USB to HDMI using just a cable

hdmiusb

I got a cable which has a USB point on one side and an HDMI point on the other side. I was under an impression that I could watch movies from my computer if I connect my computer to the TV using this cable. But looks like I was wrong.

Does anyone know if such cable need some driver to make it work? Thanks for any input.

(My computer is a Dell All-in-one PC which cannot take an extra graphic card. That's why I am trying my luck with such a cable.)

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Best Answer

HDMI is a completely different signal from USB. Unless there's a sophisticated converter somewhere on the line which does downsampling, re-encoding, and so forth, you can't just plug one into the other. (For one thing, HDMI is 10.2 GB/s, while USB is only 1.5-625 MB/s.)

My guess is this cable was built for a specific device, and they 'borrowed' some of the unused HDMI pins to send a USB signal over. If you don't have that device, it's of no use.

I don't know of a HDMI-to-USB converter, but I've seen many USB-to-HDMI converters. On newegg, they tend to run $80-100.

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