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HDMI Spec Upgraded To Support 'Deep Color'
writertype writes "If you own a digital television, there's a good chance it supports HDMI as an A/V interface. Well, for all you early adopters who bought an HDMI-less TV and regretted it later, the HDMI spec has been upgraded yet again, to version 1.3. Features include "deep color", or color depths beyond what the human eye can perceive, eight-channel audio support, among others. Interesting note: the PlayStation 3 supports deep color, according to the HDMI chief."
Sorry for stating the obvious, but doesn't color depths beyond what the human eye can perceive just seem really... pointless? I don't think the human eye is going to evolve to greater color sensitivity during HDMI's lifetime. It's one thing to have a higher quality image to downsample to, but... seriously. Isn't there SOMETHING the bandwidth could be used for besides information we can't use?
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I have an HDMI enable HDTV and I use it. It's good I guess but the problem I have with HDMI is that it's limited to one stream of information per connection. Look at firewire, it allows you to daisy chain multimedia and other devices and it works pretty well. I'm sure HDMI has way more bandwidth but most people aren't looking to get 8 streams of digital audio and 1080p. I'd be much happier if I could daisy chain a cable high-def box with a DVD player or game console and send that to my TV. In my setup I run an HDMI cable from my cable box to my TV but since my TV (a panasonic) doesn't have any digitial audio output I still need to run a S/PDIF optical cable from my cable box to my audio receiver.
What a truly revolutionary digital interface would provide in my opinion is all the goodness of digital audio and video over one cord for several devices with a common protocol for controlling what's being used. This would simplify cable hook-ups plus make it easier to switch between sources (I know my parents have a horrible time switching from DVDs to TV to VCR, etc.).
Really, shouldn't the industry concentrate on properly implementing to the existing spec's before they bother with new & improved features?? I currently have an HDTV Panasonic plasma panel, a Denon receiver and a SciAtl set-top-box all tied together with HDMI, and I cannot get a signal because HDMI does not properly authenticate for the very reason HDMI was created -- to legally broadcast copy protected signals.
I am personally sick of these half-assed industry rollouts where most of the spec is adhered to by vendors, but the rest is blatently ignored, just so they can be first to market with a shiney new badge on their product. There is so much inoperability between HighDef products and home-theatre in general, that you're really playing russian roulette by being the first on your block to try an untested combination of components.
To you vendors out there: GET IT RIGHT first. You know why folks aren't lining up outside their local electronics boutique to get the latest HD gear? They are pretty sure that the stuff isn't going to work and they won't be separated from their hard-earned dough by the latest marketing gimmick.
PS - in case anyone wants to know my "workaround" I actually had to downgrade to connecting my SciAtl box to the Denon via component RGB cables then run HDMI to my panel. I talked with a Denon tech and this was the only workaround due to the stupidity of the *ahhem* engineering *ahhhem* at SciAtl. Maybe the Cisco acquisition will fix that nonsense.
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
As an A/V professional, I'd be happy with a new HDMI spec that actually worked right and reliably. Us folks in the biz are still using analog component video for HD, and will until things like HDCP handshake errors and mysterious port disablings are a thing of the past.