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?

[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

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

[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

[BlueCollarCamel]

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

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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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??

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.