An HDMI cable will have a trapezoid-shaped connector on either end of the wire. This connector will have 16 tiny pins that will be used to transmit the digital signal to your TV or monitor. HDMI cables will have the same connector on both ends of the wire. Since 2009, HDMI cables have builtin ethernet capabilities, but not many people are using HDMI cables to connect to the internet. There aren’t even many devices that support the internet over HDMI. Why is that? Is it more efficient than ethernet cables or is it a useless feature? Should you buy an HDMI cable with ethernet? HDMI Ethernet switches and matrix switching solutions, also called HDMI over IP switches, allow switching HDMI video signals between multiple sources (e.g. content players) and displays over IP. Connect multiple sender and receiver units with a dedicated Gigabit network switche to create a custom matrix. Or use a transmitter and a receiver as a point-to-point (P2P) extender by connecting them directly through a single CAT5e/6 cable. The transmitter and receiver are connected to each other using an Ethernet cable. The Ethernet cable can be up to 100 meters long, allowing for the transmission of HDMI signals over long distances. The Ethernet cable can also be connected to a LAN, allowing for even longer transmission distances. How Does HDMI over Ethernet Work? Very few devices support the HDMI Ethernet Channel, so there really aren’t many practical use-cases for Ethernet over HDMI.

HDMI cables can deteriorate over time. If you're plugging and unplugging the cable consistently, it will wear down faster, and HDMI cables made of better materials last longer. Eventually, though, HDMI cables will become faulty. In short, HDMI over Ethernet is a useful technology for extending HDMI signals over long distances using Ethernet cables. By compressing the HDMI signal into a data stream, HDMI over Ethernet allows users to transmit HDMI signals up to 100 meters/328 feet or more. It is true that you can find ethernet being used in home applications, but for the most part, all devices use WiFi. This is one of the main hurdles HEC had to overcome and, for the most part, didn’t. There is one area where HEC was implemented, although in a much different way. This is the reason we see ethernet included in most HDMI cables produced today. Best Uses of HDMI Ethernet Channel/HEC Connectivity

What is an HDMI Cable with Ethernet?

HDMI over Ethernet is a technology that allows users to extend HDMI signals over long distances using Ethernet cables. It is a method of transmitting audio and video signals over a network. It involves sending HDMI signals from a source device, such as a Blu-ray player or computer, to a display, such as a TV or projector, through an Ethernet cable.

Colour can also be affected, as Category 1 and Category 2 cables haven’t got the bandwidth to convey the enhanced 10-bit colour depths, or Deep Colour, output by 4K Blu-ray players and 4K HDR consoles, let alone the 12-bit colour depth used by some Dolby Vision screens and 4K Blu-ray players. HDMI converters allow to convert digital HDMI to analog VGA, SDI, or component video (or vice versa) with either digital audio or analog stereo audio. The devices provide a cost effective solution to connect legacy, non digital displays to newer digital HDMI or DVI sources.eARC basically does the same, but its capabilities are enhanced. It gets a massive boost in maximum audio bandwidth, enabling high-quality, multi-channel, lossless audio data to be transmitted from your TV to a sound system. If you have an HEC compatible device, it will most likely self-describe somewhere in the user’s manual. Unfortunately, this technology is rarely implemented, and you would be hard-pressed to find a device that uses HEC. Through our research, we were unable to find any modern consumer device that uses HEC.

Yes, HDMI over Ethernet extenders require power to function. The transmitter and receiver units must be plugged into an electrical outlet or powered through PoE (Power over Ethernet) injector. These cables tend to be a bit pricier than those that support HDMI 2.0 or lower, but that, unfortunately, comes with having the latest and greatest tech. READ NEXT: The best 1080p, 1440p, 4K and ultrawide monitors Does the physical construction of the cable matter?Plenty of products other than TVs also offer eARC connectivity. Onkyo and Pioneer were the first to offer eARC updates on select AV products such as the Onkyo TX-RZ830, Integra DRX-5.2, Pioneer SC-LX502 and Pioneer VSX-LX503 AV receivers.