The industry is at a crossroads. HDBaseT and a variety of proprietary Video over IP solutions are available but come with the downside of reducing video quality and the baggage of turning AV integration into an IT function. Fiber solutions are proliferating in video applications in the form of active optical cables (or AOCs). These are fixed-length solutions (say 30, 50, or 100 meters) that use optical or hybrid copper/optical cabling to run HDMI and other protocols. The length of the cable is fixed and the “ends” are permanently affixed to the fiber. According to Communication Industry Researchers (CIR, 2017), this type of consumer AOC product will grow from >$500M to more than $2.5B in the next 4 years.
Video content is filmed with 8K cameras, even mobile phone videos are captured with 4K or 8K resolution. Large screen 8K TVs have the ability to display these videos in all of their glory. The bottleneck standing between viewers and their best video experience is outdated interconnect technology. As TV showrooms and forward-looking venues enable consumers to see the difference, we have no doubt which type of solution customers will prefer.
Forward-looking AV integrators are today arming themselves with an understanding of fiber optic cabling and the solutions that make use of them. New buildings and homes are being spec’d and equipped with both copper and fiber. Through our OEM system partners and distribution partners offering our Real4K™ Optical Extenders for HDMI, Inneos is helping drive the transition to a fiber future.
With Inneos, you don’t need to run multiple fibers or deal with expensive, difficult-to-terminate parallel ribbon fiber. Our patented WaveStacker CWDM technology enables you to send an amazing amount of data over a single strand of multimode fiber. So your infrastructure is able to handle 4K, 8K, and whatever else the future holds and stays in the wall for future upgrades.