HDBaseT is a consumer electronic (CE) and commercial connectivity standard for transmission of uncompressed ultra-high-definition video, digital audio, DC power, Ethernet, USB 2.0, and other control communication (such as

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

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 contr ...

) over a single

category cable In telecommunications, structured cabling is building or campus cabling infrastructure that consists of a number of standardized smaller elements (hence structured) called subsystems. Structured cabling components include twisted pair and op ...

( Cat 5e or better) up to 100 m (328 ft) in length, terminated using the same 8P8C modular connectors 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 1 ...

networks. 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. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, acc ...

Sony Pictures Entertainment Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Sony Pictures or SPE, and formerly known as Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Inc.) is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment studio Conglomerate (company), conglom ...

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG Corporation, the fourth largest '' chaebol'' in South Korea, and often considered ...

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 audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...

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 t ...

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 in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass ( silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair Hair is a protein filament that grows ...

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) 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 6.5x the bandwidth on the auxiliary channel. This enables a significant increase to USB 2.0 data rate capabilities, and advancement of Ethernet support from 100Base-T to

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 ...

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, media streamers, DVD players,

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

players,

personal computers A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

(PCs),

video game consoles A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to a ...

, and

AV receivers An audio/video receiver (AVR) is a consumer electronics component used in a home theater. Its purpose is to receive audio and video signals from a number of sources, and to process them and provide power amplifiers to drive loudspeakers and rou ...

to compatible

digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, samp ...

devices,

computer monitors A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls. The d ...

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

displays, digital televisions, and digital

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

.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-purp ...

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 MByte/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) is a dynamic range higher than usual, synonyms are wide dynamic range, extended dynamic range, expanded dynamic range. The term is often used in discussing the dynamic range of various signals such as images, videos, au ...

(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 audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller ...

, 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, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal, nor verti ...

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, Sta ...

. This can provide

Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Interne ...

to devices such as

smart TVs A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features, which allows users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart TVs are a techno ...

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

Control signals

HDBaseT delivers HDMI Consumer Electronics Control (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 contr ...

(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.

HDBaseT Versions

Specification 1.0

HDBaseT 1.0 utilizes 16-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (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 M symbols/sec 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 model (OSI model) is a conceptual model that 'provides a common basis for the coordination of SOstandards development for the purpose of systems interconnection'. In the OSI reference model, the communications ...

, 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 ...

(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 M symbols/sec for an aggregate data rate of 16 Gb/s. This is equivalent to 18 Gb/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 M symbols/sec for an aggregate 2 Gb/s. This extra upstream data rate capability enables

support, and increases USB 2.0 speed to 350 Mb/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 Film and video technology Television technology Television transmission standards Video signal