HDMI 1.4 and Through the Ages

Key Digital had an interesting newsletter that got sent out this week. In it they had a table which went through the various iterations of HDMI, from version 1.0 through the newest 1.4. We thought it was a good chart, though we disagreed (slightly) with some of their assessments on the importance of each of the versions. I've also included their summary on HDMI 1.4 below. It's a great and informative newsletter and I recommend you sign up if you are in the industry.

As I hinted at in my article on The Twelve Biggest Industry Mistakes of the Digital Age I believe that HDMI is really more of a stop-gap interface whereas it could have been a new standard. Instead, we have a largely "stupid" new cable system that merely carries data. While HDMI will argue that its CEC system is cable of providing a platform for some of the negotiations mentioned above, CEC was pretty much an afterthought and is NOT standardized across platforms and manufacturers. It is also very simplistic and not nearly sophisticated enough to handle the type of communication users will soon expect.

In a general sense, it seems like HDMI is continuing to add features in a bid to stay relevant and possibly to maintain some kind of "lead" over rival DisplayPort (which has yet to make any inroads into the CE market beyond Macs and PCs). It is apparent that for the mainstream consumer, HDMI v1.0 was sufficient for everything in mainstream use today. 1080p, 8-channel PCM audio (taken from Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD sources) and the unstandardized and largely useless CEC were all present in v1.0. Improvements since then have been mostly an effort to assuage audiophile and videophile consumers' dreams of world domination - with no real practical application for the masses. 

While I can tell you without a doubt that most of my associates and friends understand (loosely) the concept of 1080p, none of them (not ONE) understand (or use) x.v.YCC, Deep Color, DVD-A, or SACD. They have no idea what CEC is and they do not use the lip sync function designed into the HDMI specification. They could care less about bitstreaming Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD because their HDMI-equipped A/V receivers do just fine with the multi-channel PCM output from their Blu-ray players (if they even have Blu-ray yet). 

Thoughts of Ethernet and digital audio return channels, while convenient to those of us in the know, are as far off as the hardware that will support these features - none of which (to our knowledge) have been manufactured yet. And 3D technology, while a nifty thought, is a long standard away from being a reality for consumers at home. And let's not even go into the physical form factor. Insertion loss aside, the friction-lock HDMI connection is a general nightmare in terms of falling out. Couple this with the many HDMI-over-Cat-5x and new HDMI-over-coax solutions and you wonder why we needed to go to this new bulky, glitch-prone, difficult to terminate and manufacture topology to begin with.

Overall, HDMI doesn't seem to be getting us where we need to be, and thus it is destined to eventually go extinct, to be replaced by a "smarter" standard. The potential for devices to work easily together and do more has been retarded as a result. The only hope for HDMI is a standardization of the CEC protocol into something that is actually USEFUL, instead of the vague guidelines present now. This seems almost impossible since so many manufacturers have developed their own proprietary systems. When manufacturers can commit to a single set of standards for interfacing devices and sharing data across all of them we will have arrived at something truly great. Until then, these incremental updates from HDMI Licensing are largely a waste of everyone's time and a source of great pain for manufacturers and custom installers alike. 

Further info on HDMI 1.4

• Ethernet Channel - This is the latest installment of the ever increasing HDMI capabilities with ever decreasing usefulness in the marketplace… Let’s assume that the TV is getting Internet access through a Blu Ray player using this input. What happens when you switch the HDMI input to a Satellite STB that may not have Internet access? What happens when you switch the input to a cable STB with Internet access? What happens to your internet session during the transition between input sources? Why would you rely on Internet access from HDMI if your TV may have uninterrupted Internet access through a wireless Wi-Fi signal or a simple RJ45 hardwired connection? Why should the HDMI source be your TVs gate to the Internet? There are many questions surrounding the wisdom of that connection.

• Audio Return Channel - Once the TV switches to the desired HDMI input, this channel makes digital audio available for display on an external A/V receiver like product, but does not feature input switching capability. Of course, you can use a regular A/V receiver for input switching, but the receiver already switches HDMI inputs and already has an audio stream available for the display. So what is the advantage here? In theory, you can take away the input switching responsibilities from the A/V receiver, and system integration can be easier by needing to only control your TV. However, you still need to make adjustments to the A/V receiver’s audio volume. Therefore, your TV remote would need to have IR codes for the Audio receiver or you would need to program a universal remote for control over the TV and the Audio receiver. I am not sure that we see any savings in programming. The cost reduction for an A/V receiver without switching capabilities is very small because most of the hardware in these products is responsible for audio decoding and amplification. The overall chance for future use is minimal in my opinion.

• 3D over HDMI - At this moment there is no 3D stereoscopic standard for TV displays yet. This feature is basically a place holder for such standards to emerge. It may or may not be compatible with what the industry will embrace as a 3D standard. Therefore, there are no displays or content yet developed. The structure of 3D will be embedded in TMDS (video/audio) portion of the HDMI stream. In principle, any HDMI cable should be able to pass this format. The discussion of implementing stereoscopic 3D for TV is ongoing and its future use in the HDMI cable is still pending the standardization process.

• 4Kx2K/24 display format - This format has 4 times the resolution of 1080p. It may be of interest to the content production community. Presently, only DVI digital interface offers this capability. However, the copy protection aspect of HDMI is of no use to the production community. It is not clear if HDMI will comp7ete with DVI or Display Port in this market. I think it will take a significant amount of time, if ever, for 1080p resolution to be “not enough” for use in the consumer and commercial markets. An additional hurtle is that the camera, telecine, and the TV all need to be at this resolution to take advantage. It will take 4 times the encoded bandwidth data rate to transmit 4Kx2K/24 compare to 1080p/24. That means to transmit one 4Kx2K it will take the space of four current HDTV channels or 24 current SDTV channels. That is a big obstacle in bandwidth for the limited Cable, Satellite, and especially Internet delivery systems.

• Expanded Support For Color Spaces
  HDMI technology now supports color spaces designed specifically for digital still cameras. By supporting sYCC601, Adobe RGB and AdobeYCC601, HDMI-enabled display devices will be capable of reproducing more accurate life-like colors when connected to a digital still camera.

• Micro HDMI Connector
  The Micro HDMI Connector is a significantly smaller 19-pin connector that supports up to 1080p resolutions for portable devices. This new connector is approximately 50% smaller than the size of the existing HDMI Mini Connector.

• Automotive Connection System
  The Automotive Connection System is a cabling specification designed to be used as the basis for in-vehicle HD content distribution. The HDMI 1.4 specification will provide a solution designed to meet the rigors and environmental issues commonly found in automobiles, such as heat, vibration and noise. Using the Automotive Connection System, automobile manufactures will now have a viable solution for distributing HD content within the car.