consumer electronics control (CEC)

Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) is a protocol used in remote controls of consumer devices in the home. It supports various control functions for radios and TVs, CD players and VCRs, set-top boxes, amplifiers, etc.

The CEC protocol supports, among other things, turning on standby, playing or recording a program, timer programming, accepting settings, playback control, system settings and other functions. The settings can be displayed on the TV screen using On Screen Display( OSD). Inconjunction with the HDMI interface, the CEC remote control commands can be distributed to all consumer devices connected to this interface, so that there is only one CEC receiving device.

The CEC protocol works with a serial, single- wire bus over which the control signals are transmitted at a data transfer rate ofapprox. 400 bit/s. Transmission is via infrared light.

The most widely used protocol for remote controls in Europe is AV.link.