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."

Comments

Closed captions, hello?

[awtbfb]

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.

Re:My only question is...

[IndustrialComplex]

FTFA: By unifying video and audio into a single cable manufacturers have been able to make their products easier to set up than ever before.
And you HDMI is basically DVI in a better form factor.

I'm going to disagree with both of these statements. To the first, I almost had to toss the bullshit flag.

First, by tying the audio into the cable, it really ties my hands with how I want to design my system. Perhaps I want to run the audio to a receiver or processor first instead of to my television? Well, I'll have to have a receiver that handles HDMI, or I'll have to split the audio out of the HDMI cable and send that to the receiver.

My PC has horrid issues with HDMI, since most video cards did not support audio over HDMI, you could run DVI to a HDMI port on your TV, or straight HDMI... but then your television would tell your computer that it supported Audio over HDMI and your video card (NVIDIA in this case) would turn OFF your audio ports except over HDMI, of course, since my card didn't support audio over HDMI, it just output a 0 for the audio signal. I had to hack the drivers and EDID in order to trick my computer into thinking my display couldn't support HDMI audio. Every time I want to update my drivers, I have to edit the driver. This issue has been around for years, was fixed in some driver versions, reverted in others.

This is only a problem because of the convergence of audio into HDMI, and it is only the tip of the iceberg when you consider all of the potential issues that people can encounter.

As for the connector itself...
No, I much preferred DVI (Thumbscrews were great especially if you used a laptop) HDMI has a horrid connector that puts a lot of pressure in the wrong places and is easily dislodged.

Please give me my distinct audio and video cables back, I hate having a bottleneck.