AIS hookup to e95 - Standard Horizon Matrix GX2200 - Wire help

[Rdubs]

Hi everyone,
I have a newer Jeanneau Sun Odyssey sailboat outfitted with Raymarine gear including a pair of e95 MFD's (one for each helm station). The boat has a Standard Horizon Matrix GX2200 with AIS and internal GPS. I know the AIS works because I have seen other boats on the radio's AIS display, but the e95's are not receiving the AIS data and no idea if they would be receiving any DSC signals to display on the plotter. On the Lighthouse display it says "No AIS data available" or something. I also made sure both the MFD and radio are set to 38400 baud.
Before I start, I will mention that I did spend hours upon hours researching the NMEA0183 to Raymarine MFD, and how the adapter kit (E70196) only really works one-way (sending data to the VHF, not receiving it from the AIS like I need).
It appears there are two ways to hook this radio (and others like it sending NMEA0183 AIS data) to an e95:
1) Buy the Actisense converter ($200) and all the extras for it (NMEA2000-STNG adapter) which will allow the radio to do a two-way interface with the rest of the network. The main reason this would be my Plan B is because I don't need the radio to receive data from the e95, I need the e95 to only receive the AIS data from the radio.
2) It looks like the e95 has a cable on the back for both power and to accept a NMEA0183 input, so this looks to be the most direct path.

Two questions:
1) I read that the MFD's are designed as read-only and will not create a network signal so other Raymarine equipment can read the NMEA data coming in. But I thought I also read that the MFD's will share data with each other via the Raynet cable. Does this mean that I can hook up the VHF/AIS radio to send its output to one of the MFD's, and the same AIS data will be available would be available for display on the sister MFD across the cockpit as well?

2) I dug back behind the radio and pulled out the NMEA output wires and took a picture (see attachment). The side with the unattached white and yellow wires is the radio-side, but I can't tell what the other side is (the one with the wires cut off). The wire colors look different than those described in the e95 installation manual - for example, the installation manual says the color should be W/G/Y/Br/OW/OG but as you can see here one of the cables is blue. I tried to trace both of the Power/NMEA/Video cables coming out of the MFD but both of them disappear into black holes inside the boat and can't tell where else they head off to.

So, if anyone has any ideas, it would be MUCH appreciated. Sorry for the long post.

Side note: This has more to do with the GX2200 than Raymarine, but the GX2200 manual is kind of confusing as well on this topic. The yellow and white wires coming out of the radio are called AIS Data Output, but they are only shown hooked up to the MFD in the 4800 baud mode. In the 38400 baud mode, these wire remain unattached. It's not real clear if some inputs into the MFD should be set for 4800 baud and others 38400.

Best
'Dubs