3 Ways to Improve HDMI

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.