HDBaseT

Miketemp

New Member
Does anyone have experience with HDBaseT? I see some low cost options from Monoprice and then they go upwards from there (and some references I have seen seem to imply the other brands may be more reliable). I've also seen some integration with a high end Pioneer receiver as well.
 
I was curious if anyone had experiences (good or bad) using HDBaseT in a residential install. I'm considering this in the not too distant future. I thought I might try one room to test out the concept and make sure it was acceptable.
 
Thanks!
 
It works.  The boxes generate a lot of heat.  It is unlikely that there is a huge difference between brands because there is only one chipset vendor.  Anything under 75 feet may be better suited to active HDMI cables if you can pull them.
 
I'd love to switch to it once it becomes more mainstream. In my opinion, it's certainly a much better 'technology' than HDMI.
 
I'm working with an integrator on a project - he does a lot of very large projects - the multi-million dollar type - and uses HDBaseT and HDMI over Cat6 with great results including 4K and 3D on the project we're working on.
 
I use it to send HDMI to my projector, pretty great stuff. I had the cheap Monoprice $20 wall plates first, they worked well but I felt that every hour or so there was some sort of buffer issue because it lose picture for a second then return. Then I wanted HDMI 1.4 while I upgraded so I tried another dual cat5/6 by Atlona and it was even worse than my cheap wall plates.  Finally shelled out for the monoprice HDbaseT and have had 0 issues.  Amazing.
 
PS: I have ceiling lights so I was using shielded Cat5, I pulled a new shielded cat6 for the hdbaset.
 
This is great info. I'll have to give some thought on a clean installation of this. The 2 gang plates seem interesting (at both ends), perhaps mounting at the top of a stud bay, patching in behind and then connecting HDMI mounted lower on racks/shelving to these. The matrix switch is something I would look to use and attach a couple of cable boxes to it along with the other equipment. You could do the same with Sage as well, although those are small enough to mount behind the TV as well (If it is all one source though, switching between hdbaset sources might be simpler, but then again this can all be handled by the remote).
 
I don't have shielded cables to those locations now but I think that is still an option. It sounds like that will help prevent potential issues.
 
Thanks.
 
If I remember correctly, the Monoprice baluns strongly recommended using shielded. I don't know if it makes a huge difference or not, but since I was going to pull a new cable anyway I went with it. I had some electricians install more lights in the ceiling so there was a lot more power cables in the attic than there used to be.  
 
I have thought about switching my component matrix over to hdbaset, but it still seems pretty expensive and I'd need something to manage all the IR connections neatly. I wouldn't want 6 different IR sticky things on each reciever. I sometimes use a little connecting block and group all the wires into 1 emitter, but all the little wires are so messy.  I'd love some sort of IR matrix, something where I could punch down a receiver, plug out an emitter and decode based on signal and automate.  I use IR for some audio subzones as well, so each subzone has a receiver and responds to IR input.
 
I would highly recommend HDBaseT for ceiling runs. I had issues with a 75 ft Redmere HDMI cable after only 1 year. I replaced it with an Altona unit (Ebay) and everthing works great again with a single cat5 cable! This particular unit doesn't need power at the terminus which was great for my projector. Others available will run rs-232 and IR but do need power at both ends. 
 
Bugman
 
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