HDBaseT is a

consumer electronic Consumer electronics, also known as home electronics, are electronic devices intended for everyday household use. Consumer electronics include those used for entertainment, communications, and recreation. Historically, these products were refer ...

(CE) and commercial connectivity standard for transmission of uncompressed ultra-high-definition video, digital audio, DC power, Ethernet,

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

2.0, and other control communication (such as

RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such as a compu ...

and

Consumer IR Consumer IR, consumer infrared, or CIR is a class of devices employing the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for wireless communications. CIR ports are commonly found in consumer electronics devices such as television remote cont ...

) over a single category cable ( Cat 5e or better) up to 100 m (328 ft) in length, terminated using 8P8C modular connectors. The conductors, cable, and connectors are as used in

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

networks, but are not otherwise exchangeable. HDBaseT technology is promoted and advanced by the HDBaseT Alliance.

History

The HDBaseT Alliance was incorporated on June 14, 2010 by

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...

Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio conglomerate that produces, acquires, and distributes filmed entertainment (theatrical motion pictures, television programs, and rec ...

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG, LG Corporation, the fourth ...

and Valens Semiconductor as the not-for-profit organization to promote the HDBaseT standard originally created by Valens. The HDBaseT 1.0 specification was also finalized in June 2010. HDBaseT initially dominated in extender products for

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...

technology before later also being embedded in AV devices such as video projectors and AV receivers. Products utilizing HDBaseT technology were first demonstrated by multiple vendors at the

Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...

as early as 2010, and by the HDBaseT Alliance in 2013. In 2013, the HDBaseT Alliance issued Specification 2.0 to enrich the HDBaseT offering to the pro-AV market and enable a multimedia home connectivity solution. Spec 2.0 maintains all the features of Spec 1.0, but also adds HDBaseT networking, switching, and control-point capabilities such as flexible and fully utilized mesh topology, distributed routing, and end-to-end error handling, enabling multipoint-to-multipoint connectivity and multi-streaming. Spec 2.0 also embeds USB 2.0 signals, enabling the zero-latency distribution of signals such as for touch-screen functionality and keyboard-video-mouse ( KVM). HDBaseT 2.0 maintained category cable as the transmission medium, but also added the option for

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

for even greater distances and infrastructure cabling adaptability. In 2014, the

IEEE Standards Association The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE SA) is an operating unit within IEEE that develops global standards in a broad range of industries, including: power and energy, artificial intelligence systems, ...

announced that it formed a series of P1911 Working groups with the intention of adopting HDBaseT as a new standard. This project ended up being abandoned with it being administratively withdrawn by 2018. An

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP ...

(IP) version of HDBaseT was demonstrated in 2017. The HDBaseT Alliance released specification 3.0 in 2019, doubling the main downstream signal bandwidth to enable support for uncompressed 4K/60 4:4:4 video, and 6.5× the bandwidth on the auxiliary channel. This enables a significant increase to USB 2.0 data rate capabilities, and advancement of Ethernet support from

Fast Ethernet In computer networking, Fast Ethernet Ethernet physical layer, physical layers carry traffic at the nominal rate of . The Classic Ethernet, prior Ethernet speed was . Of the Fast Ethernet physical layers, 100BASE-TX is by far the most common. ...

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use in ...

Features

HDBaseT is complementary to digital connectivity standards such as

technology. HDBaseT connects and networks commercial, industrial or CE devices such as

set-top boxes A set-top box (STB), also known as a cable box, receiver, or simply box, and historically television decoder or a converter, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV tuner input and displays output to a television set, t ...

, media streamers,

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

players,

Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...

players,

personal computers A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

(PCs), video game consoles, and AV receivers to compatible

digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital signal (signal processing), digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical sampling (signal processing), ...

devices, computer monitors,

multi-touch In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one somatosensory system, point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CE ...

displays, digital televisions, and digital

video projector A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image onto a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp (a special mercury arc l ...

s.Valens-HDBaseT up the ante on AV wiring
. Entertainment Technology Center, January 8, 2010 A primary differentiator with HDBaseT technology is its 5Play feature set. The five features of 5Play vary with each HDBaseT specification, but center around audiovisual (AV) media, Ethernet, USB, Control Signals, and Power-over-HDBaseT (PoH).

AV

Supports

uncompressed video Uncompressed video is digital video that either has never been compressed or was generated by decompressing previously compressed digital video. It is commonly used by video cameras, video monitors, video recording devices (including general-pur ...

to a network of devices or as a point-to-point connection to accurately render gaming graphics and features such as electronic program guides, and does not degrade video quality. Supports TV and PC video formats, including standard, enhanced, high-definition, Ultra-HD (UHD, up to 4K), and 3D video. HDBaseT 1.0 and 2.0 can support uncompressed video up to (750 MB/s): * 4K at 30 Hz with 8-bit 4:4:4 color coding, * 4K at 30 Hz with up to 12-bit 4:2:2 and

high dynamic range High dynamic range (HDR), also known as wide dynamic range, extended dynamic range, or expanded dynamic range, is a signal with a higher dynamic range than usual. The term is often used in discussing the dynamic ranges of images, videos, audio o ...

(HDR), * 4K at 30 Hz with Dolby Vision standard mode, * 4K at 60 Hz with 8-bit 4:2:0 color coding. HDBaseT 3.0 can support uncompressed video up to (1500 MByte/s): * 4K at 60 Hz with 8-bit 4:4:4 color coding, * 4K at 60 Hz with up to 12-bit 4:2:2 and

(HDR), * 4K at 60 Hz with Dolby Vision standard mode. Audio is embedded with the video in HDMI, so all standard HDMI audio formats are supported. This includes up to 32 channels of high-resolution 24-bit 192 kHz audio, either compressed or uncompressed, or 2-channel audio with a sampling frequency up to 1536 kHz. HDBaseT 2.0 introduced additional support for separate bi-directional S/PDIF audio, the upstream channel of which can optionally be used to carry HDMI

Audio Return Channel High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, g ...

, a feature introduced with the HDMI 1.4 specification. The bandwidth increase with HDBaseT 3.0 enables it to optionally support HDMI enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC), for all of the same audio formats upstream as what is already available in the main HDMI downstream signal, including immersive/object-based audio such as

Dolby Atmos Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels as well as free-moving sound objects, interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horiz ...

or DTS:X.

Near zero latency

The specification allows for negligible latency: less than 100 μs over 100 m of cable. As a point of comparison, a 60 Hz refresh rate means a full image is displayed after 16.67 ms. Adding 0.1 ms is only a 0.6% increase in the signal latency.

Ethernet

HDBaseT 1.0 and 2.0 supports the 100 Mbit/s version of

Ethernet over twisted pair Ethernet over twisted-pair technologies use twisted-pair cables for the physical layer of an Ethernet computer network. They are a subset of all Ethernet physical layers. Early Ethernet used various grades of coaxial cable, but in 1984, Star ...

. This can provide

Internet access Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide ...

to devices such as

smart TV A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...

s, or enable computers and other CE devices to communicate with each other and access multimedia content on the local network. HDBaseT 3.0 increases this capability to 1000 Base-T (Gigabit) Ethernet.

USB

HDBaseT 2.0 introduced support for

2.0, with a capacity for the simultaneous connection of up to 7 USB devices and a transfer rate up to 190 Mbit/s. HDBaseT 3.0 increases this to 350 Mbit/s.

Control signals

HDBaseT delivers HDMI

Consumer Electronics Control Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) is a feature of HDMI designed to control HDMI connected devices by using only one remote controller; individual CEC enabled devices can command and control each other without user intervention, for up to 15 device ...

(CEC) protocol signals that control basic functionality such as power-on, power-off and play/stop, along with

and

consumer IR Consumer IR, consumer infrared, or CIR is a class of devices employing the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for wireless communications. CIR ports are commonly found in consumer electronics devices such as television remote cont ...

(remote control) commands.

Power

HDBaseT can provide a variation of Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) standard called power-over-HDBaseT (PoH). This can provision up to 100 W of operating DC power to CE devices, such as monitors and TVs. In practice, if a display (typically up to 60" in size) is enabled as a 100W powered device (PD), and is connected to a matching PoH transmitter (power sourcing equipment, PSE), the display will be able to draw its operating power through the HDBaseT link and not require a separate power connection.

Versions

Specification 1.0

HDBaseT 1.0 utilizes 16-level

pulse-amplitude modulation Pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM) is a form of signal modulation in which the message information is encoded in the amplitude of a pulse train interrupting the carrier frequency. Demodulation is performed by detecting the amplitude level of th ...

(PAM-16) encoding for downstream data at a rate of 500 Msymbols/s, achieving an aggregate data rate of 8000 Mbit/s on 4 lanes. This is equivalent to the 8160 Mbit/s of HDMI 1.3/1.4. The HDBaseT auxiliary channel operates with PAM-8 encoding at a rate of 12.5 Msymbols/s for an aggregate 150 Mbit/s. The ''5Play'' feature set of HDBaseT 1.0 delivers video, audio, Ethernet, control signals, and power over a single connection. It does not support USB. The minimum compatible cable type is Cat 5e, although Cat 6 is recommended. Termination is 8P8C modular connectors. Length potential is at 1080p, and at UHD 4K.

Specification 2.0

HDBaseT 2.0 maintains PAM16 encoding and an aggregate data rate of 8 Gbit/s. However, the auxiliary channel rate was doubled to 25 Msymbols/s for an aggregate 300 Mbit/s. The increased rate predominantly supports USB 2.0 and separate S/PDIF audio. Additionally, version 2.0 specifies the HDBaseT network protocol, defining the required adaptations across all layers of the

OSI model The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is a reference model developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that "provides a common basis for the coordination of standards development for the purpose of systems inter ...

, to provide the optimized services for time-sensitive applications such as high throughput video and audio. Cabling recommendations for HDBaseT 2.0 remained the same, but the enhanced

digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are a ...

(DSP) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) for retransmission capabilities increase the reliability and performance to achieve up to at 1080p and at UHD 4K video resolutions. This can be increased to 100 m for UHD 4K by using Cat 6A cable or better.

Specification 3.0

HDBaseT 3.0 also maintains PAM16 encoding, but doubles the rate to 1000 Msymbols/s for an aggregate data rate of 16 Gbit/s. This is equivalent to 18 Gbit/s in HDMI transmission: the ceiling of the HDMI 2.0 specification. Furthermore, the auxiliary channel is also upgraded to PAM16 (from PAM8), and rate increased to 125 Msymbols/s for an aggregate 2 Gbit/s. This extra upstream data rate capability enables

support, and increases USB 2.0 speed to 350 Mbit/s. The 5Play feature set of HDBaseT 3.0 is carried over from HDBaseT 2.0, albeit with enhanced capabilities. Cabling for HDBaseT 3.0 requires the use of Cat 6A or better, terminated with 8P8C connectors.

References

External links

HDBaseT Alliance
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hdbaset Television technology Television transmission standards Video signal