[Orestes1984]

The only reason HDMI is now necessary to transfer TrueHD and Master Audio is its position in the marketplace. It is far for the only technology capable of transmitting that sort of data bandwidth, and as I said, was not technically necessary in the first place. It was and is just a means of transmitting and connecting video and audio with one connector that includes copy protection by device identification and handshaking. We had the bandwidth already, and had single cable solutions already, and still do (Thunderbolt, IEEE 1394, and coax to name a few) . But we can't use any of them because the only connection we have on gear is HDMI.

Out of all of those standards you listed only Thunderbolt and therefore USB3 carries both video and audio at the same time. USB3 will be the future, its just a matter of time before the rest of the market replaces HDMI ports with USB3 ones instead which will resolve all of your issues.

 

[pinnahertz]

Out of all of those standards you listed only Thunderbolt and therefore USB3 carries both video and audio at the same time. USB3 will be the future, its just a matter of time before the rest of the market replaces HDMI ports with USB3 ones instead which will resolve all of your issues.

Not correct, pretty much in any aspect. Everything I listed either has or could have the necessary bandwidth for a single cable HD AV connection. Take coax. We regularly convert 4K hdmi to a single SDI coax for multi drop distribution. That's right now, every day, with standard RG6 and BNC connectors. USB3 is hobbled by length vs speed limits, and the lack of security...never going to replace HDMI.

 

[Orestes1984]

Firewire is hobbled at 800mbit per second, Thunderbolt is pretty much a dead standard now thanks to USB3 using the same port, coax is about the only medium that is useful that you have listed and that's because it can run ontop of fibre. It's pretty much correct in every sense I stated above, if you were looking for one standard to replace everything in the future it will be USB3.

 

[bfreedma]

Firewire is hobbled at 800mbit per second, Thunderbolt is pretty much a dead standard now thanks to USB3 using the same port, coax is about the only medium that is useful that you have listed and that's because it can run ontop of fibre. It's pretty much correct in every sense I stated above, if you were looking for one standard to replace everything in the future it will be USB3.

As already mentioned, USB does not support security - at least not natively. Given that, there is zero chance that it will be the replacement for HDMI.

Unless you see the studios giving up on making it difficult to copy/pirate.....

 

[Niouke]

the funny part about HDMI/USB etc is that a RJ45 network cable could do the same if not better at a fraction of the price

 

[pinnahertz]

1. Firewire is hobbled at 800mbit per second, 2. Thunderbolt is pretty much a dead standard now thanks to USB3 using the same port, 3. coax is about the only medium that is useful that you have listed and that's because it can run ontop of fibre. It's pretty much correct in every sense I stated above, if you were looking for one standard to replace everything in the future it will be USB3.

1. Firewire is only stuck at 800 because development stopped, largely due to Thunderbolt, which is directly connectable. It could have been used for a single cable AV interface when HDMI started, then could have been developed up to higher speeds. That's exactly what happened with HDMI!
2. Thunderbolt dead? Nonsense! Thunderbolt 3 is up to 40gbps, squashing USB3.1 by 4x. If you need that speed not much else will work. And flinging 4K uncompressed video around needs a lot of speed. The connector they share is the USB C connector. Ever find a USB 3 device ready for that one? Nope. That means you have to adapt anyway. How is that killing Thunderbolt? It's still under development, and moving forward, perhaps not in everyone's world. It is capable of being a single-cable AV interface now at full required speed.
3. Metallic coax and optical fiber are two different mediums and share very few properties. There's no running coax on top of fibre without conversion. And there's almost no point to doing that. They both have bandwidth vs length issues, but fiber based interfaces, converters, switchers and distribution devices are rare and expensive. The fiber itself gets expensive in length and cannot be field terminated. Coax is cheap, comes on a spool, and can be terminated with a compression connector in 30 seconds or less. And transmit full bandwidth UHD plus HD audio with HDMI/SDI conversion at each end.

As Niouke pointed out, all of this can be done over UTP (Cat5e, Cat6) cable terminated in an RJ45 connector (technically 8P8C). And we do that all the time, converting HDMI to Cat5 and back. It takes care of medium-long cable runs and custom length issues, but the converters have to be the good powered ones, not the passive junk cheap ones. However it is still length limited, where SDI Coax can go much farther and be daisy-chained to multiple devices. A variant to HDMI > Cat5 is HDbaseT, and HD over IP. Same full 4K UHD bandwidth. But all of those are transport only, not device interface. I keep hoping for a TV with HDbaseT or HD over IP jack. There are a few pro products with SDI connectors, though, so it qualifies as a full interconnect.

 

[bfreedma]

1. Firewire is only stuck at 800 because development stopped, largely due to Thunderbolt, which is directly connectable. It could have been used for a single cable AV interface when HDMI started, then could have been developed up to higher speeds. That's exactly what happened with HDMI!
2. Thunderbolt dead? Nonsense! Thunderbolt 3 is up to 40gbps, squashing USB3.1 by 4x. If you need that speed not much else will work. And flinging 4K uncompressed video around needs a lot of speed. The connector they share is the USB C connector. Ever find a USB 3 device ready for that one? Nope. That means you have to adapt anyway. How is that killing Thunderbolt? It's still under development, and moving forward, perhaps not in everyone's world. It is capable of being a single-cable AV interface now at full required speed.
3. Metallic coax and optical fiber are two different mediums and share very few properties. There's no running coax on top of fibre without conversion. And there's almost no point to doing that. They both have bandwidth vs length issues, but fiber based interfaces, converters, switchers and distribution devices are rare and expensive. The fiber itself gets expensive in length and cannot be field terminated. Coax is cheap, comes on a spool, and can be terminated with a compression connector in 30 seconds or less. And transmit full bandwidth UHD plus HD audio with HDMI/SDI conversion at each end.

As Niouke pointed out, all of this can be done over UTP (Cat5e, Cat6) cable terminated in an RJ45 connector (technically 8P8C). And we do that all the time, converting HDMI to Cat5 and back. It takes care of medium-long cable runs and custom length issues, but the converters have to be the good powered ones, not the passive junk cheap ones. However it is still length limited, where SDI Coax can go much farther and be daisy-chained to multiple devices. A variant to HDMI > Cat5 is HDbaseT, and HD over IP. Same full 4K UHD bandwidth. But all of those are transport only, not device interface. I keep hoping for a TV with HDbaseT or HD over IP jack. There are a few pro products with SDI connectors, though, so it qualifies as a full interconnect.

Does HDbaseT and/or HD over IP currently support HDCP?

 

[pinnahertz]

Does HDbaseT and/or HD over IP currently support HDCP?

Yes, of course. Kind of useless without it.

 

[bfreedma]

Yes, of course. Kind of useless without it.

Good point, but I've learned never to assume anything once DRM becomes part of the equation.