Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HDBaseT

Even though it doesn't work with existing networking products, the fact that the Cat-6 runs are there in my house would come in handy.

Also, what other technologies like this have already failed? Maybe we can compare and see if any of the differences are, in fact, worthwhile.

While I agree we're stuck with HDMI for now, it'll reach its limitations sooner or later, and if something like HDBaseT is around to step in, I'm all for it.

$102 per ft for Cat5? Denon makes it sound like a typical snake oil add.

I was trying to think of some good examples as I was writing that post. I just see so many announcement which proclaim the death of some other technology, but are only incremental improvements. But because they've all failed to grab the market I forget about them. I've even started shrugging off the announcements because of all the previous failures. When I saw this announcement in the same places I did the same. But since it was brought up here, I figured I'd give my two cents.

One such technology, which I do remember, because I got excited about it, is very, very similar to this one. It was a replacement for coax/XLR for carrying digital audio. It added support for multiple channels, was backed heavily by Sony (which actually should be taken as a touch of death, not a justification), and used cat-6. Where is SuperMAC (that was the link I bookmarked) today? Oh, I did find a working link: http://www.supermac-hypermac.com/

You have a good point there, but then people were saying that that's why Blu-ray was going to lose to HD DVD.

I suppose we'll see if products using the technology amount to more than just a trickle. It will definitely need a lot more backers.

Interconnect technologies need mass, universal adoption. Pioneer used i.Link (Firewire) for jitter-free audio transmission. It only worked with Pioneer gear, and it has been dropped. Denon used Ethernet for their spec, and it's been dropped too.

There's also the issue of real estate; the back panel of equipment is crowded. HDMI can't be dropped at this point. So there'd be duplication of ports between the HDbaseT, and HDMI. Plus if a receiver can't convert between the two (which means new chips need to be designed) it'll be worthless.

It's nice that it uses RJ45 connectors. But it had better be designed in such a way, that if someone plugs Ethernet into it, or it into an Ethernet switch nothing bad happens at all. End users, for the most part, are stupid. Similar plugs for dissimilar uses are a bad idea. The PS/2 keyboard and mouse thing is a great example. (Did you know that with just a slight push USB fits into Ethernet? I didn't either, until I had to tell a company that their 48-port managed, power-over-Ethernet switch, had to be replaced because the secretary blew it up.)

Couldn't they drop the HDMI ports if they came up with an adapter from HDMI to the HDbaseT port? I fitted my computer with a DVI video card. Then I ran an HDMI cable from my TV into an HDMI to DVI adapter and everything works great.

3 questions....

why was she even touching that thing?
did it cost more than her annual salary?

bet thats not what they wanted to hear!!!!!

honestly, i would have NEVER though about usb->ethernet, the ports don't even look that much alike!

Where's Mark to say something about BigJohn?

DVI and HDMI were electrically compatible, all you needed to do was use a passive converter to reassign pins. HDMI to-from HDbaseT would require an active converter, and it probably wouldn't be all that cheap to build. I'm sure if the interface takes off someone will build one, but it won't be included in the box of every HDbaseT device.

She didn't touch it directly, just one of ports punched down to a outlet at her desk.

It was probably pretty close, the equipment cost, plus all the lost phone calls during that day (it was running their internal VoiP phone system) probably hit it. This is a small town, no one with-in 100 miles had anything like this switch in stock.

Had it been a gigabit switch, it may have survived, as they have magnetic isolators on the data pins. Also newer PoE gear* only puts out a little bit of power until the connected device requests more. In this case the metal ground around the outside of the USB plug shorted across all the data and power pins. It seemed the switch would still send data to all ports, except the source of the damage, but the PoE was dead at all locations (and they didn't know where the AC adapters were for the desk phones).


*Newer PoE gear has lots of safe guards for these type of things, but this was first generation stuff (and thus even more expensive).