Meet the Cable of the Future: CAT5e/6 LAN Cable

[Marcus Yam]

Who knew? The best cable is the one that we already had.

Meet the Cable of the Future: CAT5e/6 LAN Cable : Read more

 

[tntom]

That is great news for all us who had the luxury of running CAT5 in our homes.

 

[wallpaper]

blue wires strikes again!

tbh, i found that blue slightly annoying after all these years...there should be a rainbow version

 

[mavroxur]

The new and improved....wheel!!

 

[jvc21]

Cool! Who would have known that our CAT5 cables would still be in great usage today.

I imagined that these would have been obsolete with newer cables by the start of the decade...guess not

 

[bonezy]

I should probably buy reels of this stuff before companies like Monster and Belkin decide to charge 30x its actual value, and cause all the prices to go up.

 

[Guest]

I have a 100m box of cat5 cable in my PC room, YAY me!!!

 

[Jerky_san]

I actually already have something like this from monoprice.. They have plates you can buy that require 2 Cat 6/5 cables for 20 bucks.. It can do 1080p+audio but not powering the tv and such.. But still I've never heard of this HDBaseT company.. I wonder how expensive their products will be.. For some reason I'm guessing it will be all proprietary.

 

[extremepcs]

I guess I just don

 

[extremepcs]

Err, sorry - not sure what happened there. Never mind!

 

[icepick314]

I bought 1000ft boxed spool of Cat5E for $60 (I think) few years back and I still have quite a bit left...

I hope this will become standard instead of HDMI or DisplayPort...

but you'll wonder how long till Monster charges $200 for 15ft Cat5E cable when it's literally fraction of pennies per foot?

 

[3doog]

[citation][nom]wallpaper[/nom]blue wires strikes again!tbh, i found that blue slightly annoying after all these years...there should be a rainbow version[/citation]

actually there are other colors, it's just that blue is more common in pictures I guess

 

[geofry]

Cat5/6 for everything! Yea!

I look forward to the day when I can just measure out the exact length I need, cut, crimp, and hook it up. No need to make 5 trips to the electronics store looking for adapters.

 

[back_by_demand]

Kinda makes sense really, CAT6 being used for Gigabit LAN. What's the bitrate of uncompressed hi-def video? A lot less than the capabilities of CAT6 and then some.

So, how long till we see graphics cards, monitors, TVs, DVRs, Bluray players with an RJ45 port?

 

[elel]

I can't believe that they can run enough current through there to satisfy a TV.

 

[nukemaster]

We have cat 5e running all over the house. yay!

 

[xxyyzz]

hmm.. One (old) cable to rule them all

I wonder what Toshiba gonna come up with now..

 

[Guest]

DARN! - I'm 6 years ahead of my time...all my friends thought I was *NUTZ* Cat6'ing every room in the house. I put 3x points in every room, patio, plus more spares in the ceiling - #24 in total.....and now its a standard! YESSSSSSS....BUT:
(Footnote: I'm just about to move out of this house now into a place without *any* networking.....*hangs head in shame*)

 

[ArgleBargle]

HDMI was only implemented to allow control by content providers and copyright holders. It is not a better technology for the consumer. It is a control technology for the MPAA.

 

[back_by_demand]

Moving house soon, before I move I think I will take the opportunity to lay CAT5E or CAT6 to every room in the house under the floorboards and being the walls. I can buy 300 meters of the stuff, connectors, crimper, wall sockets for a snip over £50.

 

[wotan31]

I don't like this at all. Cat5 is unshielded and susceptible to external interference. HDMI and Displayport are both shielded cables. The article doesn't specify what connector will be used, but if they use the RJ45 connector, that's a lot less robust than HDMI or Displayport. How many times have you broken the locking tab off an RJ45 connector? Happens all the time. Also going to only 8 wires in a Cat5 cable, that's not enough to carry video and audio channels on their own dedicated wires, so they must be using some kind of network protocol to encode all the data. You know the MPAA had a say in this, so this encoded data is also encrypted I'm willing to bet. Say good-bye to all your low cost splitters, breakout boxes, and accessories. This is going to make home A/V very complicated and very expensive for the consumer. Two thumbs down!!

 

[jstod14]

[citation][nom]elel[/nom]I can't believe that they can run enough current through there to satisfy a TV.[/citation]


I was thinking the same thing. I would hate to see the cost of the POE switch that can do that many watts in one port.

 

[zak_mckraken]

So you're saying I shouldn't get rid of my box full of 6 to 25 feet patch cords? That buying a 20$ 6' HDMI cable is actually a ripoff (I had a hunch)?

 

[huron]

This is nothing but good news for everyone, except obviously for companies like Monster.

Happy to see groups working together on cable standards.

Time to run Cat6 in the house

 

[BPT747]

Simply saying cat 5(e,6) is unshielded and therefore susceptible to interference is an extremely ignorant statement, especially since #1 it is not very susceptible to interference and #2 you can buy it shielded if you want to. Research twisted pair you may be in danger of learning something.

Also cat 5(e,6) can be bought in any color