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Why the HDBaseT Mystery?

HDBaseT_logo-0712So I saw at InfoComm that some manufacturers are openly saying their extender products areHDBaseT, while others don’t mention it at all. These latter companies typically mask the technology under their own brand names. Why? I can’t figure it out. I’m an engineer, not a marketing guru, so I speculate that there’s a marketing motive of keeping the buyer within the product family. I suppose there’s logic to that. It also makes single source support easier from a single manufacturer.

On the other hand though, from the integrator’s perspective, I see a lot more possibilities for mixing and matching sources and sinks. I saw one projector company that, while it branded the technology with its own name, it also demonstrated a projector working with another big brand’s source transmitter. It worked beautifully right out of the box. I imagine there’s some control-related features that don’t fully translate in this configuration because the command set is specific to the device. But overall the audio video transport worked — and it worked very smoothly. I can see myself designing systems like this over and over again. Take the best from what each manufacturer has to offer and make it work nicely with the next one. Isn’t that our job as integrators? Read between the lines of the spec sheets, test out the theories and hunches we derive and deliver nice polished systems for our clients.

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