Extend HDMI With Ethernet Cables Up To 330 ft
Gefen is offering a range extender for HDMI using CAT-5 Ethernet cables.
The Toolbox KVM Extender consists of two devices, one sender and one receiver box. The sender is connected to a PC via HDMI and USB 2.0 and the receiver via HDMI to an HDTV display. the two boxes are then connected using two CAT-5 cables to transfer HD video data.
According to Gefen, the distance between the PC and display can be up to 330 feet or 100 meters. AN IR blaster can be used to control the PC from the location of the display, while an IR extender enables users to increase the range of the IR control. Data transfer via CAT-5 supports 1080p video, 12-bit color, LCPM 7.1 Audio, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master Audio.
"The emphasis here is that you can extend hi-def video with your peripherals from a central location to wherever you wish to control them," said Hagai Gefen, president and CEO, Gefen.
The company said that its technology is based on HDBaseT specifications, allowing the delivery of high definition video with IR and Ethernet over the same industry-standard cable. A second cable is used to extend USB 2.0 signals from the source to the display at up to 480 Mb/s.
The range extender devices are offered for $1200. If you intend to leverage the full range of 330 feet, calculate another $130 - $150 for a 300 ft CAT-5 cable.
wait....
wait....
This is for people that don't want that added complexity. I could see this being used by traveling presenters for remote video to different parts of the audience or people like mobile DJ's who setup at a different place every gig and never know how far it will be from their setup point to where they need a monitor for things like karaoke and displaying music videos or live streaming video of the dance floor.
Xbeater I was right on that, I was writing my comment when there was only 1 other one on the article, you just beat me to it!
Because even my recent Asus P8P67 Pro mobo doesn't support that. And that's high-end; an average home PC doesn't even have gigabit LAN.
and I am pretty sure that if someone tries they can actually build a HDMI range extender for a fraction of this money. and also i remember seeing HDMI cables upto the length of 100ft on sale in ebay.......
Got that right, I bought 305m (1000ft) of CAT6 for £80 (£120)
And these extenders are massively overpriced, I already have some that cost me £18 ($27).
Good tech story, stupid pricing, what was the point?
LOL, CyberLink MediaEspresso serial key detected
There are other alternatives much cheaper, but they are mainly used by construction companies, and the converter connects to a 120v like any other appliance, and the connection is like any plug but with HDMI.
I was going to say, my work has 1000 foot spools of CAT 5 and CAT 6 for $89.
And I think 300FT is like $60ish.
I bought 100' of Cat5e for a few bucks.
Think a gigabit network (maximum theoretical bandwidth equals ~100MB/s) Blueray HD movie bandwidth does generally not exceed 50Mbits; encoded in MP4 it generally does not exceed 10Mbits (peak). Most of the time HD video has ~8Mbits of data that needs to be transferred. THey should think about transferring the encoded material, to be decoded at the receiving part, instead of trying to force the decoded (raw) data through a cat5 cable!