The locking connector is a good idea but it would require drilling into the chassis which I doubt is a very good idea.The only feasable solution is a plastic shroud that fits over the connector and a flange with adhesive tape for the chassis,the only problem is there is no standard size connector.
As for the protocol I think the industry should stay at 1.3 so the manufacturers can catch up with the technology.HDMI 1.3 supports technology that doesn’t exist yet(outside of a lab) so developing HDMI 1.4+ is a waste of time.
To sum up:the ship has sailed on trying to standardize the HDMI connector because millions of CE products are already out there in use.If any companies like my plastic HDMI shroud thingy then give me a call

I think HDMI is a joke - despite articles to help it along, the professionals I know already responded to a product that doesn’t perform. They just don’t use it. The handshake keeps real multi-room video switching nearly impossible, it’s not a viable solution. 1080p over component or vga is a much better solution for now. I have high hopes for DisplayPort, but we’ll see.

I agree with Drew.  The only reason HDMI has survived this long is because of end-users who bought into the hype.  I can’t tell you how many customers that don’t have any real HD sources absolutely demand that we put in HDMI.  They’re the same customers who look at the 480i picture after we’ve given in and put in the HDMI cable and go “wow, that looks so much better.”

We can kill HDMI, I know we can.  We just have to pull together.

As an integrator who has been using HDMI quite successfully for the past year now, I have to disagree with the prior comments. Most of the installers I know have begun to use it for each and every display save the extra long runs or distributed systems. The color and black levels (in my opinion) have been improved when using it on cable/sat boxes too. All this is based of course on using known cables of good quality and designing the system with plenty of headroom from the start.
I would like to see the standard set at the current 1.3a with some (any)sort of locking mechanism for the connector. Honestly, does anyone really see 1440P coming anytime soon?? We still don’t have much from 1080P. Give the industry time to catch up and standardize and thing’s would go alot smoother.

Aside from the debate about using HDMI for distribution, for single-room cinema jobs HDMI is pretty much a given in these install today.

Even though I was one of the biggest loudmouths about HDMI’s deficiencies in the last couple years, essentially boycotting using it in client’s systems until recently, last fall when my old team did up my new basement Media Room, we made use of HDMI switching and scaling products, and we have been completely free of the issues that had plagued us previously.  As an end user, I’m happy with how HDMI hardware is working in my system.

The manufacturers should also label the cable connectors 1.2, 1.3a etc so that if one runs into an already installed cable or has an old one lying around without the packaging, one knows what it is.

Two times the slightest pressure has broken the hdmi connector from the circuit board on my projector.  Each time I was without a projector for 30 days while it ws shipped for repair.
Four teeny solders onto a plactic circuit board? really? Its ridiculous, why did dvi know to have screws and these guys don’t?  I am going back to component.

it’s just a lost cause. DVI is robust and works great for computer’s on screen. My issue with HDMI is that it didn’t fix a particular problem - the ‘one wire for everything’ idea is fatally flawed in that most people break out the digital audio anyway. I’ve done a lot of testing with HDMI vs component (quality cables) and I’ve actually found myself preferring the analog system.

A lot of good information.  Thank you Lee.  I’d like to try to answer some of the questions and or objections with regard to HDMI.  A locking connector in its current form won’t work because of the realestate it would take.  HDMI connectors with and without flange have been available from the beginning if mfrs wish to take advantage of it.  Drew, I hope for your sake that HDCP never truly becomes a reality because you would have a major problem if we were cut off from any resolutions over 480 in the analoge world.  All versions of HDMI are backwards compatable.  Robert, your question was also one of mine.  Maybe DPL, the rating system will be able to help us.  I keep checking their website http://www.dplrating.org for the results of their cable testing.  I understand we’re supposed to start seeing them within ten days.  They did send me a matrix of the feature pack by each version of HDMI including 1.3 Cat 1 & 2 Just keep asking questions and eventually we’ll all end up understanding the digital interface a lot better.  Oh, by the way, you may find that Display Port is very similar.  Another system to change to, no way!

Drew, why would you “break out the digital audio anyway”? For Dolby True HD or DTS whatever you would/will be shortchanging yourself. Now when dealing with multizone audio you may be breaking out the audio, but why else??

I just read the article and about the first 5 responses. Why don’t all of you in the industry just go out in the woods with a gun. Each man would shoot the man next to him in the foot and pass the gun on. The next man would shoot the latest shooter in the foot. Because that is, figuratively, what the setter of the HDMI standards and the makers of the cables and the makers of the A/V equipment and the custom installers are all doing in terms of damaging their incomes with the HDMI scam. I am thoroughly enjoying my great Tandberg 2075 stereo receiver, 32 years old this month, and my 21” Sony. I’ll buy a converter box for it and keep watching it for another 10 years.

I will not be ripped off by “the industry”. We consumers see the unending iterations of HDMI as a scam to deliberatly obsolete equipment as fast as we buy it. Either that or, at a minimum, evidence of gross stupidity by the industry. I will NOT be ripped off by you guys. Lousy cables with all the problems you cite in your responses, an unending, (literally!) series of iterations of the standard, nothing works, nobody knows how to make it work, so what we do is just spend our money on other fun stuff!!!!!  Wonder why the phone isn’t ringing or, when it does, it’s another irate customer? You know why.

The mere fact that we see 1.3b tells us, at least those of us who have studied math, how many more iterations are to come. If you had used letters, like Version A and Version B etc., it would have suggested 26 possible versions. But, you see, when you use numbers, the number of possible versions is clearly very large. Some multiple of the number of electrons in the universe, e.g. at a minimum.

Get all HDMI cable version administrators and the cable makers and the component makers and the installers in a big hall in Tokyo or Stockholm or New York. Hammer out an agreement that THIS is what we can do right now technically, and THIS will be the standard for HDMI from now until 2030. No changes allowed. Then get the standard setters- ISO or whoever it is, to get it codified and then enacted into law by the 20 largest industrial nations in the world. Have the UN use its auspices to standardize the standard. Then every 30 years meet to upgrade the standard for HDMI. Use the UCC approach.

That way, the world can prosper, move forward and enjoy A/V. What if in 1950 various record companies and turntable manufacturers had come out with 78 rpm records and 75 rpm records and 76.5 rpm records and then later 45 rpm and 44 rpm and 43 rpm and 46.3 rpm records? Nobody but a few rich morons would have bought any of it and that is exactly the response you are getting today.

If and when you follow my advice here, you can all start earning a nice living. Until then, enjoy going broke. As I see it, this nightmare represents a failure of government. 

This mess will only be solved when you all agree to meet, set one standard, and then get your national governments to enact it into law. Those laws will all begin with the phrase “Until the year (2030), this shall be the HDMI standard for all cables, components....offered for sale to comsumers in....”

Loran W. Harding, Stanford ‘64.

That was my point, more or less, Loran.  You just said it better than I did.

Posted by drew: I think HDMI is a joke - despite articles to help it along, the professionals I know already responded to a product that doesn’t perform.

While there has certainly been resistance to HDMI, it is lessening now. Installers are starting to reliably do installs at distances up 200’.

Posted by drew: They just don’t use it. The handshake keeps real multi-room video switching nearly impossible, it’s not a viable solution.

Also true and also changing.
Many people forget that the robust VGA/Component switching that we now enjoy took many years to develope (actually many more than HDMI).

Posted by drew : 1080p over component or vga is a much better solution for now.

It maybe (today), but what about high rez audio and control (CEC is now being implemented).
More importantly when the content flags get turned on (and they will because they will effect a very small portion of the buying public)component will be limited to 480/540P.

Posted by drew: I have high hopes for DisplayPort, but we’ll see.

For all practical purposes DisplayPort is just like HDMI just a different company.

FTIW:
Cables mfgr’s (and I am one) make more money with less problems selling component/digital cables.

Loran,
You obviously have NEVER dealt with any computer manufacturer in the world.  Good Luck, You really need help.

I appreciate all the comments here. When I went to CEDIA last year, my main objective was to ask all manufacturers ‘what is the deal with HDMI’s failure?’ (obviously a pointed questions). Without fail, from Marantz to Pioneer to LG etc, every engineer I spoke to agreed it was awful. Both to develop with and to implement.

I’m absolutely pining for a reasonable digital video/audio transmission format. I’ll jump in when it’s an true IP based solution delivered via copper or multi-mode fiber.

So much of the installs out there incorporate analog signals, I’d expect content flags to exist in the 1080p world only (kinda=HD Fury anyone?), but then 2k and 4k via IP. Once that happens, stripping the HDCP will be even easier than it is now and they’ll give up. DRM is a silly idea anyway. Bandwidth, IP Network Design and Service are the future of this industry. HDMI doesn’t fit into that plan.

and just to be obvious about it - any delay in picture when the display turns on so the HDCP can sync is extremely lame. our clients don’t want that, and neither do I. JV

Drew, hdmi IS all about bandwidth too. HDCP is a joke, but I won’t shortchange our clients by not installing the 1080P standard weather it has it’s flaws or not. They pay me to know how to make things work, work well and work easily. As I said earlier, we have figured it out to great results.

Loran, Well Put !!

I hear you Faster48, and I agree. I put in extra CAT5 (x4) and fiber microduct for the future - but the 1080p solution is kinda a myth. There’s little content at that resolution - when there is more, there is bound to be a better way to transmit it.

Coming at this from the designer side…

I agree with the never ending spec revisions being a huge problem. 1.3 is total BS and provides no useful benefits for most people. Everyone seems to have forgotten that HDMI has *always* supported 12 bit YUV. Everyone also seems to have forgotten that all sources like DVD, Blu-Ray, ATSC, etc. are all 8 bit 4:2:0 YUV.  HDMI isn’t the limiting factor, bad encoding standards are…

Where we spend gobs of time/$ in development is making HDCP work.  HDMI as a signaling protocol isn’t far off from DVI. The underlying technology has been used for ages and is extremely robust (though you can still screw it up if you’re not careful).

HDCP also forces switches and the like to be extremely complicated and expensive (because you can’t simply ‘Y’ the signal to get two outputs).

And for manufacturers the license fees and legal liability for a HDCP license make the mafia look like Mother Teresa…

For the consumer HDCP only makes their product more expensive and less likely to work. It increases development time and limits innovation. And this is passed off as a BENEFIT?  I really would like to know what drugs the people that thought HDCP was a good idea were on…

Yeah, the usual suspects mutter about “content protection” but the lack of content protection hasn’t hurt the DVD industry one bit.  And the pirates are going to crack the source, not the decoded content…

Except for the mechanical issues, put the blame for problems on HDCP. If we didn’t have to waste so much time and effort on that there would be more resources available to getting quality video across the interface.

If we are dealing with a BROADCAST standard, government standard-setters control what happens. We got NTSC ~1946 and it controlled what happened in broadcast TV in the U.S., at least, until the next big standard, ATSC was adopted by the F.C.C. ~1997, some 50 years later. Now we will live just fine with that for 30 or 40 years, I hope. But if it’s stuff that does not get onto the airwaves, like HDMI standards, governments let the market decide what happens, and what is happening is chaos. I say again, governments should step in here and legislate what the standard will be for HDMI or any equally good alternative for the good of consumers, in my opinion. All of you in the industry will have to push governments to do that. Disorganized consumers will never do it.  If you cannot agree on a standard, you will continue to limit yourselves to rich customers- those who can afford to have you rip out all their equipment every five years and install all new stuff. Maybe that regime generates enough profits for all of you. Maybe just philosophically, you don’t want to lock in a given level of technology by law, because for sure there will always be small, incremental improvements that are possible. I guess you have to decide whether you want A/V to be a niche market for rich people, or do you want it to be a true mass-market industry. As business people, I would think you would decide that question based on which will generate the most profit. But I say again, if you want huge revenues you will demand that governments step in and set a standard and then the twenty biggest industrial nations will adopt and enforce it. That can be done, but you in the industry will have to demand it. If all of you do, I am sure that national governments will act.

It may take a commission of the European Union or even the United Nations to co-ordinate it all and get it done, but you can make it happen if you want to. I’ll just add that as a consumer with limited resources, the constantly changing standards for everything in A/V makes me think that it is an industry for rich consumers. I mean things like tape and then a bunch of different DVD disks in video cameras, and then of course this nightmare with constantly changing HDMI standards. I have assumed for a long time that the constant obsolescence in consumer A/V products means that the industry has figured out that they make more money by constantly selling upgrades to a comparatively small number of rich consumers than they would by selling vast numbers of units with frozen technology to the mass of consumers. I think deciding if that is true or not will determine whether you do what I am suggesting about setting some standards and getting governments to lock them in for a few decades at a time.

As a consumer, HDMI just bit me in the ass.  My new HD TiVo will not play with my new Sharp 52SE94U TV (the TiVo works ok on other TVs.) I am left with using component video.  While this is not that bad, there is only one component video input on the rear, so I am forced to use S-video for another input.
Since the TV was just released a month or so ago, I assume that a future firmware update may fix it....but what a pain.  This HDCP crap needs to go!

And what is with connector designers? HDMI lacks any retention mechanism.  My cell phone charging cable at least has that. This was a no-brainer to foresee.  And, slightly off topic, ESATA cables are also missing any type of retention mechanism too.  Again, a no-brainer.

I feel your pain, Caesar.  I first went through the exact same situation nearly four years ago with a client’s 37-inch Sharp and an upconverting DVD.  Six months later, another client’s Denon AVR5803 nearly drove me insane because it would only give me the HDCP black screen of death sometimes, but not always.

I do agree with earlier posters above that the real future of HD video lies with broadband networking.

This is maybe one of the best comment threads ever on CE Pro.  I’ve gotten a lot out of your responses.  Thanks!

Caesar:
The problem that you are having is NOT the fault of HDCP.
It is caused by a dropping of the low speed data stream.
This is the question/answer conversation that must go on between the source/display before video/audio will be output from the source.
First: did you replace your HDMI cable with another brand?
Second: did you contact your cable service provider about swapping your STB?
We have not had to deal with these issues since we developed the low speed data EQ.

I tried two high quality cables, but they were both the same brand (Wire Logic), and besides, it is only a 6ft cable.  I have not contacted the cable company because the same problem also happens just by playing a previously recorded HD show. By fast-forwarding or backing up the TiVo a bit, the TV sometimes puts up the message “Receiving auto control signal now” for about 4, then the video returns.  About a third of these times, I lose all audio.  Backing up or fast forwarding again usually brings the audio back.  If you are bored, you can see a 1-minute video of this here:  http://64.142.124.30/tivo
I am at a loss as to what to do now...besides complain to TiVo and Sharp and hope that they both don’t point fingers at the other.  My money is on Sharp as being the culprit.