[HN Gopher] Sending audio to LKV373 HDMI extenders
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       Sending audio to LKV373 HDMI extenders
        
       Author : luu
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2023-07-03 00:19 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (eta.st)
 (TXT) w3m dump (eta.st)
        
       | squarefoot wrote:
       | There was some effort to reverse engineer those devices [1] so
       | that one could use for example either transmitters or receivers
       | paired with normal PCs and not just connecting them straight each
       | other. There are also newer models around, though I'm not aware
       | of any reverse engineering efforts so far.
       | 
       | If you want to tinker with them, please leave some writeup of the
       | results. Beware that there are both HDMI over IP and
       | aesthetically very similar, but often cheaper, HDMI over Ethernet
       | cable adapters. The 2nd ones contain no brain and can't do any IP
       | encapsulation, they're essentially just level translators using
       | CATx cable to carry the HDMI signals, and of course aren't
       | compatible with any network devices, switches, etc. For that use,
       | you want HDMI to IP transmitters and receivers, which should be
       | clearly marked as capable of working in a network environment.
       | Check carefully the features before buying, because some among
       | the stupid level translators sold on the usual channels are
       | marked as HDMI over IP, which they clearly are not.
       | 
       | 1 - https://blog.danman.eu/reverse-engineering-lenkeng-hdmi-
       | over...
        
       | rektide wrote:
       | People are amazing. I love this. Adore it. A thread of various
       | awesome enterprising hackers, searching for truth, and using
       | observability & tools to uncover meaning. Then bend reality to
       | their whims & desires. This is the best human spirit. It's a pity
       | technology so often obstructs rather than builds this human
       | mastery. Alas! Never-the-less, humanity persisted. Against the
       | throws of corporate-controlled limiting tech. Break out that
       | wireshark & conquer in the name of freedom! Become great! Be
       | unbounded.
       | 
       | I have huge respect for the Chromecast ecosystem, but there's so
       | many weird prickly points for it. For a while I had a chromecast
       | plugged in to a computer which then variously resent the output.
       | This looks like a great way to do the same but simpler/dumber.
       | One of the specific flaws of Chromecast is that if you stream a
       | video, it can only go to a single device. Meaning my whole home
       | audio does no good. Something like this could help me work-around
       | that limitation. It's great how absurdly flexible these devices
       | are, but it sucks enormous egg that Chromecast apps will only
       | stream in the first place to signed Chromecast devices; this
       | whole thing should be a non-issue I can software workaround. But
       | a hardware workaround like this is adequate.
        
       | awehoiwaegw wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | jaywalk wrote:
       | I didn't even know HDMI extenders over IP existed! I wouldn't use
       | it for TV/movies, because the re-compressed picture can't look
       | all that great. But I could imagine plenty of uses for something
       | like that!
        
         | bobsmooth wrote:
         | You can do HDMI over a lot of things. They all work by encoding
         | the video stream, usually h264, and sending it over the
         | network. Check out HDBaseT which does video, ethernet, USB and
         | power over a single cat5e cable.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | Why do you assume the signal is being recompressed or in any
         | other way manipulating the image?
        
           | belthesar wrote:
           | You can look at the protocol analysis in the post to see that
           | it's sending MJPEG
        
           | monocasa wrote:
           | Because a 1080p60 video stream is about 3Gb/sec on the wire
           | uncompressed like happens over HDMI. 1920w * 1080h *
           | 3colorbytes * 8bits/byte * 60fps = 2,985,984,000 bits/sec.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Okay, but the original signal is not RAW uncompressed
             | either. It's just a serial signal, so converting that into
             | IP packets is pretty much all I'm assuming this is doing
             | and then converting those back to an HDMI formatted signal
             | on the other end. The only thing different about this unit
             | from others is that it's actually turning them into actual
             | network traffic to connect to an existing network.
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | > Okay, but the original signal is not RAW uncompressed
               | either.
               | 
               | HDMI is in fact the RAW color values, uncompressed. Each
               | of the color channels are serial, but that doesn't really
               | change anything about the raw bitrate.
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | I suspect that just delta compression would reduce the
               | required number of bits considerably.
        
               | duskwuff wrote:
               | Lossless compression isn't a good fit for real-time
               | video. Being able to get some compression ratio on a
               | "typical" image means your stream will drop out when the
               | user has an image on screen which doesn't compress well.
        
               | Clamchop wrote:
               | Just to throw a little more hair-splitting, we're not
               | talking about raw data, either, raw being a term of art
               | for unprocessed or minimally processed data read from a
               | device (like an image sensor). It usually can't be
               | displayed without some interpreting.
               | 
               | HDMI video signal is uncompressed but not raw.
        
             | metaphor wrote:
             | Much closer to 5 Gbps when you factor in
             | horizontal/vertical blanking + TMDS 8b10b encoding.
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | For sure, I'd simply expect even a simple non-compresing
               | bridge to strip a lot of the 'dead air' and expansion at
               | the physical layer. Just wanted to show that even best
               | case of simply the color value bits leaves you with ten
               | pounds of potatoes to fit into a five pound bag.
        
               | mnd999 wrote:
               | That's very doable on a 10gb Ethernet network which is
               | becoming more and more normal.
        
               | monocasa wrote:
               | It's going to be a while before 10Gb ethernet is
               | available on devices that cost ~$30/pair.
        
               | toast0 wrote:
               | You're right, but used dual port 10g ethernet cards do go
               | for about $30/each... Of course, that doesn't get you
               | hdmi encode/decode, and not new.
        
               | metaphor wrote:
               | Irrelevant. The hardware under scrutiny is a chinesium
               | HDMI over IP extender with 1 Gbps Ethernet PHY at best.
        
           | duskwuff wrote:
           | Well, for one, the fact that it's streaming frames as motion
           | JPEG...
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Where do you see that? I quickly glanced at the Amazon
             | listing, and saw nothing about this. I could have glanced
             | too quickly and missed it, but it just seems like a totally
             | strange thing for it to do.
        
               | mrpippy wrote:
               | It's in the article
        
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       (page generated 2023-07-03 23:01 UTC)