive cables can work at longer lengths, an active extender ensures
satisfactory signal strength. The extender's supplier should be able to recommend the length of
cable that the extender can support.
Minimum requirements and guidelines
Use only active, externally-powered video extenders and not bus-powered extenders (that is, an
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