HDBaseT Supporters Hope To Kiss HDMI Goodbye

arcticstoat writes "HDMI's short-lived reign over the TV cable racks could soon be over, thanks to a new usurper that combines several connections into a standard Cat5e/6 network cable with an RJ-45 connector. Designed by a coalition of consumer electronics manufacturers called the HDBaseT Alliance, which includes Sony, Samsung, LG and Valens, HDBaseT promises to not only carry video and audio signals, but also provide a network connection, a USB signal and even electricity using a single cable. The Alliance predicts that we'll start seeing the first HDBaseT equipment creeping into the shops later this year, but says the bigger wave of adoption will occur later in 2011."

Comments

Wait...

[Pojut]

FTFS:

thanks to a new usurper that combines several connections into a standard Cat5e/6 network cable with an RJ-45 connector

Does that mean I can use one of the dozens of ethernet cables currently languishing in my closets?

Re:Kiss HDCP bye too?

[TubeSteak]

Can we please kill HDCP?

Nope.
Searching for hdbaset + drm turns up little of use,
but searching for hdbaset + hdmi shows us DRM has already been included

Valens Semiconductor's HDBaseT Receives HDCP Certification From Intel's DCP LLC
updated 8:58 a.m. ET March 9, 2009,
http://www.valens-semi.com/media/1526/msnbc.pdf

Light Peak

[TempeNerd]

And let the battle for a new standard begin.

I had thought Light Peak was the likely replacement technology.

10Gbps and backward compatible with USB.

"At 10Gb/s, you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds. Optical technology also allows for smaller connectors and longer, thinner, and more flexible cables than currently possible. Light Peak also has the ability to run multiple protocols simultaneously over a single cable, enabling the technology to connect devices such as peripherals, displays, disk drives, docking stations, and more."

http://techresearch.intel.com/articles/None/1813.htm

Re:One question

[unix1]

That would be funny if it wasn't true. You can get it from Amazon too.

No kidding

[Sycraft-fu]

Because, here's a shocker for many smug "I know everything," geek types: Cable quality DOES make a difference! When you start talking extremely high bandwidth signals, like you are talking with HDMI especially the "beyond HD" stuff you are talking some tight tolerances that are needed. This is even more true when using smaller cable for longer runs (you can solve a number of problems simply by throwing copper at it and using larger cables). So you may well find that a cable that worked just fine for an old 720p TV doesn't work at all, or has sparkles and dropouts when you hook it up to a 1080p 120Hz connection. Suddenly your bandwidth is beyond its capabilities.

So you can't just say "Ha! Cables don't matter! Anything works fine!" because that's false. As we do higher and higher bandwidth stuff, cable tolerances become more and more important. That's why you can have Cat-3/5/5e/6/6a cables all of which look fundamentally the same, yet have drastically different performance. They are all 4 pairs of unshielded twisted wire. However Cat-3 is good for maybe 16MHz whereas Cat-6a is good to 500MHz. Why? Much, MUCH tighter tolerances and specs.

So cable quality DOES matter as people can find out, but then there are assholes like Monster that rip people off with it.

Re:No kidding

[Miamicanes]

There's one tiny detail that throws a monkey wrench into just about *everyone's* understanding: a disturbingly large percentage of recent-vintage low-cost cable from China has been made using "copper-coated steel" (CCS) and NOT pure copper.

CCS has been used for years as the center conductor in 75-ohm coax, but its appearance in things like network cable alleged to be "cat5e" is a VERY recent phenomenon (as in, even 2 or 3 years ago, it was basically unheard of). When you throw CCS into the cable equation, everything you know about cable based upon past experience and external observances goes to hell. For the most part, it's safe to say that CCS does absolutely nothing GOOD for applications like ethernet, and has plenty of potential to do really bad things to it. I'd be shocked if the CCS cable pawned off as "cat5e" on eBay (and quite a few discount vendors online) would meet official cat5e specifications at a HUNDRED feet, let alone a thousand or more. Worst of all, unless you're making a point of watching out for CCS network cable, it actually looks BETTER upon casual inspection than decent pure-copper cable, because the wires are thicker. The problem is, the steel core does nothing for the signal, so you're basically trading a hair-thin AWG26 copper wire for a micron-thick hollow tube of copper electroplated onto a strand of steel wire, and using it in a scenario where the conductivity difference really, truly DOES matter.

Don't believe me? Go to eBay and search for "cat5e CCS" (sans quotes), checking the box to search the description as well. You'll find at least a page of results, and when you read the descriptions, you'll see that they most certainly ARE "CCS".

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the reason it's halfway-legal to sell CCS UTP cable as "cat5e Cable" is because (in America, at least), "cat5e" only has specific legal meaning if you use it in conjunction with "TIA/EIA-568-B", or make specific claims about its suitability for network use at a given speed and/or length. As long as you claim nothing beyond "AWG24 Cat5e Cable", you could probably get away with just about anything capable of conducting electricity and 4 twisted pairs of wire.

Anyway, beware. CCS "cat5e" cable is real, and is a growing problem unless you make a point of trying to avoid buying it.