Consumer Electronics Control
Consumer Electronics Control ( CEC ) provides cross-component control functions such as “One Touch Play / Record”, “System Standby”, “Preset Transfer” etc. for electronic consumer devices. The CEC interface has been derived from AV-Link as the control standard that has prevailed in Europe up to now .
Ideally, a maximum of 15 devices (e.g. television, radio, CD player, amplifier, etc.) can be controlled jointly from all manufacturers, provided all networked devices support CEC. An essential design basis is the television set as the target of all signals and the remote control of the television set as the operation of the overall system. Because of this "one-screen" approach, problems inevitably arise with HDMI distributors and in multiroom systems, because there are naturally several destinations, which CEC does not provide for addressing. Apart from the general waiver of CEC, this problem can only be solved by systems that allow the isolation or routing of the CEC traffic independently of audio and video signals.
CEC uses a simple serial, single-wire data bus , such as B. for HDMI connections (on pin 13) is optionally available. The nominal data bit duration is approx. 2.4 ms, which corresponds to a data rate of approx. 417 bit / s. The connection is established and the check for CEC capability takes place in the course of the EDID handshake at the hot-plug event. This occurs when the devices are switched on or when an HDMI connector is inserted into an HDMI socket.
CEC function list
Many of the following functions were initially not mandatory in the HDMI specification, so that different devices have completely different CEC implementations. It was not until HDMI 1.3 that many functions were specified and many of the initial difficulties of CEC were resolved.
- Deck control
- allows a device (e.g. television) to control playback via a playback device
- Device Menu Control
- enables one device to use the menu of another device
- Device OSD name transfer
- forwards the preferred device names to the TV
- One touch play
- allows a device to play instantly and become the active source
- One touch record
- starts the immediate recording of the program currently shown on the TV
- OSD
- allows a device to use the TV's OSD ( On Screen Display ) to display text
- Preset transfer
- allows a tuner to take over all station settings of a connected TV set
- Remote control pass through
- allows remote control commands to be passed on in the system
- Routing Control
- controls the switching of signal sources
- System information
- examines all connected system components for their bus addresses and configurations
- System standby
- switches all connected devices to standby
- Timer programming
- allows a device (e.g. television) to timer- program a recording device (e.g. DVD recorder )
- Tuner Control
- provides a device with the tuner control of another device
- Vendor Specific Commands
- are manufacturer-dependent, device-specific control functions
Manufacturer designations
Many manufacturers use their own brand name for HDMI-CEC:
- T-Link at ITT
- EasyLink at Philips
- EZ-Sync at JVC
- Simplink at LG
- Digital Link HD at Loewe
- NetCommand for HDMI at Mitsubishi
- RIHD ( Remote Interactivity over HDMI ) at Onkyo
- Viera Link at Panasonic
- Kuro Link at Pioneer
- Anynet + at Samsung
- Aquos Link at Sharp
- BRAVIA Sync at Sony
- Regza-Link at Toshiba
- TechniLink at Technisat
- CSTLink at Coolstream
- FUN-Link at Funai Electric
- Digi-Link at Grundig
Web links
- Designing CEC into your next HDMI Product , White Paper by Quantum Data (PDF file; 2.38 MB)
- This is how CEC works: Interactive home entertainment via HDMI
- USB CEC adapter communication library