A single input that combines audio, video, Internet and enough electricity to power a television? It sounds too good to be true, but a group of electronics makers say the so-called HDBaseT cable is coming this year.
This week, the HDBaseT Alliance announced its formal incorporation, and finalized the base specification for HDBaseT 1.0. The group's founders are LG, Samsung, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Valens Semiconductor.
The most interesting thing about HDBaseT is that it doesn't require any special cables to operate. Any CAT5e/6 LAN cable will do. With just this cable, HDBaseT can provide everything the television needs to operate, including electricity, as the cable transmits up to 100 W of power when connected from another set-top box. It also supports stereoscopic 3D. Here's a chart from the HDBaseT alliance that compares the format to HDMI and others.
HDBaseT's other main advantages are length and networking. It supports cables of up to 100 meters, and users can connect one set-top box to several devices through either daisy chains or star networking. Theoretically, you could wire a home so that every television was connected to one DVR.
Most HDBaseT adoption is expected to happen in 2011, but the Alliance says the first products will appear later this year. With HDMI as ubiquitous as it is, I think it'll be a lot longer before HDBaseT -- or perhaps some other format, maybe wireless -- takes over living rooms. But if you're like me, your entertainment center is nearly ruined by a dozen power cables and A/V inputs and ethernet cables running between a television, game consoles and other set-top boxes. A real way to reduce the clutter can't come soon enough.
