Super High-End Home Theaters
Fascinating Sci-Fi Home Theaters
Gorgeous Celebrity Home Theaters
Our favorite themed home theaters.
Print
Email
Comments (8)
Share
Explaining HDMI Versions and Variations
The High-Definition Multimedia Interface is one of the more confusing and misunderstood features of HDTVs. HDMI is the highest quality connection available for audio and video products, and it can support features, such as "Full HD" 1080p resolution and Dolby TrueHD, that other connectors cannot.
Moreover, HDMI is a single-cable digital connector that sends audio and video signals, replacing eight or more audio and video cables.
The problem? HDMI comes in various versions -- 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3a -- and you're not guaranteed compatibility even within the same version. (All versions of HDMI, however, do support 1080p resolution.)
Sony doesn't even give a version of HDMI for its products, because a version of HDMI doesn't tell consumers anything about the features the product packs inside. Instead, the company focuses on the features HDMI enables.
"HDMI 1.3 is not a minimum standard," says Scott Ramirez, vice president of marketing at Toshiba America.
"It's a list of options and, when most people talk about 1.3, as far as video enhancements are concerned, they're talking about features like lip sync and Deep Color," features for a future when content is available that can take advantage of those improved capabilities.
"You don't have to have anything in order to say you have 1.3. So, it's a little misleading to say you have it," Ramirez says.
All of Toshiba's HDMI 1.3 sets have auto lip sync, which is just one of the options of 1.3.
"People are throwing around 1.3 without asking what it means," he says. "I can say everything is 1.3, but some models have Deep Color and some don't."
For its part, Hitachi has elected to go with HDMI 1.2 for this year's models, according to Bill Whalen, director of product development, since many of the options of 1.3 relate to features that won't be in the market for a while.
"You need both sides for HDMI to make sense," he says, "but the content that can take advantage of 1.3 isn't there. To go beyond 1.2 is just not practical in the marketplace today."
Subscribe to the CE Pro Newsletter
8 Comments
I think that was the point of the article… that the specs aren’t standardized and so the tags of 1.2 or 1.3 or whatever aren’t really meaningful at this juncture. Or at least, that’s how I read it… I could be wrong.
“The High-Definition Multimedia Interface is one of the more confusing and misunderstood features of HDTVs. HDMI is the highest quality connection available for audio and video products, and it can support features, such as “Full HD” 1080p resolution and Dolby TrueHD, that other connectors cannot”
Not only is the above not correct it is misleading regardless of intention. It is the current popular choice for 1080P. Other connectors cannot? That’s just not true! Why don’t you instead say that HDMI is around soley for the purpose of content protection and to generate more equipment sales…Now that’s TRUE!
This is easily one of the most misleading titles I’ve ever seen—nothing is explained in the article at all. All you’ve written is a puff-piece that says that the various specifications have options that some manufacturers can choose to implement. However, those same specs also have some very concrete things that the manufacturers must implement.
This article is worthless because it doesn’t explain anything,go here for more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI
Worthless article. Thanks for wasting my time.
I hate to heap on the hate when everyone else seems to be doing it already. But an article with a title like “explaining hdmi versions and variations” probably ought to do just that.
Listen, there’s no harm in writing an article like this, but you’d do better if you gave it a more appropriate title, like “Why Knowing the HDMI version doesn’t tell you everything,” or something like that.
I’m just trying to offer some productive feedback. I realize you put some energy into writing this, so I’m not going to dump on you like everyone else seems to be doing.
I agree with Gremmy… thanks for putting some effort into writing… but really the only reason I clicked to read this article was because I thought it would explain the differences, like the title suggests. I understand this site gets ad revenue from clicks, but thats pretty pathetic. I come here because I dont wanna read http://www.electronichouse.com ... but now this site is giving me the same fluffy garbage.
Sorry, Rebecca, but your article doesn’t seem to clarify any confusion regarding HDMI. What is the difference between 1.2 and 1.3? What about audio? What’s the difference between 1.3 (a) and 1.3 (b)? Is it possible to know which components are compatible with each other before connecting them?
I’m glad that Component and digital audio still works 100% of the time, even if it’s only 1080i (which will be changing in the very near future).