Embrace HDMI Today: Why You Should Go Digital

component ending in two years? Maybe if HDMI worked reliably or could be ran a hundred feet or more cost effectively. Do we have ‘Resolution snobbery’ pervading the consumer psyche? Do you really have to have 1080P on every display in your whole house?

BigPapa,

I won’t disagree with you on your hesistation on HDMI due to reliabilty issues but I have to point out that these issues are almost exclusively due to past improper implentation of the agreed upon standards by hardware manufacturers, not the fault of the creators of the standard, just laziness on the part of the hardware enginers of such products.

I guess my response to cost effective runs over a hundred feet is IP delivery of such signals, which we all in this industry know is the only way that any high or low resolution video and audio signal can be distributed in a protected manor, that the content providers will be happy with, thru out a house.

The days of being able to distribute the output of a single cable box or DSS reciever,especially pay per view events is rapidly coming to an end.
I know and respect that the customer owns the signal once it enters thier house but the content providers are just not going to allow this to go on for much longer.

Hopefully the studios will watch what is happing with the ever so slight loosening of the DRM on Itunes and other sites and will allow legal multiple viewing locations for an event at a minimal cost for every extra location that is low enough that customers don’t care about paying for it at those locations. I mean a $50-$75 PPV event is expensive enough as it is, but if it were only $5.00 more to add it other locations it would not be a big deal for customers.

To give you an idea of how paranoid the studio content providers are now just look at the state of E-sata back up drives for cable boxes. All cable boxes with an e-sata port can be used as additional drive space for content but there has been so much incredible pressure put on the cable companies to not turn on the feature, ie threats of loss of future programming, that only SA boxes have been turned on in limited markets and can be used for this today.Even the TIVO series 3 recorder can not utilize it’s E-sata drive capability.

Unfortunetly that’s the mentality of the contentent providers that we are up against and so far the HDMI connector and handshaking method it employs between devices is the only technology/standard of transmission that has made the studios open to releasing more HD content.

It’s no accident that Disney is now on XBOX Live marketplace after the Elite 360 came out with an HDMI connector and now all premium XBOX 360’ will ship with HDMI ports, they now feel comfortable about thier content being secure and as a result we now have a great catalogue of content for our customers and ourselves.

I am in no way on the side of or agreeing with the studios requirements, I am merely being realistic as to the fact that like it or not they are making the rules and we as integrators have to do our best to provide our customers with the best experiences we can within those rules.

Finally, up until today the content providers have not elected to activate the token resolution control features that is embeded in all of the HD content that the cable,DSS,Off-air providers have been delivering to us and our customers. What happens if enough protected HDMI devices are in the marketplace that the content providers decide to turn on those flags to further encourage the use of such secure connections, how do you explain that to a customer who only has component cable run to thier TV,s and projectors?

I think Joel Silver’s recommendations to run both makes the most sense to me to cover ourselves and our customers.

And you can be sure that even with point to point IP signal distribution in the future, those end point devices will have HDMI connectors on them!

Andrew

Andrew,

HDMI is not ready for prime time, even if the IP is fully functional.

There is no field termination available which presents several issues:
1) Fixed lengths mean multiple stocking requirements and difficult wire management.
2) If you have a problem connector, you must replace the entire run.
3) very limited test gear available to know if a problem is related to the cable, connector, equipment or signal loss. Ethereal’s tester is great for the physical layer, but I have yet to see a field tester for the logical interface.

The connector itself has limited strain relief and dislodges easily.

VERY limited choices for CL3 rated cables, which again increases stocking requirements.

Single source, multiple display options are expensive and extremely limited.

I could go on, but why bother?

Yes it has some application and will be a force in the market, but I will not stake my reputation on HDMI because it does not pass the real world test. Regardless of the lab certification.

Andrew,

If you had said 5 years, I probably would not have commented. Judging by past experiences (such as Firewire), providing solutions take much longer that we all think it should. I agree in that we need to deal with the hand dealt us, but at this point in time I’m playing my component cards when it comes to distributed/blended systems. With 1.3a out now, HDMI should work 100% of the time, but until the caterwaul on our industry forums (and field frustrations) die down, HDMI is not as reliable as component. I wish it were, and I wish HDMI could run 200’ or I could go to TCP/IP distribution without busting our budgets.

Till then, I’ll be a crimping fool for at least 5 years. We’ll continue to recommend conduit in addition to component. As of this date, there is no HDMI matrix solution for our industry in existence, and I doubt there ever will be. Once DRM if fully resolved and content can be matrixed or copied locally, it will likely happen in the TCP/IP realm and only transfer to HDMI locally, to the display. Until, of course, all our displays have TCP/IP ports and the HDMI manufacturers have to hit the soup kitchens. But I don’t see any of this happening for 5 years. After that, there will still need to be backwards compatible media to work on existing systems.

If the CP’s do activate the tokens, the people who didn’t want to spend the extra money on conduit will have to go TCP/IP or, gasp, settle for lower resolution HD. Most CI’s pull CAT5e or 6 anyway anticipating a HDMI balun solution, but I’ll bet a shiny nickel or adult beverage that they’ll end up crimping good old CAT5 connectors onto them in the future… more than two years from now.

HDMI’s two biggest problems are length and reliability. Andrew, you addressed the reliability issue, rightlfully (in my opinion) placing the blame on the manufacturers/developers but what about length? In the majority of my customers homes I am placing flat panels on an enmpty wall and sending signals from a remote equipment location in a basement or closet more than 30 wire feet away. What is the solution here?

Jerod:
This is going to sound like an Ad (but its true).
Distance is not the problem that it once was.
We now get 1080P at 100’ (not cheap) using a digital High Speed Restorer AND a very well made cable.
Come September (CEDIA) we will be shipping our new Decora Style wall plate system that uses two category cables to get 200” of 1080P (1 cat 6 & 1 cat 5).
This system will be less money than the current cable/restorer package.
I think that the new system will retail for 549.00 (plus your category cable).
The new category system also has the same low speed (communication) driver/restorer and diagnostic tool as out current HDMI SR1 Digital Restorer.
As with all of our active/passive HDMI products (excluding cables) the category system is made in the USA (Fl. Actually).

Couple of problems…

HDMI is not an open standard. With the exception of the founding members, very few are given an inside glimpse as to what is coming next. Without the openness, there is no mechanism to feedback real world problems and potential solutions into the standard. You simply have to trust the creators to do a good job and consider everyone’s needs. I think that HDMI would be much better if the manufacturers could participate.

IP may be a solution for some types of source devices, but will also not be a one size fits all solution. For pre-compressed content such as movies, this is not a problem. But for uncompressed content such as Xbox360 and PS3 gameplay and MediaCenter PC destops, this would require the real time compression of the video, packetizing, and subsequent decompression before display. In other words, a time delay that would be unacceptable for gameplay. Probably on the order of 1/2 to 1 second in the best of circumstances. This also holds true for IEEE1394, and is why you see neither interface on game consoles (for video output)

The best solution to handle all needs is in fact uncompressed video, either analog or digital. Obviously both VGA and component are tried and true solutions. HDMI has its issues, and we all know that. Can the issues be resolved? Probably. Length issues? Expensive, but Brent@Ethereal et all are working on it. HDCP encryption compatibility? Old issues get resolved, new ones popping up. SimplayHD? Nice for those who participate, but since it’s not mandatory and expensive, there will never be 100% testing.

My opinion is that the best thing that could happen is to drop HDCP. In reality it does not stop video piracy, and it’s causing far more problems that any protection that it theoretically offers.

And here is my bottom line: Even though there is so much work yet to be done to solve all these problems, and potential solutions that may never happen, it’s “Dam the torpedoes, full speed ahead” to kill off analog component video. It’s too premature to make that call.

Show me a working solution, and I’ll get behind it.

Great points guys. I was speaking of video media only, not video games. I’d assume these issues could be conquered, if we had DRM lobby working with product manufacturers to resolve the hardware issues. Why not compress the audio with the video, send them together, then decompress locally at a TCP/IP to HDMI/HDMI+analog audio device? That will probably load up your 10baseT network, but it can be done, no?

The real issue is that although HDMI is a superior medium for transmission with regards to keeping signal integrity, it’s not superior in other real world aspects, and it still won’t be for another two years.

Wow,

Great to see all the insightful comments above.

In respose to Jberger I agree that there is no “Make it Up Yourself” cabability for HDMI, but I have seen quite a range in cable lengths become avaialble in the last six months and many companies such as Ethereal can work with you on in between lengths.

You should test all connectors at the shop before installing in the field and running a larger diameter conduit to your display devices that allows more gentle pulling and less strain on the connectors in shorter theater to rack runs.

Agreed on limited avaialbiltiy of test devices, but adopting standardized packages of equipment that you have tested to be free of compatibility issues and then still checking them again before installation with the actual equipment in you shop prior to installation is still critical to ensure that new product revisions are still reliable.

I think that if you truly need custom lengths of cable for odd out of the ordinary runs or very long runs the active HDMI repeating Systems with wall plates or systems that utilize Single/Dual Cat 5/6 connectors or fiber is the way to go.

Yes the above solutions are now still very expensive, but over time they will be more affordable.

Years ago a component switcher from Extron was big $,now Key digital Zektor, and Neothings make switchers at very affordable price points compared with the initial commercial market only offerings.

Locking connectors are being marketed today and expect to see many more at CEDIA in September.

CL3 is also an area that pricing will become more reasonable and the range of companies offering it will grow as commercial applications that integrate HDMI products grows with time.

Big Papa, in terms of Component cable going away I should have clarified that the days of sources and recievers providing jacks will begin to fade as it will not be cost effective to carry both sets of jacks on equipment, and based on the limited real estate for connector space on the back of recievers today, HDMI is a much more compact and efficient connector as it carries the audio and video together.

I just want to make it clear to all that I have no chip on my shoulder concerning component video, especially over distance to multiple rooms in a house as evidenced by the CEPro feature “Anatomy of an XBOX Install” done on an installation that I did for a client that featured all component cable switching of the media room video sources and XBOX to eight other TV locations in the house utilizing an Audio Authority component video and stereo audio distribution system. But even in that case I ran all the sources component to the switcher, output of the switcher went to the Audio Control converter component, but the actual distance run was achieved thru two cat 5E cable to each TV location active jack.

What is the difference if the above mentioned conveter box has an HDMI input connector and active electronics to manage handhshking of all the connected TV’s, and an active HDMI plate behing the TV or in a Walplate that has an HDMI output. It is still being run on two cat 5E’s?
If that enabled 1080P, to be determined by installer choice, and managed copies of DVD’s and HD DVD’s-Blue Ray would that not be a good thing for the industry and our customers/

Bill, you state that HDMI is not an open standard, it seems to me that may be true but if in a closed standard there can be so much variance in the way it is implemented or not implemented, as has been the case with the earliest non standard engineering variances that most installers found out really quickly with non-compliant cable boxes, an open standard would be a total mess!

As far as access is concerned I have made my gripes/issues know to HDMI at both last years CEDIA Expo and at both EHX shows that they had booths at and had no problem talking with them and found that they listened and took notes and said that they would pass my issues with cable box compadibility on to thier engineers.

All new formats/technologies have bugs and issues when they first come out.

A personal example of this that I can share is a certain very large projector manufacturer had a projector that ended in in 50 that one of my customers was insistent on having a 480P DVD player signal hooked up to , this was back when 480P was really new and expensive and the customer had been viewing interlaced signals for months via component video cables with no problems. The Progressive player we used was from the same above said company and we could not get it to sync properly and display a good image after days of tech support on the phone, custom boards, flipping every jumper switch avaialble and all to no avail. In the end it turned out that the projector’s look up tables just were not programmed, enginnering ommission, to handle that particular signal/frequency. The component cables themselves were fine, believe me we tested, re-crimped, etc many times and could find no problems with them. About three years later a Key digital component to VGA adapter solved the problem! So to blame HDMI’s early issues by sweeping analog video/component’s early woes is just not right or fair.

I am not sure what to make of your whole IP section, I watch movies downloaded from XBOX Live Marketplace all the time at 720P and if I had the ability to do that same download to a media center or windows home server and then have the streams output to extenders I don’t see your delay point. Especially with the WM 10 Codec quality and to Be fair Apples MP4 quicktime I cant see why that would be such a problem.
If what you are saying is true then how will IPTV ever be able to work,can’t we have multiple IPTV decoder boxes in a house and view the same event on all of them. The DSS companies are able to do this as well as the cable operators to hundreds of thousands of households at a time, is it really that hard to do in a home as you suggest?

I refer back to my above projector example as to your SimPlayHD being mandatory and expensive comment, that company was one of the DVD founders and they couldn,t get basic component 480P to work on thier own projector and i would have loved to have had a SimPlayHD around then to prevent what happened, which cost me all future business with that customer by the way.

Your statement about dropping HDCP is right on target and we both know that professionally standards such as SDI can provide much of the distance and ease of connection that would be great for custom installs. A SDI coax is great, that’s why the broadcast world uses it for thier production houses/trucks, but it is too naked for consumer use in terms of protection. Even though anybody with some rudimentary knowledge and a credit card can go to a Pro supply house and buy the gear, like being able to buy pro MD and CD duplicators professionally years back, but not on the consumer side-why would pirates want consumer grade stuff anyway to do mass duplication?

I certainly am not saying to “Damm the torpedos and kill off analog video”, I really like component analog video, and really miss the analog video projectors of the past for that matter, but the world has changed and as the noted professor Owen Harari has posited at a speech I attended based on his new book “Break From the Pack”, “You can either circle the wagons and dig in hoping that things/ your products should/will stay the same or you can embrace change and genuinely innovate around new products (Digital Video-HDMI)” and he closed his speech by saying “Today’s lunancy is tommorow’s conventional thinking”

I am just saying that we as the CI industry should lead and set the agenda for the digital video future of our customer’s digital video future!

Andrew