Slashdot Mirror
New HDMI 1.4 Spec Set To Confuse
thefickler writes "HDMI Licensing LLC, the company that determines the specifications of the HDMI standard, is set to release the HDMI 1.4 spec on 30 June. Unfortunately it could very well be the most confusing thing to ever happen to setting up a home theater. When the new cables are released, you're going to need to read the packaging very carefully because effectively there are now going to be five different versions of HDMI to choose from — HDMI Ethernet Channel, Audio Return Channel, 3D Over HDMI, 4K x2K Resolution Support and a new Automotive HDMI. At least we can't complain about consumer choice."
For HD.
There are 5 cables in the spec, but the descriptions are incorrect.
There 4 cables which are the 4 possible combinations of low-bandwidth (often referred to as HDMI 1.1) and high-bandwidth (capable of 1080p/60, deep color, etc., often referred to as HDMI 1.3) with the possibilities of supporting ethernet in the cable (100mbit) or not.
So there are:
low-bandwidth no ethernet (effectively an HDMI 1.1 cable)
high-bandwidth no ethernet (effectively an HDMI 1.3 cable)
low-bandwidth with 100mbit ethernet
high-bandwidth with 100mbit ethernet
Now, in reality, it's already difficult to buy an HDMI 1.1 cable, and likely few going to make a low-bandwidth cable with ethernet added, since low-bandwidth cables aren't popular already.
So that leaves two of these cables to decide between:
HDMI 1.3 cable
high-bandwidth with 100mbit ethernet (perhaps to gain the popular name HDMI 1.4 cable?)
and then there is one final cable, the wildcard, the automotive HDMI cable.
So 3 cables to choose from, one of which is a weirdo cable (automotive).
I don't think this will cause much of a problem.
The options listed in the article, return channel, etc, are all things added to the spec that can be there for an HDMI 1.4 device but without needing a specialized cable.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The linked article is wrong; it confuses the logical concept of data channels with physical cable/connector types. FAIL
â HDMI Ethernet Channel
"The HDMI 1.4 specification will add a data channel to the HDMI cable and will enable high-speed bi-directional communication. Connected devices that include this feature will be able to send and receive data via 100 Mb/sec Ethernet, making them instantly"... OBSOLETE
Thanks for coming out.
I know technology never really stops, but the salesdroids/scammers will milk this mercilessly to generate sales. You only have 1.3 devices on each end, but if you don't have some flavor of 1.4 cable, it'll never work. And only $10 per foot. Scumsuckers preying on the ignorant.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
But the main article is fairly wrong. The Audio Return channel doesn't require a different cable, and the higher resolutions and 3D will both work over the high-bandwidth version. The ethernet options will be different cables, as will the automotive, so there will be quite a few new cables, but I don't think that's particularly confusing. (That's normal HDMI; HDMI plus ethernet; high-speed HDMI; high-speed HDMI plus ethernet; and automotive HDMI.)
dvice.com has some analysis and the press release.
The Audio Return thing will allow your display to send audio to your receiver, instead of using a second audio (e.g. optical or coaxial) cable. Why that wasn't there from the beginning is beyond me, since the connection was already bidirectional (to negotiate DRM).
Are they gold plated?
The TV manufacturers are simply screwing themselves over. They're dreaming. The new standard is going to be a computer screen attached to a PC streaming from youtube or similar.
Deleted
One that can only be used on Mondays, One for Tuesdays only.. etc... etc...
HDMI 1.4 spec = fail...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
I'm still using DVI into my TV, and it seems fine. Supports high-def video and so on. I'm not sure I get HDMI. What's the point of it over DVI?
The electronics shop down the road will just come out with a new rev of their HDMI-whatever to DVI converter.
Have gnu, will travel.
Ugh. Maybe you can explain why I'd want to buy an HDTV with all of the accoutrements rather than buy a vastly cheaper flat panel display, and use it with my far more flexible computer. In my opinion, TVs and computers are converging, and new revisions of HDMI are a way to keep them differentiated. Is there really an advantage to an HDTV? This is the thing that has stopped me from buying an HDTV.
Now, as far as cabling goes, I suspect most of this is driven by a marketing department. If you look at computer display technology, which has been in rapid flux for at least 20 years, they've managed to standardize on TWO different connectors: one for analog and one for digital. Sure, there are some weirdo ones out there, like ADC and 13W3, but they never really had any real relevance. But with TVs, which is ostensibly simpler than computer displays, we have this panoply of cables. Why?
Now, Cat5e-- that's an impressive technology. The data rates people have been able to squeeze out of plain ol' twisted pair! But seriously; we do everything in software now. Why does television insist on having cable after cable to do functions that we could do with a single one?
This is the 11th revision of the HDMI specification in the less-than 7 year life of HDMI. Meanwhile, the 22-year old VGA connection still works fine, at full HDTV resolution, and with none of the incompatibility or usage restrictions (DRM) that HDMI brings to the table. Um, progress?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
The most successful products all have the same qualities.
1. Simple
2. Ubiquity
3. Affordable
HDMI is not simple.
Ubiquity, Well I give it points here. It really was the first popular spec to finally include video and audio on one cable.
Affordable. Not a chance. Ridiculous prices for cables and accessories.
1 out of 3 is not good enough to survive. HDMI is setting it self up to be toppled of it's lofty perch.
Wireless HDMI would rock.
1. It would be simplish ( Some marketing guy would F&*K this up with some screwed up we must know what you are broadcasting so we can tap your wallet. )
2. Ubiquity. No real restriction here on what is on the channel. So basically everything should work with everything else.
3. NO HYPER EXPENSIVE CABLES. So that has to help the bottom line.
Oh wait. The wireless HDMI spec is already here. Can anyone say Wireless USB 3.
Forgive me for not having kept up with the progress of HDMI, but wouldn't it have made infinitely more sense to have simply used gigabit Ethernet for all this? The data is all digital anyway, and networking technology is quite mature, so why did these folks feel the need to reinvent the wheel? Right now, you have to worry about whether your new TV will have enough HDMI inputs for the devices you have or might get later, or you need to get an HDMI switcher. With Ethernet, you just connect everything to a switch or router, and you're all set. One connection per component is all you need, and, if you use a router, everything immediately gets connectivity to the home network or Internet. And if a new component comes out that needs to talk to another component in a different way or using more bandwidth, that can all be handled in the firmware. As long as you don't flood the local network with more data than it can handle, everything is fine, and the rest of the networked devices, including the router and cables, can stay exactly the same.
Or did someone in the entertainment industry worry that using Ethernet for connecting entertainment devices would make it too easy for those evil hacker types to connect a computer to the setup and break their DRM? Or maybe that if this gear was too easily networked, we might...GASP!...use it to send video from our Internet-connected computers out into the living rooms, undermining traditional TV?
Digital Rights Management, more like DigitalRightsFail amirite?
god even I hate me
It amazes me how much the proles gobble this shit up when *gasp* analog component video is perfectly capable of handling a high bandwith video without all the incremental upgrades to a poorly thought out spec. Remember, a VGA cable (not quite as good as separate coax) is able to carry higher resolution and refresh rates than 1080p/60 and it could be all achieved on an early/mid 90's PC with a high end video card.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
why didnt they just license svga????
Is the Zune the Windows Vista of media players, or is Windows Vista the Zune of operating systems?
Nope, it's Digital Rights Management. The entertainment conglomerates get to manage what rights you do and don't have as they see fit. It isn't unlike your boss at work managing what you can and can't do. They manage, and you obey.
Because it feels good to add to the alphabet soup that people have to wade through on a daily basis!
The game.
The solution to this problem is Display Port.
How many tv's, cable / sat boxes / sound amps, dvd / blue ray, game systems , pc's / video cards will even support all of this and will you have to look at see what the box can do as well as the cable?
What's the ethernet connectivity in the monitor for? I suppose it could be well-intentioned, for cable or IPTV say, but I'm concerned it might be for validating DRM against public key servers.
After watching friends buy new equipment because one piece was downgrading the signal, I swore HDMI off. My HDTV is connected to our $50 (well $150 after upgrades) Dell Media Server via a VGA cable with an embedded sound cable. Works wonderful and worry free.
Refuse to use HDMI and any content that demands it. There are far better things to do with your time.
Modern displays are all digital. LCD, DLP, all digital technologies. The image source is then, of course, digital as well. Whether it is compressed MPEG-4 off a Blu-ray or a generated image off a 3D card, it is a digital source. So you go from digital to analogue and then back to digital. This loses quality, especially at high resolutions and colour depths. It is hard to build an ADC that does a really good job on a 100MHz 10-bit signal.
Try it with a good LCD (as in a high end one, not a $200 cheapie) sometime. Hook up DVI and VGA to the computer and switch back and forth. You'll get a better picture with DVI.
Will the new plugs fall out as easily (as the old ones)?!
OK, now I think I understand why Apple shuns HDMI. Why don't they just make one cable to rule them all?
Apple gives away Mini Display Port spec for free. I think Intel gives the parent technology free too. It is up to device manufacturers to pick it instead of HDMI joke (yes, as a person in industry I call it joke) and use it.
Or serious, ordinary people started to buy LCD monitors for TV watching. The consumer has woke up. After this scandalous release, I wouldn't put too much money in HDMI standard.
How hard you can try to make a standard more complicated, confusing than 1970s French invention SCART cable? Who runs these TV companies now? That rip off monster cable came up with standard?
If you are american and you don't know a lot about it, look to SCART articles on Web, especially how neatly the features were added over time by dozens of competing companies. E.g. how "16:9" signal added to spec and everyone adopted it. This is the standard to solve "3 component cables+fiber(S/PDIF)" issue right? A standard which hasn't solved polarity issue which made consumers mad for years on analogue, disconnected from real World and industry so much that tries to "invent" things about device communication between devices. Uh, it doesn't work. Go ask Philips, they did such stuff on high end VHS+ line more than decade ago. Consumer doesn't like it, they don't use it. Period.
If you have shares in a TV making company who doesn't offer LCD Monitors with HDCP, sell before it is too late.
...another victory for proprietary standarts.
Philips VCR and Philips TVs were able to "talk" eachother over SCART line, Philips released it with very high hopes since they actually made real use of it in terms of easiness to use. The result? Nobody cared.
Look at this for instance, Apple who has the largest media catalogue on planet to sell, such excellent consumer trust and image, releases Apple TV which is a different form of their (hdmi) dreams and consumers including Apple fans say... "oh well, I'd use a Mini". So, "smart device" isn't really new thing, it is something which has been tried over and over for years and always failed. Apple TV stays afloat because it is actually a dedicated OS X/iTunes box coming from Apple.
These guys have no connections in TV industry, even with electronics guys? A tip for them: As 2 more Gigabit ethernet Macs and possible Apple TV coming to house, I purchased a gigabit switch. That is what you need, at _least_ to have 1080 h264+5.1 AAC audio which is the current minimum experience people expect from "HD" thingie.
Yes, but 2560x1600@60Hz is even higher. Try doing that on a VGA cable.
Actually the VGA cable isn't necessarily the limiting factor, as long as it is relatively short and properly shielded. The trouble is the DAC's on the graphics cards - which is exactly the point that the GP poster was making. Those that I've seen advertised are 400MHz and max out at 2048x1536@75Hz.
As soon as you get into "really" high resolutions, DVI does make things better, but I agree, 1920x1080@25 isn't that high a resolution, and I run that quite happily over a VGA cable (It's actually 1920x1080@50) on my media centre box.
(I find it strange that you use "fps" rather than the more common Hz when talking about monitor refresh rates. I've never run a monitor at 80Hz, since the options are generally 60, 75, 100, 120)
just because the protocal flowing through cat5e or cat6 is designed to be robust doesn't mean that you shouldn't be using it for connecting your hardware. If it's designed for long distance and unreliable conditions, why couldn't the spec be made to use a shorter distance and much faster protocol? why did they have to re-invent the wheel? I mean even if you say you're limited to 10Gbps over a single cat6, why not use 2 of them and figure out the data at the destination? At the very least make it easy to connect the two together.
And who is talking about using a switch? There's no need for that. The data will not be going to multiple destinations, you just need a point to point network.
Hell, use fiber channel if you can't get the bandwidth you need out of cat6. fiber patch is about $30 for a few feet and you don't need to worry about interference ever again.
Why do people conflate HDCP with HDMI?
I seem to remember that unlike the HDMI spec, the DVI spec makes HDCP optional in receivers.
With a nice big Monitor.
The first two pages of results from NewEgg were mostly 22" and 23" monitors, which aren't big enough to replace a a 27" CRT SDTV in the living room. You'd probably need at least a 31" to get the same picture height on a wide screen, and at that size, economies of scale start to shift such that monitors sold as "TVs" become cheaper than monitors sold as "PC monitors".
And without component in, how do you play console-exclusive video games through this setup? Or what PC game would you install as a replacement for Super Smash Bros. Brawl?
Well, the answer is quite obvious then, compress the video
Interframe compression adds lag. This is not acceptable for playing video games unless they're turn-based. Intraframe compression (like MJPEG) adds only a few scanlines of lag in theory, but it still adds artifacts, and what kind of bitrate comes out from MJPEG at 1080p at 60 Hz?
At least all HDMI connectors are male. You can buy a USB cable with any combination of ends including male or female A, B, Mini, or Micro (though female mini and micro connectors are unusual.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Please clarify. Do you mean that plasma has lower resolution which is not noticeable when watching changing video but becomes apparent with static images? When you say logo"ed content [sic], do you mean that the logo is static and one would notice the poor resolution? Also, it sounds like you're saying an advantage of plasma is the well-defined colours, correct?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I was tempted to label you troll, but there is a chance you are not being purposefully obtuse. What he was referring to is the "burn-in" plasma screens have. Leave it on CNN all day (with the CNN logo in the bottom corner) and then change it to something else, and you will still be able to see that CNN logo. It issue with static images is how they effect future images, not in quality.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
The problem with the parent post filled with references and precision, is that in all the technicalia, folks are losing sight of the purpose, and the equipment on hand.
There is a thing in a TV called... hmm... a tuner... The purpose of a tuner is to decode a signal sent over the air... in MPEG format. All HDtv's readily decode MPEG in real-time. That's what they are for.
The source media invariably store the data compressed, usually in some variation of MPEG format. So stop de-compressing it on some external box, just feed the compressed stream, encrypted if you must. Standardize the decode to be done by the television, and that's it. scaling up dedicated hardware to de-code an MPEG stream is already standard stuff.
At worst, the external box could trans-code the stuff. Using a general purpose CPU that would be painful, but with the volumes here, dedicated hardware should be easily justified and dirt cheap.
If you do that, a 1080i stream is something like 6 mbits/second. Go ahead, go to 1080p, you'll probably go to 20 mbits/second with sound and every bell and whistle imaginable. No matter the choice, 100 base-T would probably be fine, but go ahead and use gigabit, I can buy an 8 port switch for 70$, so it cannot be that expensive.
This is essentially exactly what mythtv does, and I have no problem watching an 1080i broadcast in any room in my house with an 100 BaseT connection and a decent cpu. So the whole mess about sending decoded data is a complete red-herring.
Ethernet would be fine, simpler, and cheaper for everyone.
DisplayPort FTW?
One cable, One standard, Many different applications. Someone tell my why HDMI is still a "standard" again?
Wow. That sounds just as bad as CRT screens. Even if one is not watching logo'd content, then, but (say) plays from some DVD player and decides to display the time permanently in the corner, then that would cause burn-in on the screen? Even if the digits are changing, the first "1" from "10:00" to "12:59" would be there for 3 hours, or 10 hours if the owner happens to set it for military time; and even if not, the colon would be permanent.
Presumably there's a reason why someone would use plasma over, LCD, then? Plasma has more contrast? Or is it just some early thinscreen technology that is better than CRT but has been obsolete by LCD?
Thanks for not giving in to temptation.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Fookyu, Composite, S-Video, components and DVI still work fine TYVM.
The reason for plasma instead of LCD was spelled out in the original post you responded to. If you like movies. Plasma has much deeper black levels, more colors, brighter colors, wider viewing angles, and more. LCDs used to blur fast movement more, but recent ones have gotten much better.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
That's simply not true on modern plasmas. Sounds like made up BS anyway.
Mine stays on news 24 for sometimes 10 hours at a time, because there's nothing on and it's something to have on in the background. I have *never* seen any kind of effect that you describe. Not once.
I did some researching back awhile ago when I was deciding on a projector or HDTV. I went with the projector (quality isn't as good but nothing compares to the theater experience you get), but one of the things I read was that newer plasma TV's don't have the problem of burn-in anymore, it only affects older models.
In fact, that is why entire TV industry begun animating logos or used ''dark glass' logo which wasn't really popular for Euro market except BBC/UK camp. Or... If you buy a cheap DVD player from a good company who knows what it does, it comes with actual screensaver.
Plasmas does have settings to shift pixels every 4 min (or less). In every Plasma (and LCD!) guarantee it writes static images can cause uncovered harm, ever huge game companies like EA made it a standard policy to put into game manuals while they can't be blamed.
Replying to that poster: If you only care about movies, Plasma is way to go. I was selling $20-30K barco CRT projectors back in time, only technology really impressed me in terms of colour accuracy and responsiveness was plasma which still continues today.
I am sure they animate their logo and make sure no static text displayed. Newer plasmas are more forgiving about static image and trust me as a person who used 1080p displays as early as Amiga 1200 was new, I am stating an industry known fact. Also new image processing chips can figure the incoming issue and pixel shift more aggressively.
I actually use Plasma and I am all for its accuracy but I won't keep it up without screensaver. TV is a way different matter, TV always and always changes. It is not like it will replay the last 24 hours if broken anyway :)
Oh also, I am not from LCD camp, LCD has even a worse burn in problem since people can't imagine it will burn in because of the BS spread by LCD only companies and every single person in IT industry calling screen savers obsolete. It doesn't just burn in, it degrades.
So, what you're calling for is that every single video device out there should have an MPEG-2 encoder capable of rendering (in some cases) 1920x1080p MPEG-2 video in real time (in some cases at 120 fps), all the time, in every situation.
That means the on-screen menu in your HD cable or satellite box: encode MPEG-2 in real-time.
Video Game system or computer display: Encode MPEG-2 at 1920x1080 in real-time.
DVD Player/Blu-Ray player: Either pre-render render every single possible menu combination as an MPEG-2 video and have pressing down on the remote trigger the video where "languages" is selected, or encode MPEG-2 video in real-time.
What we need for nearly everything other than an optical disc player (since the menu problem can be easily and trivially solved there) is an MPEG-2 encoder capable of handling real-time compression and transmission in resolutions all the way up to 1920x1080. That's pricey hardware. While the economy of scale would drive it down to a decent degree, it's still way more complex than is necessary, given that we've already worked out a spectacular alternative.
Of course, you can reasonably argue that all we'd need is a built-in mechanism for guide systems (which already exists for DTVs) and extend that to allow for menus from DVD/Blu-Ray/Cable Box. It still doesn't solve the problem of the game system or computer/TV convergence. Nor does your external box for transcoding video (ostensibly for legacy devices but for game systems/computer); why not just plug that external video straight into the TV, like we already do?
Yeah, I don't see that being a cost-effective approach to the problem. Storing actual pre-recorded video is trivial, as you've pointed out. Generating anything in real-time is much, much more difficult. It's far easier to use a standard based on computer monitors that allows for inexpensive cabling and switching methods.
Your friend's TV has HDMI-passthrough. Which is crap as it's unable to intercept the audio signal. (Some receivers such as the Sony STR-DG800 even have this problem which makes less sense as the purpose of the receiver is to process audio.) Many quality TVs/receivers (Sony KDS-60A3000, Pioneer Elite Sc05, etc.) have proper switching with the ability to intercept and process the audio.
That being said, in my experiences, optical doesn't support "TrueHD" lossless codecs. It could be bandwidth, but I suspect it's DRM.
in-expensive cabling? you are going to compare the HDMI monstrosities with UTP, and claim they are cheap? on what planet is a 20-pin connector with shielding cheaper than UTP? Switching methods? show me an HDMI switch with 8 ports for 70$. I can buy those at any corner computer store... I can wire my entire house with them. What's the cable length limit on HDMI?
Gaming consoles already have hardware in there to do all sorts of graphics operations in hardware. MPEG encoding is right up their alley.
Cameras, etc... Already have real-time encoders, because that is how they store movies on their SD cards or whatever media. Even professionals are
doing this sort of thing:
http://www.advanceddigital.ca/products/dvb/FlashXDR_encoder_recorder.php
The cable boxes are what I was thinking might require trans-coding, purely for DRM reasons. Cableco's might want to be able to use their own special coding on their cables, so a settop box would have to de-code the other format, and reencode into MPEG.
The only case where you have a point is disk players. Frankly, the customized menus annoy the hell out of me, and I would be thrilled if the disk players could agree to some XML protocol that the TV would interpret to provide disk menus in a standardized way.
Barring that, sure, the disk players would need mpeg encoding hardware... It's no big deal:
http://www.broadcom.com/products/Cable/MPEG-2-Digital-Audio-Video-Encoders
All the devices providing this information either will receive it MPEG encoded to start with (they they can just pass it on) or need fancy hardware with cpu's and memory to do what they do anyways. This is a well trodden path, nothing new required in terms of chips. Volumes will only bring the price down over time.
HDMI is an expression of people going down a path without considering the bigger picture of what the capabilities of the devices being inter-connected are.
Things could be way simpler.
Er, I bought 3 10 foot HDMI cables, terminated, with ferrite beads, for $10. While I can order 3 10 foot ethernet cables terminated for a bit cheaper (probably $6 or so), that's about it. Denon sells a $500 ethernet cable, but that doesn't mean that ethernet cabling on the whole is that expensive; don't use Monster Cable as your pricing comparison.
Here is an HDMI swithc with 8 ports for $78 (provided you buy in bulk, else it's $87). A 4 port switch from the same site is $30. HDMI cable runs are possible out to 50 feet before they start needing signal repeaters, but the people who require more than that are honestly so far at the edge that it's not worth building a standard to them.
Gaming consoles already have hardware in there to do all sorts of graphics operations in hardware. MPEG encoding is right up their alley.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with the concept of encoding vs. decoding 1080p MPEG-2 video. There's an order of magnitude difference in computational power required to encode. Gaming consoles do not have that hardware, period. Just because you claim it's right up their alley does not make it so. To put it in perspective, this is an encoder capable of real-time compression of HD signals, and a lousy one at that. Encoders capable of doing proper, broadcast quality encoding in real-time cost thousands of dollars. Anything less than that is going to look like a crappy web video, grainy, pixealted, and washed-out for no other purpose than to solve your imaginary problem. Instead of dumping the framebuffer out to a monitor, you want to dump it to an expensive piece of hardware, encode it, transmit it a few a feet, and decode it. Why? Seriously?
On top of all of that, we'll have video quality issues to contend with, as brand X will use cheaper chips that result in more macroblocking or washed colors on playback. It'll be like the era when we used to have to care about what RAMDAC various video card manufacturers are using because certain ones resulted in visibly worse picture quality. We already have to deal with this to a lesser degree with decoding chips, but now you want to up the ante.
And what happens when we want to use a better compression format to improve picture quality at the same bitrate (such as MPEG-4). Too bad! We're going to transcode to MPEG-2 anyway, so don't waste your time.
Let's face it: A television is a monitor. HDMI is DVI video plus audio. You're conjuring up a ridiculous solution to a problem no one has, your solution costs more, and produces lower quality video as a bonus.
The HDMI switch you link to was 250$ at normal price. The monster cable version is 900$
The deal you are pointing at is some clearance price. Looking around, 150$ to 250$ is a normal price.
my 70$ was an MSRP...
http://shop.buynetgear.com/servlet/ControllerServlet;jsessionid=95570351C3A4B725726E5775FE07937B?Action=DisplayPage&Locale=en_US&SiteID=netgear&id=ShoppingCartPage
The switch you link to can only be programmed with an IR remote, or RS-232. HDMI doesn't have any addressing. So to switch arbitrary signals from arbitrary rooms (arbitrary devices) in the house, you need separate IR or RS-232 switching to control which input goes to which output. Further, since it only has a single IR or RS-232 interface, you need to network whatever connects to the RS-232 in order to provide the same flexibility of configuration (route any input to any output) as a similarly priced gigabit switch. 'need to network' means you need the network wiring and a network switch on top of the HDMI hardware. And HDMI cable limits are far more restrictive. And I cannot run more than one signal on a single cable. Multiplexing comes for free with ethernet, but is out of the question with HDMI.
And my ethernet network can serve web pages, email & videos from the internet,etc... at the same time. You will wire for that anyways. So really you are arguing about adding another network of cables on top of a network you are going to need anyways.
the 'encoder' box you point to is to convert from analog to digital. For this device, you don't go looking for an industrial part, such as thec conexant chip linked by my last article, but point to a brand-name, but obscure retail product. A Monster-Cable version of such a device, which today is niche. If the standard were set, then the price would drop like a stone.
A separate point is that none of the likely data sources for this are analog. A disk player is going to be digital on the disk. digital to digital conversion is not specialized and complex as the box you point to, it's just churning bits.
Lastly, a Wii will not do 1080p any time soon, and a cheap encoder will work just fine for that.
If you are talking about something that produces 1080p you are in the >200$ range, and the encoder chip at that point is minor consideration.
The HDMI switch has an "original price" of $250 in the same sense that a car has a sticker price. Monoprice is not a clearance site; if you want to pay $150 to someone else, you're free to do so.
HDMI does indeed support addressing. You may want to read up on the standard before you begin claiming things that aren't true. Any HDMI device can communicate with any other over the HDMI system, although no one has built a switch that handles things in such a manner because there's no demand for such a product (as I'll explain in a bit).
I didn't go looking for an industrial part because there's no pricing available. There never is for products where the purchaser is expected to buy in lots of 1,000. The conexant chips you linked have A) no price listed and B) don't support HD resolution, so they're a moot point anyway.
What I did link was a product with the necessary industrial hardware buried inside. If we ignore the D/A converter (those are dirt cheap anyway), the USB chipset, and the fan (yes, fan) necessary to keep the compression hardware cool, then we can make a reasonable approximation of the cost of the HD compression hardware inside. If you can find an HD capable industrial part, including the price, please feel free to link it.
By the way, compression chips don't care if they're taking digital input from a source that was originally digital or digital input from a D/A converter. It's already digital by the time it hits the compression hardware. There might be a tiny, miniscule hit in speed due to the digital video from the D/A converter having slight imperfections, but it's pretty nominal.
Here we have a $200 box. Let's say that $100 of it is due to the unnecessary D/A equipment, USB hardware, and the enclosure itself. Hell, I'll be super generous and say that only $50 of that device is the actual compression chip. Now you're telling me that we should have a $50 encoder chip in a $200 Xbox 360 or a $400 PS3? Let's say that the cost for those chips drops 10 fold due to economy of scale. $5 is still a ton of lost profit on devices that are known for being sold at a loss. And that's all for an encoder chip capable of doing 1080p @ 30fps. What about 60 fps? What about 120 fps or 240 fps for the newer 120hz/240hz panels? What about the problems introduced when you run MPEG-2 compression on the text of the website I'm attempting to read with my networked video device?
On top of that, you still haven't addressed the problem of poor video compression, the reasons why we're even bothering to introduce lossy compression to an uncompressed video output signal in the first place, or the issue of codec stagnation when we're dealing with everything being transcoded to MPEG-2 in the end.
Finally, I still can't work out the problem you're trying to solve in the first place. You seem so intent on comparing a video output signal to a network cable that you can't tell me WHY you want to do this. You have a vague requirement of routing inputs to outputs, but we already have a system in place for that. Commercially available set top boxes such as the Apple TV, Popcorn Hour, and similar have been around for several years, and homebrew solutions have been around for longer than that. They all allow us to use existing home networks to send only the compressed video that's necessary, then layer their interface on top before outputting with regular video outputs. Got a video on device A but want to play it on TV B? We can just send the video file over an existing network. You want us jumping through hoops to decode the file at Device A (remember, it might not be in MPEG-2 or whatever format your system uses), layer our interface on top, re-encode to an MPEG-2 Transport Stream format, then send it to TV B. Or, we can have an inexpensive set top box at TV B, capable of handling any input format and without the necessary hardware to encode back to Transport Stream format. Then we just dump the framebuffer video out to a TV.
I won't lie, your system sounds incredibly
from the third chip in the original linked document (the one labelled "HD encoder"):
BCM7043 HD/SD AVC/MPEG Video/Audio Encoder and Transcoder/Transcaler/Transrater
The BCM7043 is a real-time high definition H.264/AVC, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4SP encoder and transcoder that is designed for use in cable, satellite, IP and terrestrial set-top boxes, home media centers, personal digital video recorders and HD DVD, Blu-ray, and DVD player/recorders. The BCM7043 is able to perform real-time high definition H.264/AVC and MPEG-2 encoding from the BCM7043's HDMI input (HD and SD) or ITU-R BT.656 input (SD). Additionally, the BCM7043 is capable of transcoding up to four SD streams simultaneously and one stream at up to six times the real-time rate.
The part is several years old. Granted, it doesn't mention 1080p directly, but it does mention HD and BD,and... "encoding from the HDMI input" which means it capable of taking precisely the high bandwidth flow you are describing, and encoding it real-time. It has to do that to work in a PVR storing something received via HDMI input on disk.
The reason why HDMI doesn't have functional addressing is because if you go down that road, you have to create a full general purpose networking stack to make it useful, and that will just result in re-inventing IP badly.
If folks instead spent probably less effort designing a standard adaptive encoding method, perhaps using delta's when the images are relatively static to maximize fidelity, and only moving to MPEG when the images are sufficiently dynamic to warrant it, or even better, negotiating the compression protocols available (so more expensive displays could support a wider variety of algorithms.) and firmware could be flashed to improve displays after sale.
You ask why bother with network connected displays? You point out that devices already exist to send video over networks. They exist because there is demand for this functionality. Such a scheme would achieve this functionality at lower cost (fewer separate boxes.), be more flexible, and has a lot of potential for future improvements:
If you say so; a chip whose application I've never seen in ANY consumer device anywhere (and has been available for at least 2 years) isn't going to "be embedded in gizmos anyways." I'm not questioning that real-time encoding hardware exists, just the cost. What's the cost of this device, and what's the cost of placing it in every relevant box you own? What's the cost of replacing every TV with models capable of being upgraded properly to deal with this system, including the new codecs?
Now what's the cost of doing that instead of handling what you're describing with a single, inexpensive set top box that can be more easily replaced/upgraded/installed, and outputs to a television as a monitor. I don't think we're arguing for different things here, necessarily; I want ubiquitous network access to a television as much as you do, but I disagree that there's a price savings to be had in embedding compression hardware (not to mention the lock in and backwards compatibility nightmares that it brings) in every device.
Network tuners already exist. Network surveillance cameras already exist. They can both already write to NAS drives without any trouble, and are perfectly capable of being controlled over a network. Set top boxes can already software switch inputs, poll for meta-data for movies being played, access information on other STBs, communicate with other networked devices.
A $200 Popcorn Hour Set Top Box is already hardware capable of doing 9/10s of what you listed (the multi-display game system excluded, although advances in STB hardware would certainly allow the game system to act as a server and render those images on the STB). The same can be done in any recent model digital cable or satellite box. An STB communicates with network devices over the network and communicates with displays over HDMI, it avoids the need for encoding video when it isn't necessary, and when technology has progressed far enough that things need to be changed, it can be replaced much more easily. No need to fret about firmware upgradeable television to support a new compression format, or developing new compression formats to deal with the problems inherent in your system, because you treat the display as a display and leverage the economies of scale on a box that's more easily replaceable. Arguing that packaging the STB in the TV is cheaper is missing the forest for the trees. Again, it works great for prerecorded content, but falls apart for real-time video where the need to maintain upgradeability, compatibility, and cost savings is sorely trounced by a cheap external box.
never seen in any device...
It's hard to get hard data of what chipset is
in what product. However, it was all over the tech news last winter that Samsung went with Broadcom chipsets for the BD players...
BD players from samsung:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-190874810.html
a chinese OEM:
http://www.bikudo.com/product_search/details/118262/blu_ray_disc_player_sbd5102.html
and 2 wire...
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS125072+06-Jan-2009+PRN20090106
There are undoubtedly others.
STB's originated when TV's were analog, electro-mechanical devices. when stuff was analog, fixed function and hard-coded, so to speak, they made sense. These days, when everything has a microprocessor in it already, it's hard to see the added value, for the consumer, of an extra box, with an extra power supply, containing an extra processor, requiring an extra remote control, just to run some software that could run on the tv anyways.
From a technical perspective, the STB function is a software one, that could run on an arbitrary CPU. It would be cheaper for the consumer to run it on an existing cpu that is needed anyways, the one in the tv. For example, folks are supposed to be able to get air-Cards from the cable provider to make virtual STB's in their TV's.
I don't want a PVR, and sling box, and a NAS, and a disk player, and a VCR, and a computer, and some weirdo video switching between them. I don't disagree that boxes can be made to meet all these functions. One can do all these functions in software instead, with practically no hardware. It would be cheaper once we got there. It would be better to have fewer connections, fewer protocols, and far more flexibility. All these gizmos are going to have encoding/decoding h/w anyways, that's most of what they do. Using a general purpose network lets us easily add flexible control layers that would require heavy duty investments to do in an application specific way, and so would never be economically viable. I gave some examples of the sorts of things that would be possible, they would probably emerge over time. With an application specific standard, there is no room for that, you have to bake it in from day 1.
Today, I have five computers and two televisions, and I view tv shows on any screen that is handy. for my purposes, I need a PC beside any television. That bugs me, because I know that there is a perfectly decent processor in there, usually running Linux. A TV should be a display device, with the ability to accept a number of inputs, and select a sub-set of them to display at any given time, or even all of them. Cheaper ones could be able to work with 1 input, a little more, for 2 inputs, 4 inputs, resolution, 1080i, 1080p, etc... There is plenty of room for product differentiation.
The flexibility from an IP interface is way better over the long term. That's why you see the surveillance cameras going IP at source, why you see professionals transforming raw output into compressed video on the camera itself, etc... It is happenning slowly, I just wish it would hurry up.
Every one of those devices is using Broadcom chips for playback, which is no big deal. Show me the device that is using an encoder. We've been talking about encoders for how many posts now, and you still seem under the impression that they already exist in every device, when that's patently untrue. A cheap as hell HD capable decoder is nothing special, and the fact that a company chose one from provider A instead of B is nothing to write home about. Show me the consumer device with the HD capable encoder. Seriously, are you even reading what I write? An encoder is unnecessary in every one of those devices because the data comes in already encoded, but an encoder WOULD be necessary for rendering any real-time video usable under your system.
Is there some sort of language barrier here, because your English is flawless but your comprehension is awful. You don't need a DVR, disk player, sling box, etc. A single box can do it all. I thought I just spent several paragraphs making that clear.
Again, since you seem unable to catch my message: A SINGLE BOX CAN DO IT ALL. The technology already exists, and it's about $200. It's here. Today. You're going to need a NAS somewhere on your network (I'm not sure why that's unnecessary in your vision, but something has to store recorded video), but otherwise what you describe exists right now, today, with a single box source. Any device that can access the internet/local network and play 1080p video is physically capable of handling every single thing you describe.
Slingbox: Take a video and send it out over the internet. The STB already reads digital video in, decodes it, and sends it up to the TV. The only reason today's cable box, satellite box, or network tuner doesn't already allow an option to skip the decoding and just send out the digital stream is because no one has added a software function to do it.
PVR: An STB can save the digital stream over the network to a NAS. Play it back from a NAS. Again, all the hardware for this is here, and a select few devices have the software necessary to do this. Mostly, it's just a question of someone bothering to add the software functionality for it.
NAS: Uh, you're going to need network attached storage somewhere. I'm not sure why you're keeping yours underneath the television, though.
Disc Player: Mostly unnecessary, and probably won't be around in 10 years. The only thing that physically prevents an optical disc player from sharing the disc over the network is a lack of willingness on Hollywood's part. If the player could share it out over ethernet (nothing fancy there), any 1080p-capable STB has all the hardware necessary for playing that stream and the disc player could be located anywhere in the network. The more tech oriented in the world can simply rip the disc to their NAS and then play it back from NAS->STB. Again, every single piece of hardware necessary for this exists, it's just a question of software.
A VCR: Seriously? I doubt there would be IP-capable VCRs in your future. If we were using a VCR, there's going to be a encoder involved somewhere in the process; likely, you'd use it long enough to rip video to the NAS then toss it. At that point, we're looking at playing back a stored file under either system.
A computer: The STB is capable of browsing the web, downloading meta-data, playing back files, etc. If what you want is a general purpose computer running a desktop OS and used like a general purpose computer, then you should know that the ergonomics of the living room make it a lousy choice anyway. Nevertheless, any form of VNC is already capable of handling this, and an STB is more than capable of running a VNC client. Programs such as FRAPS already exist to record your computer desktop, and the only thing keeping it from using a standard streaming protocol rather than storing it as a file on the NAS is someone taking the short while to implement it in software. Again, the STB is capable of
yes, but I'm afraid you are not returning the courtesy. The chipset spec already sent describes reading from HDMI and encoding, for example, to write to a disk on a PVR.
You claim we cannot afford another transition...
for HD-TV, we have had composite, VGA, DVI, HDMI 1.x, y, and z. this in about ten years. many of those "standards" have multiple connector types and sizes. Just add one more connector to the back, and let the others die over time.
You are constantly referring to ''a cheap box'' The problem is that it is never one cheap box, but usually five. The problem I am trying to get around is that fixed function boxes are more expensive when you need five of them. And those fixed function boxes do not interoperate intelligently anyways. On the other hand, if it really is just one cheap box, and it does inter-operate with the TV and any cable provider, and the internet, and surveillance systems, and various brands of home automation... well then I accept that it's a moot point. However, if it's so standard and interoperable, economics would dictate it would be cheaper to include it in the TV after a while...
The reason we have STB's is because there are no standards for these devices, and the application specific connectors are a symptom of the problem.
yes, but I'm afraid you are not returning the courtesy. The chipset spec already sent describes reading from HDMI and encoding, for example, to write to a disk on a PVR.
And that chipset, the broadcom 7043, isn't used in any of the devices you posted. They're all using various decoding-only chipsets. If you google any of the other chipsets, you'll find the first page of results have several mentions of various Blu-Ray players and STBs using them. If you Google the Broadcom 7043, BCM 7043, or BCM-7043, the first five pages are nothing but press releases describing the capabilities of the chip and other pages reprinting the press releases (and one post on a TiVO message board where someone dreams about it being in a TiVO). Nothing is using the encoding-capable chip, and it's not terribly surprising. Very, very few people are demanding the ability to record in from HDMI, and it's a copy-protected input anyway, so the devices that you could record from are few and far between. We have no point of reference for how much a 7043 costs, but based on other encoding devices I've seen, it's not a cheap part. For a real-time device such as a game console, it's unnecessary to require encoding the output then decoding it again; if they want to add the ability to stream to an "IPTV compatible" device, then they could do so, but it's pointless to force the replication of the same encoding part in each game console or similar real-time video device.
I already have a system that does 9/10s of what you describe. It's a home theater computer, and it can be built for ~$350; it does so with a mixture of software that's about 85% user-friendly and 15% frustrating as hell. It also illustrates the problem both of our systems will run into: neither standard will automatically intelligently interoperate. Both of us are arguing about the features that could be leveraged by such a system, but we're both being naive if we think either system would intelligently interoperate simply by "being there." Frankly, the only thing that's required for all of this to work is ethernet, NAS, something capable of decoding 1080p video, and software. That last section is the real sticking point, and various fortunes have been destroyed in the last 10 years by people or companies trying to develop and cash in on a proper standard for home device communication. Simply jamming ethernet on the back of the TV isn't going to fix the problem any more than my claiming an inexpensive box will do it.
However, if we do hit the point where the cheap box can do all of that, I'd still argue that it wouldn't be better to include it in the TV for the reasons I posted earlier. On the real-time device side, redundantly replicating encoding hardware is not as cheap or efficient as simply allowing the device to output a framebuffer to the display. As far as the TV "computer" is concerned, firmware can be upgraded, but sooner or later you want to do something that the built-in "box" can't physically do. When you hit that point, it's easier and more cost efficient to handle that work in an external device. The ~$20-$30 savings you get from ditching the power supply, enclosure, and some of the PCB components is all worthless the moment you have to replace the TV to allow a new feature when you could just replace a $150 or $200 box and be good to go.
I have no way of knowing how expensive the part it, but even if we grant that it is expensive, it is just replacing the de-code chip. It will not be an addition to the parts-list, but replacement. The delta is not going to be that horrific.
You clearly only have a single TV in one room,and it must be a 60"... I have an 32" HDTV that "does 1080i" (marketing speak) onto 1366x766 screen. I want real 1080i. I can't get it without replacing the TV. I want 1080p... cannot get it without replacing the TV. Supposedly, the next thing is 3D. Again it will involve replacing the TV. If the processor is sized to the capabilities of the display, then chances are that when you decide you need to upgrade a box, the TV needs to go too.
You refer to the TV as the expensive part, with a long lived standard. That was the case in analog days, but looking at the list of improvements above, one can rapidly ascertain that TV standards are getting fluid now too. Is your ten year old HDTV still good? Most likely it was CRT based, consumed about 10x the power of tv's today, and cost about as much as a decent motrocycle.
a Dynex 19" HD LCD TV @ BestBuy is 149$. granted, it only does 720p, but tell me again how much money we are saving with a 200$ STB? If we have a 400$ STB, will the TV do better than 720p?
The idea that TV is the expensive component applies only to a Home theater setup. Most people have smaller vision systems scatterred througout the house, and in those cases, you are at least doubling the cost.
I agree with you that just having an ethernet port will not magically produce interoperability, but it will be a step in the right direction, and is a pre-condition for inter-operability to occur down the road.
It doesn't really matter whether there is an STB with a computer in front of every TV, or the TV incorporates STB functionality. What matters is that shunting raw video around is a legacy of the days when go-go dancing was all the rage.
The decode chip is unnecessary in a real-time device such as a game system; those systems already use their graphics processors for decoding. They're necessary on a video box that's transcoding video, sure, but not on a game system. They can add it to the GPU if they see a compelling reason to do so, such as your hypothetical multi-room gaming, but it's not a good idea to make it compulsory. The difference may not be horrific, but even $5 or $10 adds up on low margin items.
If you want 1080p or 3D, yes, you'll have to upgrade your TV, but you don't have to upgrade your TV to display MPEG-4 encoded videos just because they became common in the time since you bought your display. You don't have to upgrade your TV to interface with a different audio standard just because it became available after the fact. You're already limited in upgrading your display technology, but building in the box limits the input technology as well. If your argument is that TVs change quickly enough that it won't be a problem, I'd wonder why you think people are going to want to replace each of their smaller TVs scattered about.
The 19" TV for $150 is not going to magically include the $200 STB parts, minus the minor cost for enclosure/Power Supply/few redundancies, for $150. If the parts are cheap enough to cram in a $150 TV, they're going to be cheap enough to package in a $30 STB if someone wants them. If someone doesn't, the TV can still tune into normal broadcast television, be used with a stand alone disc player, etc if that person wants it. I don't know why they wouldn't get the hypothetical $30 STB, but that's beside the point. Any smaller display scattered around that supports your system would have nearly similar costs to a plain display plus an STB that supported the same system, and wouldn't be obsoleted with the introduction of a new codec or STB feature that couldn't (or wouldn't) be added by that TVs manufacturers.
I'm still a bit confused about shunting raw video around, and my confusion goes all the way back to your first post. Your insistence on comparing HDMI and Ethernet is baffling given that they're intended for two completely different purposes. HDMI is not poised to replace Ethernet, and it never will or should. Doing so is asinine. If there's an STB in front of every TV, it will interface to the television with a raw video format and speak to the rest of the network via normal networking equipment for no reason more complex than compatibility and cost reduction. HDMI includes simple, low-bandwidth data transfer (I have no idea of the speed) suitable for signaling devices to turn on/off/change volume/etc; there's this new version with 100 Mbit ethernet built-in, but the consensus from everyone seems to be that it's a solution in search of a problem. No one is using HDMI for anything other than transmitting raw audio and video a few feet (perhaps 50 - 75 in the case of front projectors) from a source device to a display/audio device. If an STB sits outside of the television, it will make sense to minimize the costs of transmitting the data to the display, and that means raw video and audio.
We started this discussion with you claiming that it adds extra hardware. I said, from the beginning, that most sources of high res. data are already mpeg: OTA HD transmission, DVD disk content being examples. Those cases require no extra hardware at all. I grant you both that menu generation is a complication, and that Game Consoles would indeed require a little beefier chip somewhere. You say that this is expensive. I say it would be cheap. I think we have said this often enough to just agree to disagree.
We started this discussion with you claiming an 8-port HDMI switch is more effective and cheaper than ethernet. This last post said that HDMI isn't anywhere close to replacing ethernet. You might want to make up your mind about what you are trying to claim, or you might sound asinine.
Since the outset on this side, the point being proposed is the opposite of what you describe: whenever the opportunity arises, if one can replace an application-specific connection with a more robust general purpose one that is a win. This is similar to iSCSI or FCoE functionally replacing SCSI and FC cabling for low end applications. Instead of having your own application specific, baked in hardware protocol and connectors, leave the hardware to something existing and robust, and build the application specific stuff as an application layer over ethernet. That's iSCSI in a nutshell.
I think we're at the point where HDMIoE would be a smart thing to do. You think it's expensive. I think we're done here.
Comparing an 8 port video switcher to an 8 port ethernet switch is an apples and oranges comparison, which is all I was trying to say; using an 8 port ethernet switch does require encoding hardware on all real-time devices, while the HDMI switch is simply something for hooking up raw video run in short runs. For its purpose, the HDMI switch is substantially cheaper. The fact that you were trying to compare the two led me to believe that you think people were using HDMI as structured cabling and trying to install it in a star topology, which couldn't be further from the truth. Different tools for different tasks.
iSCSI works spectacularly well because Ethernet has caught up to and in some cases surpassed local SCSI cabling speeds (or at least functionally matched it, once we factor in the limitations of an array of drives). We didn't invent some new, lossy drive communication spec to make it work, we mostly just communicated in the same ol' SCSI block addressing system over a different cable. HDMI vastly surpasses gigabit ethernet speeds (32bpp x 1920x1080 pixels x 24 fps minimum + audio) in bandwidth, requires different latency correction, and has no video compression applied. If 10Gbps ethernet makes an enormous drop in price, then HDMIoE could certainly work and would be a fantastic system. What you're describing, however, is not HDMIoE.
Your claim would appear to be that, as soon as any change in encoding is introduced, it ceases to be comparable. VOIP is clearly impossible then, when folks deigned to replace 56 khz analog lines with many voice coding regimes, many of them negotiated by both parties using protocols such as SIP, and they clearly use a lot less than 56 Khz, must be completely unusable.
your numbers for 1080p:
32bpp x 1920 x 1080 pixels x 24 fps = 1.5 Gbps.
raw. You consider this an insurmountable problem.
For video, you claim that any compression is not possible. In contrast to past experience with voice, in spite of the well known source data (both OTA and disk formats) using MPEG compression to routinely achieve between 15x and 30x reduction in volume, (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression)
If it's not HDMIoE, then it's at leas ViOIP.
Oh wait, you're going to use video compression? Because clearly, in the dozen or so earlier posts where we debated the relative merits and costs of video compression and the potential downsides of forcing compressed video for final transmission to the display, I didn't realize you were going to use video compression. The link to the wikipedia article really helped cement that idea for me.
It's all so clear now. My concerns regarding codec lock-in, compatibility, cost of redundant compression chips, etc. are all answered because you've repeated your plan the twelfth time and now claimed that I don't think video can be compressed.
You think it can be done cheaply enough to avoid all of the downsides. I don't and think that the final step from STB or similar device should use raw video for cost and compatibility's sake. That's apparently where we stand, and only a decade or so of time will tell whether either of us is correct.