Jul 9 Podcast #433: Bye bye HDMI; Hello HDBaseT
There’s been a lot of activity on the Internet recently around the new HDBaseT Alliance. Bottom line, they want to replace HDMI with standard Cat5e or Cat6 cables. The group was launched in December 2009, but recently announced that LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony have thrown in their support. This, along with a finalized spec, have moved the HDBaseT idea to the forefront of home theater news.
Listen to the show
Today's Show:
News:
- Home controls to jump from 6% to almost 20% of U.S. households by 2014
- Cowboys Consider Uniform Change Due to HDTV Complaints
- CFLs Get Ready to Dim Down
- Netflix to stream some first-run movies
- 3DTVs Like Power
Other:
- My Channel Logos - a Windows Media Center application for Windows 7 that adds high resolution channel logos to the Windows Media Center electronic program guide
Bye bye HDMI?
There’s been a lot of activity on the Internet recently around the new HDBaseT Alliance. Bottom line, they want to replace HDMI with standard Cat5e or Cat6 cables. The group was launched in December 2009, but recently announced that LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony have thrown in their support. This, along with a finalized spec, have moved the HDBaseT idea to the forefront of home theater news.
Background
From the HDBaseT website:
“HDBaseT Alliance was formed to promote and commercialize the HDBaseT™ technology, enabling a single LAN cable to replace multiple cables and connectors in the home entertainment environment, HDBaseT is optimized for video application and can connect all the entertainment devices at home by providing the 5Play convergence of uncompressed full HD digital video, audio, 100BaseT Ethernet, power over cable and various control signals.”
The underlying technology is supplied by Valens Semiconductor.
What it is
Primarily, HDBaseT should replace HDMI cables between your home theater components. In addition, it will allow Ethernet communication and, in some cases, even power. That means one cable that can truly do everything. Like HDMI, HDBaseT will support all the best audio and video. Like traditional Cat 5e, HDBaseT will support 100 MB network connections. The 4th part of the 5 play is power, up to 100 watts. And the 5th piece is similar to HDMI-CEC, control commands between components.
Similar to existing LAN cables, HDBaseT should allow all of these various pieces to be transmitted over very long distances without signal loss, reportedly up to 100 meters. The spec also plans to allow for all the latest and greatest in home theater technology including, of course, HDTV, Blu-ray, and all the newest audio codecs, but also 3D and high resolution 2K x 4K (4096 by 2160) video.
Since the protocol is being built on standard cables and connectors, the industry alliance is predicting that companies will begin licensing it as soon as the second half of this year, with products hitting store shelves by the end of the year. We expect the earliest product to come from the member companies, but more widespread adoption should happen throughout 2011.
The first thing that jumps to mind when you hear about HDMI over Cat5 is that the new protocol will implement some sort of audio/video routing and distribution. According to the spec, that should be possible as well. Unlike HDMI, which is essentially a point to point data transmission. HDBaseT will allow signals from sources like set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and computers to be routed to multiple displays without signal loss.
It would be great if the new protocol allowed you to intelligently route audio and video signals from a source to a display, or a source to a speaker, just like we do with data streams on a network. That’s where our minds jumped immediately. It’s tough to tell how much of this kind of functionality is supported in the 1.0 version of the spec. But even if it isn’t in 1.0, it’s possible that an updated spec could arrive in the future to extend HDBaseT to include complex AV routing. But that might require new hardware as well.
Conclusion
There are some detractors out there. Some people think that this will just create more confusion. Users will be plugging their routers into their TVs and their Blu-ray players into their computers. At that point, all hell will break lose. We see how there could be some confusion along those lines, but clearly marked jacks on the back of your devices should help with this.
Bottom line, HDMI is awesome. One cable for Audio and Video has greatly simplified all our lives. If we can get one cable that does audio, video, control, network and power, that’s even better. On top of that, we can make our own cables. A simple crimping tool for under $20 and you can crank out all the HDBaseT cables you need, at whatever size you need. We only wish this would have come along years ago, so we could have skipped the HDMI phase altogether.
Reader Comments (11)
HDMI going away will be tough HDMI is still ahead of Cat6a with the new HDMI 1.4 which can do 21Gbs throughput vs Cat6a which is maxed out at 10Gbs. Unless they find a better way to get the throughput up I don't see this being helpful. Plus they came up with HDMI to protect from copying movies and music. It will be cheaper and easier to run cable if they switch over that's about the only plus I see so far.
Also switching to HDBaseT and using it to power stuff is crazy...POE switches are expensive.
I also have concerns for the HDBASET
My only other concerns are:
How backwards compatible is this standard? HDMI and DVI are interchangeable, and Display Port can easily output to HDMI and DVI. So can I buy a cheap ass passive HDBase-T to HDMI adapter, or will it require an expensive ass active adapter? Display Port is such an easy standard to move to on video cards and laptops because you can easily buy cheap cables that change them over to an older standard.
I also wonder how much of a premium it will cost to get TVs and receivers that support it. If it is going to cost me $150 more to get a TV that supports it to save $25 on all my cabling, it doesn't make any sense.
Great show as usual (even with the MAC fanboyism from Ara :wink:)!
I'm encouraged by the HDbaseT alliance as I think HDMI is inherently evil and should die. We've been punching down Cat for how long... decades now? This stuff is stupid cheap and is REALLY easy to DIY. You can get a self-terminating kit for under 20 bucks to strip and punch down your own cable. (by the way you can self-terminate HDMI cable as well but it's difficult and expensive) Just having everything in one cable with a postive lock (something I've hated about HDMI) is reason enough to get excited about this.
Things that concern me...
-Sony (the king of all DRM and HDCP) is behind the product. Expect more restrictive HDCP to come with the product
-I still can't wrap my head around how they're going to get power through an unsheilded cable without getting interference from the other signals when we can use older cables without protection. I guess I need to see the spec for myself as to how they're doing it.
-People plugging this in to non HDbaseT devices... what happens? I mean theoritically is power is going down twisted pairs that aren't in use nothing but if they're pushing power down all pairs I think that could harm any and every device it gets plugged into. Labeling is the answer but we all know that if it can be done people are going to do it. I'm afraid they're going to have to come out with some special connector with a notch or a key so it only fits certain ports. I'm ok with that as long as I can still punch down using my existing toolset. They could put a keyed port on devices that meet the power limitations of the cable to prevent misconnection.
HDBaseT is not the HDMI possible successor China came up with Digital Interactive Interface for Video & Audio (DiiVA)
Check out this table
http://hdbaset.org/files/HDBaseT_Comparison_Table_Nereus.pdf
We just got all the A/V receivers and HDTV's with HDMI. Now we're going to
switch...not for a couple years I would think.
Why would you switch? I don't think this is such a game changer to the experience of watching movies, sports, or games that everyone shoudl run out and buy new gear. Once setup, a HDbaseT and a HDMI solution should look identical so it's really just in the "setup" stage that this is going to matter which is probably .001% of the time you'll be with your gear.
This will be a game changer when you go to replace your gear (or move, install gear at a new room, etc) as you'll want to make sure this is on your components for easier setup.
For a lot of us this isn't giving us much because we've already ran wiring for our current setup. It's the people new to HT or people setting up a room for the first time that will benefit the most.
Either way, it's a step in the right direction!
I'm encouraged by the HDbaseT development. I've mostly skipped the HDMI revolution, preferring my older component setup since my gear isn't newer anyway. The simple prospect of moving to a single CHEAP cable that I can make myself will keep me from upgrading to anything HDMI now. Monster Cables must be either shaking in their boots at the thought of people making their own cables, or salivating that a new batch of suckers will buy their now-more-than-stupidly-overpriced HDbaseT cables, and Best Buy will of course support them.
Does anyone know if this will handle switching multiple sources/destinations with the possibility of sending one source to multiple destinations? Or what kind of switching device would be needed? Often the family starts to watch a movie together, then one or more members would like to go to bed and continue watching from there while others stay in the family room, but current equipment makes that next to impossible.
Why dont they go wireless on the whole she-bang? NO WIRES! Wireless Audio, Video, Speakers, Power, Internet, etc, etc......CMON! You cant tell me that it cant be done!
Routing a video/audio signal between a source and a display would be the ultimate dream for a whole house audio and video system. It would be so great to take one Tivo and route the output to the family room and then later in the evening route the Tivo output to the bedroom.
what a bout multi casting form one player/source device to multiple displays?
This would be soooo cooool