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HDMI Labeling Requirements Promise a Stew of Confusion
An anonymous reader writes "In many ways HDMI has revolutionized the way we connect devices. By unifying video and audio into a single cable manufacturers have been able to make their products easier to set up than ever before. Until recently there hasn't actually been much difference in HDMI cables. But things are about to get confusing with the introduction of HDMI 1.4. By the 1st of January 2012 manufacturers of products with HDMI ports won't actually be able to call HDMI 1.4 by its real name. In fact, come November 18 this year those selling cables won't be able to use HDMI 1.4 or HDMI 1.3 to delineate between different products. Instead cables that support version 1.4 of the HDMI standard will have to use one of five different labels. The new labels? Well, as this story explains, they're going to cause a new level of confusion for anyone hooking up a home cinema. Add to this the fact that the HDMI organisation keeps the details of its specifications secret, and translation between version numbering and marketing-speak will be well nigh impossible."
Will my $600 gold-plated monster superconductor cable support the new standards?
Why not just name them HDMI 1 and HDMI 2?
(or HDMI 3, etc)
Why are all the old jokes about IBM marketing flooding into my mind?
and so will your coathanger.
Unless you are doing a permanent wall installation, if you spend more than $10-$15 on an HDMI cable, you got Effed in the A!
Living With a Nerd
Confuse customers so the only guidance they have is the price. "Well, it's more expensive so it has to be better!" Once you get consumers thinking that, they're easy pickings. Oops. I should have sugar-coated that with some intellectual discourse to obscure that simple truth... Oh well.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
> By unifying video and audio into a single cable manufacturers have been able to make their products easier to set up than ever before.
Seriously how hard was it to hook up the $2 three color coded RCA jacks?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Welcome to marketing ploy 101.
There are a myrad of confusing options. The only real solution is the really high end that does everything costs the most. Anything else is "it might work". It can also be sold with the "you are going to get the 4K TV someday arn't you?" approach.
There is only one solution and it will cost the consumer. It was planed that way.
Are we surprised ?
The audiophool industry will have the exact cables you need ..... for $1800 per 3 foot cable.
Have gnu, will travel.
... and ignore the rest.
Negative word-of-mouth (and painful difficulties) will separate the wheat from the chaff. The solutions that work well will survive. So has it been, so shall it be. The invisible hand may not always work as we wish, but it can still slap down the business models that suck.
Guess that's just the way it is in the world where engineering, marketing, standards and proprietary information overlap - same confusing labels as USB with 'full speed' being much slower than 'high speed' etc.
Anyway, this'll keep audio/video geeks in business, we don't want just anybody hooking up components successfully without working at at, jeesh.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
...just jizzed all over his monitor.
I still don't have a single HDMI device
I used to have an old cheap HDMI cable I bought off of newegg that I used for my old TV and it worked fine. When I upgraded to a new Samsung TV, it worked for picture, but not for audio. At first I thought the TV was defective. So I tried another cable of the same type (I had bought them both at the same time) and got the same results--picture was fine but no audio. But when I tried out a newer, more expensive cable it suddenly worked fine. So, while I don't advocate spending big $ on ridiculously overpriced Monster cables, there apparently is a difference between some HDMI cables, at least for some TV's (maybe Samsungs are especially finicky).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Looks like we'll just have to adopt the HDBaseT spec instead.
'Impossible' is a word that humans use far too often. -- Seven of Nine
It's almost as if they're deliberately trying to confuse customers, to get them to buy the wrong cable twice and then pay Geek Squad $130 an hour to explain to them which cable to use and how to set it up probably.
But that would be crazy.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
HDMI.001 ...
HDMI.002
HDMI.999
There, you're good for 999 versions and the names easily sort.
Back to the topic, just buy whatever cable, cut the bag open and if it doesn't work ... RETURN IT TO THE STORE FOR A REFUND.
The store will try to re-sell it ... but which of the regular customers are going to buy a cable when it is obviously rejected by someone else.
So, eventually, the store will try to return them to the manufacture for a refund.
That's when the manufacturers can put pressure to get the label restrictions fixed.
I refuse to own any HD-enabled TVs & etc. HD is simply the shiny bauble to get people to adopt a system that is controlled by those other than the consumer purchasers of the equipment in order to plug the "analog hole", further raise barriers to entry for non-corporate/non-approved content & equipment producers, and overall extract more money from consumers.
It's not a video/audio standard so much as a revenue and business model protection & expansion scheme.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Why not just buy the cheapest one you can, see if it works, and move up only if necessary? Marketing fog will always try to wring more money out of you (in ANY consumer product area), but it only will if you let it. HDMI is no different; if the plug fits then it will almost always work, if not there is probably a special case, and a Google search will resolve your problem in less than 5 minutes.
What's so hard to understand about "Standard", "Standard with Ethernet", "High Speed", "High Speed with Ethernet", etc? Honestly, this makes a lot more sense to me than 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, gold plated, nickel shielded, and all the impenetrable techno-babble currently in use.
I often hear fellow customers ask whether they really need that platinum reinforced quad shielded $80 cable, because they're not sure what those features actually add to a digital signal. I'd love to lean over and help them, but honestly I haven't got a clue either. I buy mine for $8 from Amazon and have never had a problem.
Sounds to me like these new labels will clearly indicate what types of signals each cable is certified to carry. Instead of asking "do I need gold plating," customers can zero in on "do I need high speed? Ethernet?" Maybe someone with more experience in the matter can explain to me how this is not a win.
Well, when i purchased my 1080p tv and home theater maybe 2 years ago, I mistakenly got a standard cable, rated for 720p, and let me tell you, it doesn't support 1080p at all. It works, indeed it works, but if you check the configs, it's not running 1080p.
Went through a few different cables before i settled on the ps3 branded ones and haven't looked back since.
but for this article to state that all hdmi support 1080p is just flat wrong. They work, but if they don't say 1080p, more than likely it's 1080i or 720p at most.
HDMI has become, and will become, such a head ache that I yearn for the simple yellow is video, red and white are audio, setup of yesteryear.
The five grades listed make sense. Standard Speed and High Speed with and without Ethernet (total of 4 combos of those two) and the Automotive cable.
However the other stuff is poorly executed, like the "4K" rule. And do they have any rules on putting arbitrary meaningless bandwidth numbers on their cables like the example in the article and Monster? Any number that exceeds the bandwidth actually used by HDMI is meaningless, but manufacturers still stick crazy numbers on their cables anyway.
Manufacturers should be permitted:
To state which version of the HDMI spec they are compliant to, or very clearly defined capabilities (such as High Speed-No Ethernet)
To give specific physical properties of their cable's construction such as wire gauge and connector plating materials
They should NOT be permitted:
To advertise any electrical performance numbers that exceed the requirements of the defined HDMI specification, as these numbers are irrelevant to all users.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I can live with confusing names if they get around to supporting closed captioning data like they are supposed to. They misinterpreted the legal requirements for closed captioning as it being something which is handled by set-top boxes rather than TVs and elected to not transmit the data. HDMI's own FAQ makes this position clear. However, the law is quite clear that the TVs are required to render captions. Unfortunately, people use devices other than set-top boxes to push content to the TV. If you need captioning, you can't use HDMI with Blu-ray disc players or other devices.
In a few years presumably some even higher bandwidth specification will come along - no problem if they used version-numbers, but once you have labelled the first generation "standard" and the current generation "High Speed" what're you going to be left with to use next and not end up looking stupid?
"new higher speed", "max speed", "ultimate speed", "super more ultimate than ultimate speed", "I Can't believe its not high speed... speed"?
Perhaps some day you will be able to apply that same intellect that allows you to detect snake oil in audio gear to the snake oil in sexual bigotry.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This looks like an epic fail looking for a place to happen. It couldn't happen to a nicer industry.
When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.
It's a good idea to learn from the mistakes of others who like adding confusing naming.
...[sad], [true] moderation selections.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Only for Americans. Obviously HDMI is digital but SCART has been a European standard for around three decades, including three channel video. Welcome to 1980!
In many ways HDMI has revolutionized the way we connect devices. By unifying video and audio into a single cable manufacturers have been able to make their products easier to set up than ever before.
Video and audio have been unified into a single cable for a long, long time. It's called a coaxial cable.
So what are the requirements? The article says they can't call HDMI 1.4 "HDMI 1.4", but what ARE they supposed to call it. The article mentions High Speed HDMI, is that the same thing?
If you want a connection that works, kick 'your' Representative/Senator (figuratively) in the nads, and force the FCC to require a REAL standard with an OPEN, PUBLISHED SPECIFICATION which does not support encrypted connections. HDMI is for morons.
Calling the currently higher-speed standard "High speed" is going to turn out to have been a mistake when a higher-speed standard appears in the future.
And, as the link referred to in TFA points out, "high speed" and "standard speed" don't even come close to suggesting the true applicability space of the cables. Consumers would be far better off if the labelling was required to carry the standard name (HDMI 1.3 or HDMI 1.4 with whatever add-on) and a URI pointing to the standards documentation.
Why do standards bodies continue to make such simple mistakes of relativism? It's not like ISO, ANSI, EIA, etc. haven't been around for decades learning from these mistakes.
In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the meta-standards published by ISO include a statement somewhere not to fall into such traps.
But of course, people who make standards sometimes do so because they don't like reading them...
From the summary--
In many ways HDMI has revolutionized the way we connect devices. By unifying video and audio into a single cable manufacturers have been able to make their products easier to set up than ever before.
I remember hooking up everything to my tv - antenna, cable box, vcr - with ONE, yes exactly ONE cable. But no, 1 cable wasn't good enough so then we needed pretty red and yellow colors. But then 3 colors weren't enough so then we needed S-Video with it's impossible to connect wire separate from the audio cable. And then component b/c somebody probably wanted the 3 pretty colors back. And then one big black DVI with separate audio, and now finally HDMI.
So say what you will about its picture and sound qualities but do not call a 1 cable set-up either a "revolution" or use the phrase "easier to set up than ever before" unless you are a complete f@cking moron.
It is pretty clear from the comments here that everyone in this forum is aware that cables have become a scam, in which the vendors manage to charge a fortune for a couple of wires by patenting and branding the format and then getting the equipment manufacturers to specify that format. A 6 foot cable of any kind should cost a few bucks, tops. It is nothing short of criminal that the de facto cartel on these things forces us to pay ten times that.
Maybe there should be an open source effort to define and promote a cable standard?
Maybe this labeling debacle will help drive adoption of DisplayPort. HDMI is full of crazy timing issues for something as simple as when you can transmit audio data, whereas DisplayPort is just a big stream of bits with a real actual packet format.
just to keep things from getting confusing to the customer:
* Standard moves to Standard 1.5, while
* High Speed remains at version 1.4 (Which shall not be named), until version 1.6 comes out (skipping 1.5 to avoid confusion with Standard 1.5)
* Ultra High Speed is released in the meantime starting at version 1.7 (to avoid confusion with the newly released, and probably faster High Speed 1.6).
That way it remains clear to the customer which version they want, and the manufacturers can continue to sell the consumer multiple cables, all priced well above what they should be priced.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Are the newer versions going to be backward compatible with the older versions?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Reminds me of USB High Speed and USB Full Speed. I still can't remember which is which. Is confusing the consumer a standard MBA course?
My UID is prime. Hah!
Unlike what mister anonymous submitter says, I'm not convinced that the motivation for HDMI was for manufacturers to "make their products easier to set up than ever before". Maybe at first it was, but once Hollywood got involved early on, that all changed. It was all about the copy protection. As far as I know, no one has yet broken HDMI copy protection. So I am not surprised at all that the terms to describe HDMI 1.4 are going to get even more confusing and unhelpful as I don't think HDMI has ever been about making consumers happier. I'm not really sure what is supposed to be gained by the confusion to come, but was it created by design (ie. perhaps Hollywood thinks that the confusion will strengthen copy protection somehow) or by stupidity?
Wait for tomorrow's headline about how DisplayPort has come back from the dead to make things even worse (in the short term).
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
Just look at the genius that went into the USB 2.0.
Full-speed 12 Mbps
High-Speed 480 Mbps
Or parallel ports:
Compatibility Mode
Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) 2MB/s
Extended Capability Port (ECP) 2.5MB/s
EPP/ECP Parallel ports are faster than full speed usb?
Looks like it's time to move on to HDBaseT and be done with it.
Bulshytt
My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
DisplayPort seems better. You have regular DP and mini-DP. Why is Ethernet going over a video connection anyway? People with money to buy an awesome TV and awesome sound system won't take advantage of the combined audio / video anyway. No matter what, the industry needs to focus on one tech: DVI, DisplyPort, HDMI.
People buy HDMI cables? I have three in my draw at home, which all came with something. Currently I have nothing to use them on though.
isn't this how firewire died?
confusion, different ports, FW800 wouldn't connect directly to FW400...
HDMI Lineup:
1.4 - High Speed
1.5 - Full Speed
1.6 - "It goes to plaid."
yeah, or DisplayPort. I know next to nothing about the standard aside from my laptop has it, it is created by VESA, and it is royalty free.
For short lengths almost anything works, so a 3' cable will almost always be able to handle anything.
Also, what about stuff like deep colour and 3D?
If anyone is interested, read the HDMI primer at Blue Jeans Cable's website.
"If you need captioning, you can't use HDMI with Blu-ray disc players or other devices."
Why not just turn on english subtitles on the Blu-ray player?
"Standard" and "high speed"... and what happens when next year a even faster version cames out?
reminds me of a designer who kept saving his work as "design-0.psd" ... design-312.psd" and after the deadline hit, it became "design-final.psd", "design-final2.psd", "design-FINAL_REAL.psd" etc etc etc.
I was curious so I did some digging. Close-captioning data is encoded in the line21 vertical blanking interval, and there is no equivalent for progressive output formats. Thus, the entity doing the decoding is supposed to handle closed-captioning. Thus, you need a DVD/etc. player capable of overlaying the captioning onto the video stream that it's sending, or else you can use component video cables and output as 480i from the player and use the captioning capabilities of the TV.
With Blu-ray, the media can apparently handle bitmap subtitles or "advanced subtitles" which carry caption-style "sound" information for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
Use HDBaseT. Problem Solved.
RCA only gives you stereo sound.
If you have a real receiver that can drive 3.1/5.1/7.1/9.1/7.2/9.2 speaker configurations then you want the PCM audio feed which is either digital coax (one cable), TOS link (fibre optic) or HDMI.
Now maybe normal broadcast television is only standard definition plus stereo sound, but if they broadcast surround sound with their HD picture, those two RCA cables will not get you the full experience (assuming that you have surround sound capability)
So,
we have
Standard, and then High, and then umm.. I think it's full speed, then we go to 3 and think about a optical connector and make the old HDMI and the new HDMI V 3 connectors work in the same port by making them different shapes.
Then intel will say they have the next big thing ready in not 10 but 3 years.
And that will be version 7, even though there's only been 3 versions before.
All this when really it's just a shrunk down updated (digital) version of SCART. which incidental has been 'unifying audio and video in one cable' since, well I think I had a BETA MAX with SCART on it.
All I'd say, it make sure you pay at least £3 and get one with all the pins on it (assuming you need them), amazon does a great DVI to HDMI cable to hook up your PC to a TV for a few quid, no problems.
Yup, by a *large* margin. I managed to push well over 1.5MB/s sustained over EPP. Never even got 1MB/s out of full speed usb.
...another $8 cable (includes shipping). I understand the point of the article is that for the non-techy consumer of Hi-Def equipment these new requirements are going to cause problems.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
Seriously.. overpriced cables, limited lengths, utter bullshit..
Probably why the likes of LG, Samsung and Sony are pushing for HDBaseT that uses good old CAT6 cable to deliver High Def signals instead.
Oh I can see it now, Monster Cable High Definition CAT6 cables, only $20/foot. pft..
http://www.hdbaset.org/
HDMI will be soon replaced with standard network cable (CAT5 or CAT6).
see: http://www.physorg.com/news197525576.html
Now watch Monster Cable start selling gold plated RJ45 connectors, just $300 each.
Of course you will need 2 to make a cable.
In the position of being the previous standard. HDMI will be replaced with a newer connectivity standard..... HD BaseT Can't wait for those Monster Cat-6 A/V cables.
By unifying video and audio into a single cable
LOL! WUT?
That was done in 1970 by SCART, every TV has a SCART connector (most multiple) over here.
Forty years behind the times, well done.
Expensive UTP? Been there, Done that
Capacitance and resistance fail.
"Just buy the thickest (wire gauge!), shortest HDMI cable you need now"
But the resistance of a wire to high frequency signals depends on the surface area, not the gauge of the wire (skin depth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect ). therefore the thicker gauge wire will be less effective than thin gauge with more strands.
Hammers: professionals buy the cheap sh*t because they get so much use even the expensive ones don't last and the price differential doesn't make up the difference.
Though this may be more the case with Saws, electric drills etc, rather than hammers, but even top of the range hammers are not great buys (old style hammers were great because you could change the handle if needed, but where do you get a replacement handle nowadays?)
I recently picked up an HDTV and I specifically needed HDMI 1.3 cables, the 'High Speed' cables. I figure I'll go cheap and see what happens, maybe I could get a good deal. I go to amazon and see a seller selling 'High Speed' HDMI cables for a penny with three dollars shipping. I order one and when it gets here, it doesn't work for 1080p. I go back the page I bought the cable from and it's renamed to something like 'Quick Speed'. I complained, got my money back and a free 'standard speed' cable. I get the impression that there are a lot of these shitty HDMI cable companies right now that seem to the think 'High Speed' in the HDMI context is a marketing term and not a technical specification. I then went to monoprice and got three 'high speed' cables for cheap. It's disappointing physical retailers sell them for ten times or more what they can be had for online.
The High Speed HDMI with Ethernet super-deluxe cable will be $8 at Monoprice, so I'll just buy one of those whatever I'm connecting.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak