HDMI CEC Control…No IR Needed – HydraConnect LLC

There are many different ways of controlling your AV gear. From IR or RF frequencies, you can control your equipment virtually anywhere in your home whether it is in a closet, in the basement or in a small wall unit. RF doesn’t require much in terms of installation which makes it easy. But you might find some place in your home that doesn’t pick-up the RF signal quite well for many reasons. IR (hardwired solution) is another great way to be able to control all your equipment but this requires pre-wiring beforehand. IR is also subject to interference to sun light, interior lighting and more.

Going one step further, trying to centralize all your equipment in one room becomes a little more complex to wire and to zone all your IR commands using several different products. Well not anymore.

What is HDMI CEC?


So how did HydraConnect get it to work for multiple rooms and sources?



HydraConnect has already implemented this CEC technology in some of its switchers, including the 8x8 HSS-2 and HSS-3 (with HDBaseT).

With the growing amount of consumers trying to hide all their equipment into cabinets, closets or storing their whole house system in one room, HydraConnect helps eliminate wire clutter by using only an HDMI cable.

HDMI has never been a popular subject in the AV industry but having audio, video, Ethernet and now control all in one cable makes it an option worth considering.



What do you think about HDMI CEC? Would you give HDMI CEC a chance?





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Edited by VinnyS - 2/1/13 at 10:16am

In this situation, HydraConnect uses HDBaseT extenders which handle long distance runs.

I totally agree with you Dan. I have my share of HDMI horror stories. But with component`s death, we need to at start embracing it and stop fighting it or at least look forward to improvements in next version updates. I have high hopes of HDBaseT. I strongly believe everything one day will be over IP.

You'd be surprised. I'm in the custom industry and I'm already starting to see products getting developed at an affordable price. One thing to remember though, when buying an HDBaseT extender, most big brand manufacturers such as Atlona, Key Digital, Gefen and such, offer RS-232, IR, Ethernet and more over a single Cat5. That's why pricing is still high and people get scared. Like I said, I know of a couple of manufacturers developing a more cost effective solution without the bells and whistles and a much lower price.

Don't forget that your also extending HDMI at about double the distance you normally would with a standard HDMI extender. That's pretty cool.

I agree with you BiggAW that the price is quite steep and I for one wouldn't have money for a system like this. That being said though, one has to understand to appreciate a unit such as this one. Anyone wanting to centralize all electronic equipment somewhere in the home requires lots of planning and devices to make everything work and talk to each other. I have centralized everything in the house and it's not easy to plan for the future. Lots of cat5 runs and making sure IR works which in most cases requires a zone connecting block, especially if you have two set-top boxes. Then you have the HDMI issue which is still an on-going battle for everyone I think.

As from an installer's point of view, it's a great product as it eliminates a lot of other gear in the mix by using only one box. If you think about it, this is not your ordinary HDMI matrix, it allows installers to incorporate both control, video and audio in one machine. This also helps troubleshoot a lot of problems. Instead of having the installer to verify many different pieces of gear in the rack, he's only got one to look at.

This is a new product and even though the price is steep, I strongly encourage them to continue pursuit to maybe develop as BiggAW mentioned, different varieties of matrixes and maybe prices will come down. Idea and technology is interesting....just had to share