HDMI over ethernet. Has anyone tried this?

Harrison

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I know is possible to use ethernet to send HDMI to a tv. Has anyone tried this?

Any info on 4K over Ethernet?

My reason for investigating this is Sky Q. As you know only the main Q box can provide 4K. All satellite boxes supplying other TVs can only get standard HD. If however I could apply 4K over ethernet I could split the output from the main Q box to supply a second TV upstairs in the study. Obviously I would only receive the same on both TVs but a compromise could be a satellite box as well so it can be switched between living room 4K feed and local hd feed.

Any idea if that is possible?

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Other possibility but probably expensive if they even let you is a second main Q box in the study as I already have sky multiroom with satellite inputs up there.

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I can't advise on the Ethernet solutions, but I can tell you - Stay well clear of the HDMI/4K transmitters. Even the most expensive (>€400) ones don't come even close to what they claim. I sent back the "up to 100m" version after I couldn't get them to communicate at all in our house. My planned use was 10m through two walls. The less than helpful guy on the phone said it is "up to 100m in ideal conditions", so I took it to the lab and we set up "ideal conditions". We managed 21 metres over a line of sight (no walls) connection in an EMI free environment. Even the slightest interference (low power WLAN) brought the range down to 9m! At 11m it broke up and froze the picture just by walking through the signal path. Through a concrete wall we couldn't even get a stable picture at 5m. What a con.

Bryce.
 
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Thanks for the info on your own testing.

When you say line of sight and walls were you using wireless transmitters?

My house is fully wired with Cat 6 Ethernet cables and wall sockets so I will only be using wired Ethernet, and it's because I already wired up the house with Ethernet last year when I renovated that gave me the idea. I've been looking at available options and as expected 4K distances supported are less than standard HD. With wired Ethernet 35Mcable length for 4k and 100M for Full HD. From the living room location to the study on the other side of the house I think is only going to be a maximum cable run of about 12 metres. However the rooms are not directly linked by a straight run of Ethernet cable because I have it setup with the fibre router in the hall wall connected to a Gigabit switch which then distributes the network to each room. I don't expect the switch to be an issue really as it is the only hub between the living room and Study and the signal wouldn't be directly passing through the broadband router, which in this case would only be utilised for the DHCP server (If in fact HDMI over Ethernet actually uses assigned IPs although on a whole network I would assume the sending and receiving HDMI Ethernet devices would need IPs to communicate and find each other). Need to actually read more on how they work.

I have however had bad experiences with long HDMI cables as some devices can't handle the extended length. My PS3 hated a 10M HDMI 1.4 cable in 1080P, with the image flickering and blanking out, but worked fine in 1080i; and honestly with the 27" Dell 1440P monitor I was using at the time I couldn't tell the difference. I wonder if similar issues would happen over longer Ethernet? At least with Cat 6 cable it is better shielded than Cat5e with the 4 twisted pairs separate. Should have installed metal shielded Cat 6 to remove even more interference but that's still quite expensive.

Would love 10Gbit Ethernet. Anyone installed that yet?
 
Yes, it was a wireless system I tested. Due to the way our house is built, running a wire isn't an option. The protocol used for HDMI over ethernet shouldn't have problems with longer runs like a standard HDMI cable has, even with non-shielded cable. However, make sure that the system you choose supports all encryption methods as some of the cheaper models don't.

Bryce.
 
Looks interesting. Strange that they say it only works up to 70m. I have ordered a HDMI over Powerline system to try and solve my problem. It does 1080P, but not 4K (I don't need 4K anyway), but it claims to do 1080P up to 300m.

Bryce.
 
I've used 300Mbit powerline adapters to get my network to the opposite end of an old cottage we used to live in and it worked well. Quite a surprise because the electrics in the house were not great. I used that to connect the Sky box and smart tv to the Internet and they streamed Netflix and downloaded sky fine. Plus streamed films to the tv from the server connected at the other end if the house so overall pretty good.

That worked much better than the WiFi repeater I tried first, positioned half way through the house. Kept dropping the connection or devices would not auto jump from the repeater to the router when moving through the house. Was annoying. I have a wifi repeater setup here too but I'm not convinced that's doing much either.

Let me know how the HDMI over powerline setup goes.

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I have a 300MBit LAN Powerline in the house at the moment which I stream video over, so I know that our cabling can support it. The HDMI one supposedly does 500MBit, so it should work too. Before anyone starts screaming "You can't use both of them together on the same circuit!!" - I know. The LAN Powerline is only connected when I need it and I will never need it at the same time as the HDMI Powerline.
For those interested, this is the one I've ordered: https://www.megasat.tv/en/produkte/megasat-hdmi-powerline-2/
It's also sold under the name "Schwaiger" and possible other brand names too.

Bryce.
 
The one thing that annoys me is the claimed speeds of powerline adapters. There is no way they can ever reach their claimed speeds. The older or cheaper ones claim 150Mbit/s and the newer or more expensive 300Mbit/s. I've never seen speeds anywhere near these claims even when I did some test setups by wiring my own short power circuit to see a theoretical speed. Probably closer to 100Mbit Ethernet which is about 12MB/s. Still ok for video streaming in most cases but wouldn't be that great for 4K unless heavily compressed.

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Yeah, I've no idea where they come up with those speeds. I assume they do it over a very short distance with an artificially generated 50Hz carrier (simulating a powerline) in ideal conditions through screened, twisted cable. Most house wiring is neither shielded nor twisted, so it's highly unlikely that those speeds would ever be possible in real conditions.

Bryce.
 
Yeah I
Can get about 300 mb through my 500mb powerline adapters. Still generally a lot better and further distances than Wi-fi


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I've got a new build house that I had CAT6A throughout put in. It's a 1Gbit/10Gbit LAN, and that side of it works really well with sub 1ms across the whole infrastructure and good sustained throughput. I then bought the Neo HDBase-T transmitter for the CAT6 transmission (70Meters for 4K, 100Meters for 1080P). I've not fully started settings them up yet, but I have read up and tried them over the CAT6 and via back-to-back cabling with the results that: Back to back they work fine, but HDBase-T will not work over a switched Ethernet network, so I've patched through directly across the CAT6 patch panels, but this also doesn't seem to work. Even when connecting directly over a single CAT6 module through to the patch panel (so not doubling back) it doesn't quite work. To clarify, I get the power signal to the receiver, but no "signal" (indicated by an LED which lights/flashes when connected back to back). This I'm assuming is to do with either the cabling length (unlikely but possible), or the cabling itself (either the joins in the modules/patch panel, or the fact that the cabling somehow is changing wiring configurations which it shouldn't be as it's all straight-through at that stage). The back-to back cabling I've tried is both straight-through and cross-over.. both work fine when the boxes are like this, so at the moment I've put them aside for another time. I have an AV installer that is going to take a look (as it was part of an install package I bought with Dolby Atmos etc.) so if I get this working over the structured cabling i'll let you know.
 
I have a fairly new house and powerline adapters doesn't work that great at all...
Had to try different wall sockets in different rooms to get it to work at all.
Was also hoping to get a decent lan solution to my workshop that is ~70m away from the house, but it doesn't give any reasonable speed or stability
 
For your workshop what cables are you using? Shielded Cat 6 should work for that distance. But you could try an Ethernet repeater along the line to boost the signal.

I've got a run of Cat 6 ethernet cable running from the house to my workshop in the garden and that's about 40 meters. Gives a good speed. There are no other houses much to interfere with the cable as the houses in my road are all in a line with the gardens running behind.

70 metres is quite long though as the theoretical limit is 100m.

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I have a fairly new house and powerline adapters doesn't work that great at all...
Had to try different wall sockets in different rooms to get it to work at all.
Was also hoping to get a decent lan solution to my workshop that is ~70m away from the house, but it doesn't give any reasonable speed or stability

I'm not sure about Sweden, but in Germany we have all 3 phases supplied to the house and different phases are used for different parts of the house. Obviously powerline transmissions won't jump from one phase to the other, so if that's the issue you'll have to move the sockets in both rooms to the same phase.

Bryce.
 
Then you'll need to make sure that the whole stretch is on the same phase.

Bryce.
 
So you have a three phase electrical installation with 3 separate mcbs connecting the house into separate electrical zones?

Is that now common practice in some countries? And why would you need 3 phase in a standard house? If you were drawing more than the 7.5kW a normal setup can cope with I would be questioning what you are connecting. Even with appliances like washing machine, tumble dryer, kettle and electric oven all running at once it wouldn't get anywhere near that.

Also are the sockets than connected from the MCBs via radial circuits?

Or do you have similar to the US with 240V supply for heavy duty appliances and 110V for general household sockets?

In the UK our domestic supplies are generally all single phase with one MCB (commonly referred to as a consumer unit). We have to have RCDs in the unit protecting different zones of the house, then different rated trips depending on the circuit, and individual circuits for things like ovens and heaters.

We do of course have 240V electrical supply which is a lot more dangerous than 110V which in theory can't kill you and is why all building sites only allow 110V power tools.

Our sockets are also connected on ring main circuits. Normally one ring for downstairs, one for upstairs and another for the kitchen. Then radial curcuits for things like the garage or garden shed. I know the UK is one of the few to use ring main circuits. I personally like the idea for load balancing and ensuring the electrical supply is provided evenly along the whole socket run. I also think the UK plug socket design with built in fuse, earth and shuttered socket design is the best and safest in the world. Really don't like the flimsy plugs used in many other countries.

It's interesting learning about electrical standards in other countries though. The scary one is how bad the standards in us electrics are though. I hate the idea of electrical nuts to join cables. They are banned in the UK but common practice in the US. Mad that every time you need to change a connection you have to cut the old nut off losing some cable length and then twist a new nut in, which can come loose. Much better to use terminal blocks or the newer Wago connectors. It's also worrying the terminology electricians in the US use such as referring to the live wire as hot.

I also find plug socket and light switch design and assemblies in other countries quite old fashioned compared to uk standards. Might just be me and what I'm used to.

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The German system is as follows:

The 3 phases come into a single MCB, so the box has a neutral busbar, an earth busbar and three phase busbars. The only 3 phase connection outside the box is usually to the cooker, where all three phases are available, however the cooker is also just splitting, usually using one phase for the left two rings, one for the right rings and one for the oven. In the junction box the phases are usually shared between areas or functions. So you might have "Lights and sockets upstairs" all connected to one of the phases, "Lights and sockets downstairs" connected to a second phase and the third phase could be used for garage / Basement / utility room or whatever.
Due to the powerline equipment, I shifted things around, so I have one phase doing all the lights plus the sockets in the kitchen and the second phase doing all the other sockets.
In some rare cases, where there is an electric water heater in the house, this might also have a three phase supply.
It's all radial, no ring architecture here.

As for plug style: I come from Ireland, so I grew up with the UK style which I liked and is very well designed, however I now prefer the European style despite the lack of fuse. My only gripe would be the fact that it can be plugged in either way around, so you have no idea which wire is actually the live and which is the neutral. American and Japanese plugs are the worst, they are just scary as far as safety is concerned (despite only being 110V).

Bryce.
 
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