How Network Cables Will Replace HDMI, DisplayPort

Planning on wiring your house with Cat-6 cabling? As if you needed another reason why, a new audio/video standard might finally convince you.  
 
This week, a consortium of manufacturers from Samsung to LG finalized the specification for what they call HDBaseT, a new ethernet-based standard that aims to be the future of connectivity for our digital devices. While current offerings from HDMI and DisplayPort do a great job at sending audio and video to our HDTVs, the new standard goes where today's cables fail to tread, pushing internet connectivity, uncompressed content and even power over a single, unified cable — with a familiar connection we already know and love.

Although still in its infancy, HDBaseT's has huge potential, and when it does come to market, you'll wonder how we ever survived without it.

What makes HDBaseT so attractive is its use of standard Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet cabling — the very same wires you use with your router or HTPC. However, the main difference is the data being sent. Instead of vanilla network traffic, the finalized spec envisions enough bandwidth for uncompressed, high-definition audio and video, in addition to 3D content, and even future 4K formats. And to top things off, there's room for standard internet connectivity too, "making it possible for a single-connector TV to receive power, video/audio, Internet and control signals from the same cable."

Compared to HDMI, that's a huge leap. While it's already possible to send HDMI video over a Cat-6 cable, the audio/video signals remain unchanged, meaning such a  setup is incompatible with regular IP traffic. HDBaseT, however, combines the two, allowing both to coexist on the same cable. And while DisplayPort can provide connectivity for USB devices, HDBaseT manages to take that philosophy even further.

Because the standard is based on traditional network technology, the HDBaseT alliance envisions it will become trivial to carry audio and video seamlessly through the home. For example, a single DVR could send content to any television in a household, and remotely controlled at the same time. And unlike HDMI, cables up to 100m in length are supported here too, making such a high-speed, large-area network truly possible. The end result, says the alliance, "could mean that TV sets [would] only need one single input cable to receive video from a multitude of devices."

But what's most impressive is how soon we're expected to see HDBaseT reach the market, with the first devices planned for release by the end of the year, and widespread adoption by 2011. And with 3D content finally picking up steam, and internet connectivity becoming a must-have feature for home theater connoisseurs, the timing couldn't have been better for the framework of the future to invade our homes. 

In fact, it already has — with the cables in place, all we need now is the technology to use it.  
 
Images via Flickr users splorp and vonKinder.