Slashdot Mirror
There's No Such Thing as 'Wireless HDMI'
An anonymous reader writes "CE Pro magazine interviewed Steve Venuti and Les Chard of HDMI Licensing, LLC to get a preview of all things HDMI at CES. The duo addressed some of the more controversial issues surrounding HDMI, including 'Wireless HDMI' (There's no such thing); Consumer Electronics Control (There will be interoperability); competitor DisplayPort (No traction in CE); and the complications of HDMI ('It is not an HDMI problem. It's a digital issue.')"
Would it be too much trouble for the submitter to explain what the acronym HDMI stands for, or at least to link to the WP article? Even after reading the WP article, I don't really know much about it.
Since it's a device for imposing DRM, there's presumably some mechanism for forcing the user to buy and use it. What is the mechanism? What types of equipment require it? The closest the WP article comes to discussing it seems to be this: "Both introduced in 2006, Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD offer new high-fidelity audio features that require HDMI for best results." Well, I'm still in the dark. What does "best results" mean? What are your results like if you don't use it?
Another thing I don't understand is how they think this kind of hardware-based DRM can work. All it takes is one hardware hacker to figure out how to tap in to some unencrypted signals, e.g., by connecting onto circuit boards. Once there's a single device that can be hacked by a publicly known procedure, every DRM'd movie out there can be transcoded into a non-DRM'd format.
One interesting sentence from the WP article: "PCs with hardware HDMI output may require software support from Operating Systems such as Windows Vista." So does this mean that you can't use the technology on a Mac, for example? I'm also curious whether any manufacturers are actually making mobos or video cards with hdmi connectors on them.
And how does this fit in with the apparently overwhelming recent trend away from DRM in music? Is it really believable that movies will go the other way?
Find free books.
If the devices aren't compliant, they shouldn't be sold as such. Testing for compliance and certifying devices as compliant would be the logical role of the licensing agency. They shouldn't let people put the HDMI name on something if it doesn't work. As such, it certainly is their fault that these devices don't interoperate properly. And if the standard is so complicated that they can't actually test for compliance, then that's their fault too.
The HDMI compliance issue is very real.
1.My first attempt at purchasing an HDTV LCD (Westinghouse) drove me nuts because even if it was advertised as HDMI, it would not pass sound. A week later it died, so I returned it.
2. My second and third attempts (Magnavox and Memorex, both 19") worked fine with our two Xbox 360s and our HDMI upscaling DVD players.
3. I swapped the 19" Memorex for a 32" Olevia. It worked fine with the HDMI upscaling DVD players but the Xbox 360s could not get a secure link. That TV is still with us, with the 360 connected to it with component cables, my son doesn't mind. After very little research I found dozens of documented cases of people that couldn't get the 360 to connect to that specific 32" Olevia model. Olevia TVs have a USB port for firmware updates, but to date there is no firmware update for that specific model.
4. I swapped the 19" Magnavox with a 37" Olevia, which has dual inputs for everything. Both the 360 and the HDMI upscaling DVD players connected at the same (same HDMI cables that failed with the 32" Olevia) and everything works beautifully.
5. I also noticed a separate issue with the upscaling DVD players that we were using (Philips, we got them for about $55 at Target right before Xmas). Whenever we switched inputs and tried to go back to that HDMI channel, it would not recognize the link and forced us to restart the DVD player. The 360 never had that issue with the five TVs we have tried to date.
To add insult to injury, those cables are expensive if you buy them at retail. A friend just picked an upscaling DVD player with HDMI at Walmart last night for less than $40, then almost flipped when he saw that the cable would cost almost the same.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Nobody in their right mind buys cables at places like Best Buy unless they need the cable right now. Things like that are high markup items, where the stores more than make up for the couple of dollars they shave off the suggested retail of whatever electronics box is on sale this week.
One of my favorite places to order cables, Microbarn, sells 50 foot HDMI cables for $26.99, qty one. Cheaper if you're buying a bunch. The main cost in HDMI cables is the connectors, (a 6 foot HDMI cable at Microbarn is $6, or only $4 for nickel plated connectors), partly due to licensing costs, but wire is cheap.
-- Alastair