I was having a discussion about this with a colleague at work about the so-called “HDMI over Ethernet” and how it’s a misnomer. As you said, Ethernet is a protocol, not a physical medium. I know a lot of people refer to the cable as “Ethernet cable” but the HDMI signal is being sent over CAT6 cables. There’s no encapsulation into Ethernet frames being done.
Eh, it’s both. Ethernet is layer 2. It is your MAC address, more or less. There’s some functionality to it beyond simple hardware addressing, but it provides a scaffold for other, higher layer protocols to operate on top of.
So ethernet, in and of itself is a protocol, and it also provides a framework for other protocols like IP.
I was having a discussion about this with a colleague at work about the so-called “HDMI over Ethernet” and how it’s a misnomer. As you said, Ethernet is a protocol, not a physical medium. I know a lot of people refer to the cable as “Ethernet cable” but the HDMI signal is being sent over CAT6 cables. There’s no encapsulation into Ethernet frames being done.
Didn’t he say that it’s a framework for protocols, not a protocol? Or am I parsing the comment incorrectly?
Eh, it’s both. Ethernet is layer 2. It is your MAC address, more or less. There’s some functionality to it beyond simple hardware addressing, but it provides a scaffold for other, higher layer protocols to operate on top of.
So ethernet, in and of itself is a protocol, and it also provides a framework for other protocols like IP.
Ah, that makes sense, thanks!