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DEMO: Binary to Hexadecimal

Binary-to-hexadecimal conversion is a foundational skill in computing, and this content covers the process of grouping binary digits into nibbles and mapping them to their hex equivalents. Both chart-based lookup and manual bit-counting methods are demonstrated with practical exercises.

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About this video

Binary-to-hexadecimal conversion is a core competency in computing, used regularly in areas ranging from memory addressing to network analysis and malware examination. The conversion process relies on a straightforward principle: binary values are grouped into four-bit segments called nibbles, and each nibble maps directly to a single hexadecimal digit. Because a byte consists of eight bits, any byte-length binary value will always produce a two-digit hex result, making the relationship between the two number systems highly systematic and predictable. Two practical methods for performing these conversions are demonstrated. The first uses a reference chart to look up the hex equivalent of each nibble directly, which is fast and reliable when a chart is available. The second method involves adding the positional values of the active bits within each nibble to calculate the decimal equivalent, then converting that value to hex mentally, for example, recognizing that a sum of eleven corresponds to the hex digit B and a sum of twelve corresponds to C. This second approach builds a deeper understanding of the underlying math and allows accurate conversion without any external reference. Practice exercises accompany the instruction, presenting sets of binary values for conversion and providing answers for self-checking. Repeated practice with both methods is encouraged until the conversions can be performed quickly and confidently, as this skill supports more advanced topics in networking, low-level programming, and cybersecurity analysis.

What you'll learn

What's covered

Binary to Hexadecimal Conversion

Aligned to

CompTIA Tech+
1.1 Compare and contrast notational systems.

Key terms

Binary
The base-2 number system that uses only the digits 0 and 1; the native language of digital computers, which store and process data as electrical on/off states.
Hexadecimal
Hex
A base-16 number system using digits 0–9 and letters A–F; each hex digit maps to exactly 4 bits, making it a compact shorthand for representing binary data.
Nibble
A group of exactly 4 bits, equivalent to one hexadecimal digit; two nibbles make up one byte.
Positional Notation
A numbering system where the value of a digit is determined by both the digit itself and its position within the number.
Byte
A group of 8 bits; the standard unit for representing a single character or small value in computing, and the building block for larger storage measurements such as kilobytes and gigabytes.

Transcript

Converting binary to hexadecimal

It's often that we have to convert binary to hexadecimal, or hexadecimal to binary, so let's jump into that process and give that a practice. We're going to focus on converting from binary to hexadecimal.

Once again, I'm going to challenge you to give this a try before you get any instructions, so go ahead and take a look at this and try to figure it out, and then we'll go over the answer, and then I'll actually do an explanation of this.

Working through the first one

The correct answer is BC. There are a couple of different ways that you can come up with the correct answer.

We can see that this chart breaks this down into the nibbles here. We've got eight bits total — that's a byte — and then we've got two nibbles here. The byte is all labeled across the top here with the binary numbers, and then the nibbles are also labeled, which makes this easier to figure out. So one thing that we could do is just take a look at each nibble and see what it is by this lookup column here on the left hand side, and see that this is going to be BC. That's one way of doing it, but that's actually not my favorite way of doing it.

A very similar way to do it, but a little different, is just count up the bits. We've got one in the eight column, so that's eight plus two plus one, so that's 11. So I can go 9, A, B — B is 11 — and so then I'd fill in B. So if I didn't have the chart here, I could still figure this out relatively easily. This one right here is 8 plus 4, so that's 12, so I know that's the next one, which is C. So there I have it, I've got BC as the answer, and I didn't need the chart to look that up.

Practice

In this chart right here we have a bunch of binary numbers. Go over those binary numbers and see if you can figure out the hex number equivalent.

And there are the answers. Check your answers to make sure that you got them correct. Hopefully you did well with that; if not, continue to practice to make sure you have this down.

A quick way of doing this is I could just type in each one of these numbers in here. This zero one one zero, and I can see it's four plus two, and that equals 6, so I can put that down there. The other way I could do this is look up one one zero one, so I looked that up over here on the side, and that is a D, and I can put that one in.

Once again, make sure that you're familiar with this concept.

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