5 ms·

I wish something like HDBaseT would catch on.

moreati 6y ago
For anyone else wondering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDBaseT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDBaseT > HDBaseT, promoted and advanced by the HDBaseT Alliance, is a consumer electronic (CE) and commercial connectivity standard for transmission of uncompressed high-definition video (HD), audio, power, home networking, Ethernet, USB, and some control signals, over a common category cable (Cat5e or above) using the same 8P8C modular connectors used by Ethernet.
- encom 6y ago
  Sure it sounds neat, but it also sounds a lot like that xkcd about standards. Also, the 8P8C connector is just godawful. I mean, it's fine for the first 3 days until the clip breaks off. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
  - gruez 6y ago
    >it's fine for the first 3 days until the clip breaks off. Hasn't this been largely fixed by connectors that have a cover over the exposed clip?
  - crgwbr 6y ago
    8P8C has the huge advantage of being pretty easy to terminate with some basic, cheap hand tools. I’d hate to try that with a USB-C connector.
    - encom 6y ago
      That's true, with the caveat that cheap crimptools are often terrible, and good ones are surprisingly expensive.
      - snuxoll 6y ago
        Eh, my “cheap” TRENDNet stip+crimp tool does the job just fine. I’m not a heavy user, but I’ve done well over 50 terminations with it and every time I’ve had an issue it’s due to myself doing a shitty job inserting the wires into the connector.
  - kayfox 6y ago
    HDBaseT has somewhat consolidated the HDMI over twisted pair market, so you do have one more standard, but it replaces a dozen non-standards in the field.
- garaetjjte 6y ago
  I'm not convinced for yet another standard. Why not encapsulate in Ethernet?
  - kayfox 6y ago
    From what I have been able to gather its 10G Ethernet optimized for unshielded cat5e and a slightly higher line rate.
- notriddle 6y ago
  That sounds really, really close to USB-C.
MertsA 6y ago
In an ideal world, with plenty of funding, I've always wanted to take that a step further and implement a remote virtualized workstation. With just 2.5Gbps from NBase-T and 802.3bt for power and VESA display stream compression you could hypothetically power a monitor from a single cat5e cable as well as output full 1080p 60Hz video ("visually lossless"), supply power and data for USB, maybe even a passthrough 802.3af ethernet port for an ip phone. You could take that even further by adding in a custom SPICE-like display protocol and only send rectangular regions of changed pixels and translation commands to shift a region of pixels around (scrolling, moving a window, etc). Given it's all virtualized instead of traditional ip phones you could go with dumb USB desk phones and route that USB device to a single PBX and build something akin to an old school PBX where the phones are more or less just dumb terminals. Rather than dealing with the headaches of setting up BLFs, dial plans on the phone vs. PBX, call forwarding and DND on PBX and phones, VM access, Hotdesking setups, etc it's all just a bunch of specialized HIDs hooked up to a VM. Need HA? Move the USB devices on failover to a separate VM. It'd have all the benefits of thin clients with significantly less drawbacks. Need dual monitors? No need to replace your bargain basement thin client with one that supports dual monitors, just pull up another monitor, hookup to the same seat on the servers and done. You could sell a deluxe version with dual inputs so that each display is connected to two independent switches so if one bites the dust it doesn't take down 48 employees at a time.

For anyone else wondering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDBaseT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDBaseT > HDBaseT, promoted and advanced by the HDBaseT Alliance, is a consumer electronic (CE) and commercial connectivity standard for transmission of uncompressed high-definition video (HD), audio, power, home networking, Ethernet, USB, and some control signals, over a common category cable (Cat5e or above) using the same 8P8C modular connectors used by Ethernet.

encom 6y ago
Sure it sounds neat, but it also sounds a lot like that xkcd about standards. Also, the 8P8C connector is just godawful. I mean, it's fine for the first 3 days until the clip breaks off. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- gruez 6y ago
  >it's fine for the first 3 days until the clip breaks off. Hasn't this been largely fixed by connectors that have a cover over the exposed clip?
- crgwbr 6y ago
  8P8C has the huge advantage of being pretty easy to terminate with some basic, cheap hand tools. I’d hate to try that with a USB-C connector.
  - encom 6y ago
    That's true, with the caveat that cheap crimptools are often terrible, and good ones are surprisingly expensive.
    - snuxoll 6y ago
      Eh, my “cheap” TRENDNet stip+crimp tool does the job just fine. I’m not a heavy user, but I’ve done well over 50 terminations with it and every time I’ve had an issue it’s due to myself doing a shitty job inserting the wires into the connector.
- kayfox 6y ago
  HDBaseT has somewhat consolidated the HDMI over twisted pair market, so you do have one more standard, but it replaces a dozen non-standards in the field.
garaetjjte 6y ago
I'm not convinced for yet another standard. Why not encapsulate in Ethernet?
- kayfox 6y ago
  From what I have been able to gather its 10G Ethernet optimized for unshielded cat5e and a slightly higher line rate.
notriddle 6y ago
That sounds really, really close to USB-C.

MertsA 6y ago

In an ideal world, with plenty of funding, I've always wanted to take that a step further and implement a remote virtualized workstation. With just 2.5Gbps from NBase-T and 802.3bt for power and VESA display stream compression you could hypothetically power a monitor from a single cat5e cable as well as output full 1080p 60Hz video ("visually lossless"), supply power and data for USB, maybe even a passthrough 802.3af ethernet port for an ip phone. You could take that even further by adding in a custom SPICE-like display protocol and only send rectangular regions of changed pixels and translation commands to shift a region of pixels around (scrolling, moving a window, etc). Given it's all virtualized instead of traditional ip phones you could go with dumb USB desk phones and route that USB device to a single PBX and build something akin to an old school PBX where the phones are more or less just dumb terminals. Rather than dealing with the headaches of setting up BLFs, dial plans on the phone vs. PBX, call forwarding and DND on PBX and phones, VM access, Hotdesking setups, etc it's all just a bunch of specialized HIDs hooked up to a VM. Need HA? Move the USB devices on failover to a separate VM. It'd have all the benefits of thin clients with significantly less drawbacks. Need dual monitors? No need to replace your bargain basement thin client with one that supports dual monitors, just pull up another monitor, hookup to the same seat on the servers and done. You could sell a deluxe version with dual inputs so that each display is connected to two independent switches so if one bites the dust it doesn't take down 48 employees at a time.