hdBaseT
OSNews comments on an interesting new audio/visual cable standard being proposed as an alternative to HDMI.
It's really more than an HDMI competitor, it's a cable specification that “converges full uncompressed HD video, audio, 100BaseT Ethernet, high power over cable and various control signals through a single 100m/328ft CAT5e/6 LAN cable.” That's an idea that I can really get behind. No new proprietary connectors, no expensive cables needed, consolidation of all necessary signals into one cable. The founding companies include LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, and Sony Pictures Entertainment.
This sounds like something that could really simplify wiring one's TV and related equipment cost effectively. And just think about larger scale setups.
I seem to recall an obscure reference to this at OfB on comments someone made to one of my FreeBSD articles. Someone was asking me about some spanking new monitors using this standard. Naturally, I knew almost nothing about it, and still don't. The price tag killed my interest.
Hmm… I didn't think from the sounds of it anything was even out yet using hdBaseT. Was it a forward looking question?
Perhaps it was a related development, something which worked okay, but hdBaseT is a far better implementation. Since it's all over my head in the first place, I can't say.