If Internet cables can carry a lot of data per second, why won’t these cables replace HDMI/VGA/DVI standards?
In: Technology
Why do you need a cable faster than HDMI for display data? Does your current HDMI cable not suffice for your screen?
The short explanation is that HDMI is faster than “internet cable”
There is not a single cable called “internet cable”, there are cables you use for computer networks the common in households are ethernet in a copper cable like CAT-6 and for long-distance, it is an optical fiber.
The problem is that the data rate in ethernet is high but not as high as the other you mention.
The max data rate in the now common HDMI 2.1 standard is 42.6 Gigabit/s compared to the common ethernet today of 1Gigabit/s. You will see some 10Gigabit/s ethernet on expensive motherboards.
The 10Gigabit/s ethernet standard is from 2002 so when DVI was introduced in 1999 the max speed was 1Gigabit/s. DVI had a speed of 3.96Gigabit/s in the single line that HDMI adopted and 7.92 Gbit/s is the dual-link variant.
There is 40 Gigabit/s electrical ethernet too over the wire but it requires quite complex and advanced electronics. There is a faster optical standard but the cost is a lot higher.
HDMI is the same as DVI with a different connection and sound added. VGA is an analog standard.
For the same speed at the distance that we used HDMI, they are cheaper and better designed for video than to use ethernet. Ethernet has an advantage in max length but the electronics you need for the speed cost more than the HDMI.
“If trains can carry a lot of people very fast, why don’t they replace walking, biking, cars, and planes?”
Different strengths and drawbacks is the short answer. Being single-purpose (only image data) has advantages over a genera purpose bus, and point-to-point connections also don’t need to have a forwarding or routing protocol to go with them. Data can be preprocessed in a way that is easier for the end device to decode, so the receiver can be simpler and cheaper. Physical connectors and cable can be made without caring as much about long-range performance if you can assume that the devices will always be close to each other. And on and on.
“Data” is always the same in an abstract sense, but in a physical sense there’s a lot of possible paths you can take to create a data transport system.
* There are already lots of different types of “Internet cables”.
* If we got to chose which one should replace HDMI, which one should we pick?”
* Fiber Optics can carry huge amounts of data super fast, should we choose that?
* It’s very expensive so maybe not.
* How about coaxial cable?
* Funny thing is was used to use that for video way before HDMI.
* We used it for antennas and also for “cable TV” from the cable company.
* In fact that’s why it’s called “cable”.
* So should we go back?
* No the pins in the middle are easy to break if you’re not careful and the cables are thick and harder to tuck behind TVs.
* What about Ethernet cable?
* We could but many laptops are too thin now for those large connectors
* And also the tables on those tend to break.
* What about USB?
* That’s actually a good choice and eventually what we’ll be using.
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