What's the Matter with HDMI?

mrnomas writes with a link to the Audioholics site, which wonders why the HDMI standard is such a mess? The article's author suggests that the format was designed for the benefit of the content-producers and not the consumer. The result is a signal that's hard to route and switch, as well and unnecessarily complicated cable assemblies. They reach back to the DVI standard to see what might be done to make HDMI a little more consumer-friendly, with numerous technical elements woven through the discussion. "DVI lacked a couple of things which the consumer audio/video industry wanted. It was implemented on a variety of HD displays and source devices, but it was confusing for the consumer because of the many variants on the standard and different connector configurations, and it didn't carry audio signals. A consortium to develop and promote a new interface, HDMI, was formed; the idea was to come up with a standard which could be implemented more uniformly, was less confusing, and offered the option of routing audio signals along with video."

Comments

what might be done?

[delirium of disorder]

...what might be done to make HDMI a little more consumer-friendly?
Drop the DRM.

Re:what might be done?

[Mahjub Sa'aden]

Maybe what's really wrong with HDMI is that it's yet another acronym. Call it SuperAwesomeFunPlug or something like that instead.

Stupid boring technology companies.

Re:what might be done?

[KrancHammer]

SuperAwesomeFunPlug has already been patented.

Note:
Do not do a google search for SuperAwesomeFunPlug if you value your sanity.

Re:what might be done?

[stfvon007]

Your search - SuperAwesomeFunPlug - did not match any documents.

Also, after searching and copying the results, firefox crashed. Evidently there is some form of conspiracy going on involving a "SuperAwesomeFunPlug" and someone dosn't want us to know about it. *sound of door being broken down in the background* They have come for me! Tell the people! Dont let 7T$&@Y@&@$

Re:what might be done?

[farrellj]

A friend of mine who works for a company that makes video processing and switching equipment has gone on and on about the problems with both DVI-D and HDMI is that there are very few manufactures that comply with them, and thus they are constantly having to update their processors to accommodate each different manufacturer's version of DVI-D and HDMI. It is the number one pain in their butts.

Of the two, HDMI is worse *because* of the DRM...the timing and buffering problems are almost insurmountable with some manufactures. I'm glad I don't have my friend's coding job! It would drive me bonkers!

ttyl
          Farrell

Re:what might be done?

[kanefsky]

The problems mainly occur when you have more HDMI devices than your display has HDMI inputs. Then you have to pass the HDMI through a receiver or switcher. In many cases the HDMI handshake/negotiation breaks down and the device won't play at all through the switcher, or it won't support the same resolutions that work fine over a direct connection.

Also, because the audio and video are on the same cable, and each device only has one HDMI output, you're forced to route the video through a receiver so that the receiver can process the audio even if you don't really need the switching. This results in the same compatibility issues as above.

The HDMI standard wasn't forward-thinking enough to handle different audio codecs, so they keep having to revise the standard every time a new sound format comes out. You need HDMI 1.1 for DVD Audio, 1.2 if you want SACD, and 1.3 if you want Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD. Of course the chips are not firmware upgradeable, so you have to buy new DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player and a new receiver to get new HDMI chips so you can use the new codecs. Can you imagine if they had to change the ethernet standard and you had to buy a new computer every time there was a new file format you wanted to download?

HDMI

[ynososiduts]

I always considered HDMI a anti-consumer,DRM laden, proprietary, and expensive USB cord. What's wrong with DVI? It's more compatible and I don't believe it requires any licensing to use in a product. So I ask you again, what is wrong with DVI? Why is everyone so HDMI-centric?

Re:HDMI

[TheRaven64]

I never understood the need for putting the video and audio in the same cable. The video signal wants to go to the screen, and the audio signal wants to go to the amplifier. Why does having to run the audio signal into the screen and then out again help me in any way?

Re:HDMI

[Lehk228]

because a huge number of screens also have speakers in them, and those speakers are used in place of a more expensive sound system.

if a sound system is used, it's still better to route the signal through the TV so you can control the volume with the same remote as the TV.


personally i would prefer a communication standard so the TV could tell the amp to lower or raise volume, and the sterio could send a menu interface to the TV for controls, but that will probably never happen since every manufacturere will want to do it "their" way.

Re:HDMI

[DragonWriter]

if a sound system is used, it's still better to route the signal through the TV so you can control the volume with the same remote as the TV.

Why? If you are using an external audio/video source, then other than for turning the TV on or off, the remote you want to use is the one for that source. Or you'll be using a universal remote that also controls the sound system. In either case, there is no particular reason to want to use a TV-specific remote to control the sound volume for sound from an external source being played through a sound system.

Re:HDMI

[pe1chl]

A screen that does video processing often has some delay. Feeding the audio through the screen (even when you want to send it to a separate amplifier) has the advantage that the audio can be delayed by the same amount, so it is kept lip-sync.
When you feed audio to an amplifier and video to a digital TV separately, you will often find that the audio is visibly ahead of the video.

Re:HDMI

[Logic Bomb]

Many HDMI cables will not be routed to a TV. They'll be routed to a receiver, which acts as a convenient switch for multiple video/audio sources. Many people who are buying HD TVs probably have a DVD player, a video game system, a digital cable box, and who knows what else. With audio and video on the same cable, each component needs only a single cable to the receiver.

Re:HDMI

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you want to encrypt the video AND audio to digital restrictions manage, it's a lot easier to deal with if you've only got once combined set of endpoints for both streams - they're notionally one combined, scrambled stream even if they're not really. HDCP is already a confusing waste of time - imagine the chaos if the audio destination was a different device to the video destination, and provision to negotiate two sets of keys for every connection was required.

In short - it's to make life easier for the developers and users of digital restrictions management, at the expense of people who like maximum quality and flexibility. Again.

Re:HDMI

[BlueCollarCamel]

"audio is visibly ahead of the video." Man, what kind of a TV are you using? I want to see audio...

Re:HDMI

[vbwilliams]

Less cables. Duh. Why would you want MORE/BIGGER cabling when you can funnel the stuff through the same media and just be done with it? Aside from the DRM concerns, I actually LIKE HDMI...it's just much easier to deal with. Likewise, finding receivers now with enough HDMI inputs vs component inputs is just a hell of a lot easier, just because of space alone. If it weren't for my Playstation 2 at this point requiring component or composite instead of HDMI, my system would be 100% HDMI, and I'd have a bit less cable management to do.

My system:

Receiver --> TV via HDMI
HD Cable Box --> receiver via HDMI
DVD --> receiver via HDMI
HD-DVD --> receiver via HDMI
Playstation 2 --> receiver via component video, optical audio

Using 100% HDMI, I'd have a system with at least 2 less cables, and those cables would be pretty small in circumference as well. They'd be easier to manage. You simply mute the TV, and just control the audio from the receiver...only way you're going to get 5.1 digital anyway.

Personally, I think HDMI is better than any other option currently available. The DRM is one thing. But outside of that, there's nothing else really to bitch about. And if you do your homework, you can find great HDMI cables for half the price of component video or optical audio.

Open source!

[rueger]

What we need is an Open Source standard for connecting audio and video devices. That way every piece of gear would have a consistent interface and connections, and it would be easy to configure and understand.

Especially for people without specialized technical expertise.

Re:Open source!

[ArsonSmith]

Yea, we could call it IP and run it over Ethernet. Why do we have to have all these different standards?

DRM it is.

[fyngyrz]

...see what might be done to make HDMI a little more consumer-friendly

The first thing that needs to be done is to create legislation that makes DRM illegal. This would remove the threat that HDMI poses to other technologies (such as component) and force it to compete on technical merit. Not to mention solve a lot of other consumer issues.

The second thing to be done - obviously - is make a single standard and stick to it; however that requires cooperation among the manufacturers and seems unlikely at best. Still, we can always ask them nicely, and follow up by voting with our wallets.

HDMI has been a nightmare for me. I started out with a hi-def (I thought) component video system, fully capable of 1080p bandwidth-wise and full of switching capabilities I liked and thought could take me quite some distance down the road; then the collusion between manufacturers not to provide full hi-def on component, but only on HDMI, came about, and there went that investment out the window. That system can only do 720p now (I find 1080i to be useless - part of the point was to get RID of flicker) and it lives in my basement. I had to re-buy my theater system, invest in a bunch of new cabling to reproduce signal routing I already had in place that was perfectly adequate, technically speaking... man. That was one irritating evolution.

Also, I have yet to see a single home theater receiver that has a reasonable number of HDMI inputs. HD-DVD. Blue-ray. PS3. a new XBox 360. A computer. A camera. That's six, even if you only have one of each. And you need lots of component, S-Video and composite inputs with up-conversion; as well as standard audio, coaxial digital and optical digital... just because HDMI canwant it to. There are plenty of older tech gadgets out there that could still be very reasonable assets to such a system but need other types of inputs. So far, typically you find 2 or 3 HDMI inputs on a higher end theater system.

Re:DRM it is.

[Buran]

No, seriously ... different people have different hobbies! Not everyone wants to sit and read a book (although I enjoy reading myself and have a pretty simple TV/etc. setup since I don't spend all my time in front of the TV) but what's with the snark? The simple fact that you think watching movies/TV is distasteful doesn't mean that everyone thinks the same. I guess people have just GOT to feel superior to others...

Re:DRM it is.

[dgatwood]

It's actually really easy to construct such a law. Write it in terms of the effect on commerce, not based on the technological aspects. I can do it with a single, one-line change to Title 17:

It shall be illegal to design or use any technology in such a way that it denies any legitimate purchaser of any audiovisual or software product any rights to which they are entitled herein, including but not limited to the fair use rights described in Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107.

That's all it takes. No mention of encryption anywhere in it. By writing it in this way, it goes beyond encryption to include ALL DRM technologies from encryption to an autorun disk driver installer, and does so in such a way that specifically limits its impact to the consumer rights prescribed in the copyright act and has no impact on encryption whatsoever. If a particular use of encryption (or anything else) fails the fair use test, it is illegal to use it for that purpose. It's that simple.

Now getting Congress to be smart enough to pass such a simple, clean bill without ten thousand riders attached to it that do all sorts of nasty things is another issue, but....

Re:DRM it is.

[cfulmer]

HA!

    First of all, there are no such thing as "Fair use rights." Fair use is a defense to copyright infringement; it is not a stand-alone right. (Don't believe me? Go look up Section 107 yourself.)
    Second of all, "It shall be illegal to design . . . ." Is this really what you want?
    Third of all, herein WHAT? Herein title 17? Herein Chapter 1?
    Fourth of all, you haven't defined what an "audiovisual" or "software" product is. Does it include CDs? What about soft copies of books? Does it include still pictures?

    But, most importantly, Section 17 doesn't grant individual purchasers ANY RIGHTS. So, the phrase "any rights to which they are entitled herein" is empty. (This isn't completely true, but is true enough for what you're thinking.)

From the no-shit-sherlock department

[croddy]

The article's author suggests that the format was designed for the benefit of the content-producers and not the consumer.

In other news, the Pope reveals he is Catholic, and prominent climatologists describe the sky as "blue".

As a manufacturer of Video Distribution

[JohnnyComeLately]

We commonly get asked, "Whats the difference between HDMI and Component?". Our answer (tongue in cheek) is, "About $20 a foot". I bought a 1080i LCD Sony Bravia HDTV and I got a DVD at the same level. When I got to interconnect cables, I saw $30 for a reasonable set of Monster component cables. The no-brand HDMI 3 foot cable was $90. It's silly if you think about it. OK, supposedly there's a sync difference and the "transmission is faster" for HDMI, but last I checked, component video hasn't had a lag problem in anyone's home theater I've seen. You can send 1080p just fine over component, and not be worried about anything holding your performance back. This is why I laughed at the XBOX360 HDMI only output....please...when will manufacturers figure out that when you limit choices it just pisses people off?

Re:As a manufacturer of Video Distribution

[Cameroon]

You're forgetting the $81 Best Buy/Monster surcharge.

Re:As a manufacturer of Video Distribution

[tbo]

As a physicist, it drives me nuts how much people are willing to pay for Monster cables or other "high-end" stuff. Need speaker wire? Just buy some heavy-gauge electrical wire. Home Depot sells 500 feet (152 m) of stranded 2-conductor 10-gauge (2.588 mm dia.) wire for about $85 USD. A similar length of thinner 12-gauge (2.053 mm dia.) Monster wire would cost a small fortune.

Some of you may note that, at 20 kHz (high end of human hearing range), the skin depth of copper is only about 0.47 mm, and so for high frequency, your conductivity will only scale with wire circumference, not area. That's true for solid-core, but keep in mind the Home Depot cable I mention is stranded, and has a 25% larger circumference than the Monster stuff. That should be more than enough to make up for any slight resistivity advantage the Monster cable might have from using purer copper (assuming they do).

What's really funny is the people who assume all this stuff matters for digital signals (as I saw in a few of the "reviews" on the Monster website). Unless you're stringing really long cables or your no-name stuff is really, really bad, there won't be a difference. Bits are bits, and small amounts of analog noise will be ignored.

Re:As a manufacturer of Video Distribution

[JohnnyComeLately]

Yep, you hit the nail straight on the head. I laugh at the amount of money wasted, but it's all marketing. The best example my marketing professor gave me was toothpaste. Go look at a supermarket aisle for toothpaste. You've got about 3 or 4 DOZEN brands of the same stuff....some has crystals, other baking soda, but it's all just paste.

At home depot there's simple example of what you describe. Look at the 2 conductor, 16 or 18 gauge lamp cord. Now look at the 2 conductor, 16 or 18 speaker wire. Huge difference in price. It's still copper stranded wire of the same quality and I'd almost argue the insulation is BETTER for the cheaper lamp cord.

I have always known it, but I had the advantage of growing up with an avionics mechanic. My dad wired planes for AA for over 37 years before retiring. He told me how small a gauge it took to reliable send signals all over a huge aircraft and meet strict FAA specs...so I quickly figured out (plus he'd laugh at the money I wasted as a teenager in the car audio scene) it was overkill. If you can ARC weld with 0 gauge, you really don't need it for your 500 watt stereo amp.

Re:As a manufacturer of Video Distribution

[DrXym]

The no-brand HDMI 3 foot cable was $90.

You can buy a 3ft HDMI cable for something like $4, 6ft for $6. Yes you can buy some ludicrously expensive HDMI cables but you can blame consumer ignorance and retailer greed for that. There is no reason to spend that much seeing as it is digital.

I see no reason at all to use component in an everyday situation if your device (be it a 360, PS3, DVD player etc.) and TV both support HDMI. It would be as dumb as connecting your PC to your monitor with VGA even when both have DVI-D support. The picture quality is far better over HDMI / DVD-D because it's digital. Analogue by definitiion degrades so even the best composite signal will still be worse than HDMI.

Re:As a manufacturer of Video Distribution

[tbo]

While I agree digital is digital, and as such analog artifacts are largely ignored, there is a specific issue with HDMI, namely inter-lane skew.

My point was that small amounts of analog noise on a digital signal have no effect. It's of course true that beyond a certain threshold, serious signal degradation occurs. In other words, digital signals are fine until they're not. If it's not immediately obvious that your digital signal is degraded, it's probably fine.

Re:As a manufacturer of Video Distribution

[IntelliTubbie]

I'm personally a big fan of the gold-plated optical connectors. What, are you worried that the photons are going to corrode?

Cheers,
IT

HDMI, HD-DVD, and BluRay...

[rthille]

Are all dead to me. That's right, they skipped right past being put "on notice".

Get rid of the DRM, work out a _single_ rational standard for the cables and the disks, and I _might_ be interested in HDTV. Until then, I'll just keep ignoring it and pay attention to the _content_, rather than the presentation.

One Reason Why HDMI Was Invented

[segedunum]

There was one sole reason why HDMI was cobbled together, and that's because all sorts of executives were jumping up and down like jibbering idiots about, as they call it, the analogue hole. Yes, we all needed more bandwidth, but that just wasn't the primary reason.

Pop that together with a cable standard that HDMI are bunging more and more stuff down without doing anything, and you've got an unreliable and worthless pile of junk. The article mentions cables of lengths 50 to 75 feet, but it's a sad day when you've got to limit yourself with a shiny new technology to a run length of a few inches. Oh, and get with the program people, wireless is the way things should be heading. Where the hell is this digital home I've been hearing so much about? It's a joke. Yes, there are new HDMI cables in the pipeline, but yet again, they're going to be ridiculously expensive. No thanks.

The DRMintaor.

[Tackhead]

> Drop the DRM.

From TFA:

an HDMI or DVI signal is a real-time, one-way stream of pixels that doesn't stop, doesn't error-check, and doesn't repair its mistakes--it just runs and runs, regardless of what's happening at the other end of the signal chain.

Listen, and understand. The DRM is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Re:The DRMintaor.

[UncleTogie]

You probably lose a few pixels every billion, not really a big deal.
Believe it or not, I'm NOT looking forward to the all-digital cable switch in 2009. This hit home two nights ago, as we were watching Futurama. I was watching on my PC {analog} while my fiance and roommate were watching using the digital set-top box. We'd had some rain recently, and the set-top kept dropping seconds of video at a time. The analog connection had just a BIT of fuzz, but not enough to lose captioning [usually the first victim of low signal strength.]

I'll take robust over bandwidth.

The real problem with HDMI is HDCP

[rollingcalf]

The HDCP copy protection crap is what causes HDMI devices to have trouble communicating with each other, especially if there is anything between the source and display devices, like an A/V receiver or HDMI switch box.

They are too stupid to realize that pirates aren't going to copy shows and movies by capturing uncompressed frames coming through the cables; they're going to make copies of the discs. But they insist on making the honest customers suffer through the slow cryptographic handshake that occurs any time you switch on an HDMI device or even switch sources on a TV.

The problem is...

[Cadallin]

HDMI was not designed as a solution to an engineering problem. It was designed as an anti-consumer technology in the first place. Which is the entire problem. HDMI was designed from the ground up to be a DRM crippled interconnect. This gives rise to a number of paradoxes about the connection.

Why would you want audio and video in the same cable? Especially for expensive systems where HDMI is common now. Is anyone with a >$1000 display actually using built-in speakers? If so, what's wrong with you? Go get some decent speakers.

Fiber

[markdavis]

The simple fact is that the ONLY choice for HD digital video transmission SHOULD have been fiber optic:

1) With two fibers in a cable, there would be more than enough bandwidth for 1080P + digital surround sound. It is future proof.
2) It is fully bidirectional, which can be useful for error correction or detection, or for signal confirmation, or perhaps for two-way audio/video.
3) It can operate at great distance.
4) The cables would be FAR cheaper than the extremely complex and expensive DVI/HDMI cables.
5) With serial transmissions over a single pair, the encoding could be changed at any point in the future for different formats.

Let's look at the author's problems with twisted pairs and what it would mean with optical:

1) Time- not a problem, because it is all serial
2) Resistance: fiber has none
3) Skin effect: fiber has none
4) Capacitance: fiber has none
5) Impedance: fiber has none
6) Crosstalk: fiber has none
7) Inductance: fiber has none

Lets add

8) RFI: fiber has none
9) Signal leak (causing potential interference with OTHER devices): fiber has none
10) Cable thickness: fiber would be 6+ times narrower and easier to route and hide
11) Connector size: perhaps 4 times smaller with fiber? (Think handhelds, laptops, etc)

When I first saw DVI, I thought the designers had gone insane. WHO CARES about analog signals? We already have PLENTY of cable standards for that (VGA, Component, SVideo, Composite)! It looks tremendously complex and overkill to relay a stream of information THAT IS ALREADY being delivered serially over the air, from DVD's, from tuners, from ANY source. Then they "fixed" it with HDMI?? Right- make the connector IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to ever make their own or repair, add audio, and ignore all other issues (oh, and the cable costs are even more expensive than the already expensive DVI). Then to have to throw "dual link" into the mess because the "standard" set of over a dozen wires doesn't have enough bandwidth...

About the only negative with fiber is that you can't kink the cable and expect it to survive. I say "small price to pay". Oh well, maybe the next revision they will wake up??

SDI

[Detritus]

The solution for all these problems already exists. It's called the Serial Digital Interface. It's simple, cheap, and works over a single high-quality coax cable. It's used in professional video applications like television production and broadcasting. It doesn't do DRM, which I consider a feature. If you need to make a cable, just buy some Belden 1694A and a pair of 75-ohm BNC connectors.

what might you do?

[gd23ka]

Don't buy anything with DRM on it. Let their accountants do your talking.
Don't hack anything with DRM on it. Don't help other people watch their crap for free.
Don't watch anything with DRM on it. Make them afraid of losing mind share.

Instead: Watch DRM wither and die.

They made TV annoying and complicated...

[Quiet_Desperation]

...where it just used to be annoying. I know engineers and scientists and other smart folks who have avoided HDTV so far because of all the nonsense. It's bullshit. They took something simple and made a complete mess out of it. I love the early adopter horror stories, like people who bought sets that only do 480p and 1080i, and are faced with 720p/1080p game consoles. Or video game lag, and the TV manufacturers going "Duuuuuuuuh, video lag is a problem? Video games? Never heard of them! Wazzat? Duuuuhhh." The there's HD-DVD versus Blueray, or Blu-Ray, or Blooraye or whatever the fuck they named it. Plasma sucks. LCD sucks. DLP is sort of cool, but then you have to buy new bulbs at ass raping prices that make the printer ink market look charitable. Seriously, has there EVER been a clusterfuck like this in the history of consumer electronics? I've never seen such a mess, and I remember the first color TVs.

FSM

[scooter.higher]

Reading through this made me realize that everyone is not really getting it...

These "cables" that we are using to connect devices are really just noodly appendages. Before you can truly understand how these noodly appendages work, you must embrace the FSM, and make Him a part of your life.