HDMI to Cat 5/6: Are 1- or 2-Wire Solutions Best?
By Jeff Boccaccio
Going from an extravagant HDMI cable to Cat 5/6 seems pretty incredible. Here's how this transition can be done reliably.

Going from a very extravagant HDMI cable to a Cat 5 or 6 seems pretty incredible. So how can this work and work reliably?

Cat 5 and Cat 6 have two special attributes that make much of this possible. One is that HDMI video is differential and performs best with twisted pair topology. The second is that Category cable uses the same 100-ohm impedance that HDMI uses.



But that doesn’t explain how we get the integrity of the DDC, CEC, HotPlug, Voltage and A/V down category cable, does it?

HDMI connectors have 19 pins/19 wires - how do you get 19 wires down to one or two Category cables that only have eight wires within each? Let’s run the numbers.

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