<img src="/images/hdmi_200.gif" alt="HDMI" align="right">Ever wonder what HDMI specs came along with which versions? Or why HDMI came along at all when there are so many connection types already from which to choose? Get all the details in this article, the first of a 10-part series on HDMI ... and which standards & devices you should have in your home theater.
[url=http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2006/07/hdmi_part_1_-_a.php]Read the Full Article[/url]
HDMI Part 1 - A Digital Interface Solution
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Rodolfo
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bonnermartin
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Rodolfo in your article you asks, do we need HDMI. Even with standard definition TV I am please to see and use HDMI as it means I can get the very best possible out of the SD supply source be it DVD's or digital SDTV.
The difference between analogue component and a HDMI feed into any one of our 3 HD ready TV's that has HDMI is most noticeable. I have a large library of DVD's from all around the world (all legal copies) nearly half are from the US or Canada and the best picture is when my multi zone Sony DVD player, up converts to either 720P or 1080i and outputs the signal via HDMI to our HD sets. ( Multi zone set in NZ are legal and as a New Zealander I was pleased to see Hollywood withdraw it's case against multi zoning here) We actually have a 4th 50 inch HD set but that don't have HDMI. My dream is to dump that and by a new 1920 x 1080 P 61 or 63 inch Plasma. I am looking forward to High Definition DVD's (open zoned naturally) so that we can enjoy the best that the world has to offer. I am not interested in pirated copies of DVDs one can always find places to buy legal copies of discs at a reasonable price. I have never paid the full retail price for a DVD yet as I consider them at that value to dear. If they want to cut piracy they need to drop the price to the point where it is not worth a persons time to copy a disc.
HDTV, incidentally is still only a dream her in New Zealand. (We are to get HDTV from Sky New Zealand late next year or 2008)
Even with out HD transmissions the up take of HD ready TV be they 1366 x 756 pixel TV's or there about, has been quiet amazing. We are even seeing some 1920 x 1080 Progressive scan sets now.
Keep up the great work with your articles. From one Kiwi reader in New Zealand it sure is appreciated
Bonner Martin
The difference between analogue component and a HDMI feed into any one of our 3 HD ready TV's that has HDMI is most noticeable. I have a large library of DVD's from all around the world (all legal copies) nearly half are from the US or Canada and the best picture is when my multi zone Sony DVD player, up converts to either 720P or 1080i and outputs the signal via HDMI to our HD sets. ( Multi zone set in NZ are legal and as a New Zealander I was pleased to see Hollywood withdraw it's case against multi zoning here) We actually have a 4th 50 inch HD set but that don't have HDMI. My dream is to dump that and by a new 1920 x 1080 P 61 or 63 inch Plasma. I am looking forward to High Definition DVD's (open zoned naturally) so that we can enjoy the best that the world has to offer. I am not interested in pirated copies of DVDs one can always find places to buy legal copies of discs at a reasonable price. I have never paid the full retail price for a DVD yet as I consider them at that value to dear. If they want to cut piracy they need to drop the price to the point where it is not worth a persons time to copy a disc.
HDTV, incidentally is still only a dream her in New Zealand. (We are to get HDTV from Sky New Zealand late next year or 2008)
Even with out HD transmissions the up take of HD ready TV be they 1366 x 756 pixel TV's or there about, has been quiet amazing. We are even seeing some 1920 x 1080 Progressive scan sets now.
Keep up the great work with your articles. From one Kiwi reader in New Zealand it sure is appreciated
Bonner Martin
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Rodolfo
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- Location: Lansdowne VA
Bonner,
Thanks for your insight of how HDMI has been for you, and for your kind remark about my work.
Believe it or not I just installed a Panasonic Plasma with SA HDbox for a person in DC with both HDMI and component analog, calibrated the set and after a couple of hours of work we found that component analog was looking better than HDMI, I left both connections active and asked the person to decide after long viewing what was better for him. Two months later he still prefers component analog.
I did another installation in FL a year ago with an Elite TV and SA HDbox, doubled up connections to test, calibrated everything, he still prefers component analog, and it was clearly better. Now this is a CRT based Set, probably the best RPTV created, so HDMI would not be expected to provide the full benefit on that set because the signal would have to be converted to analog to drive the tubes anyway. But that is not the point.
The point is, HDMI is not about a connection only, is about all the pieces that are joined together, some setups are showing that HDMI is as great as preached, like yours, some are not.
But there is one catch, for the setups where HDMI is not better, component analog could eventually suffer the constraints of content protection, at that point those owners would feel that the new technology of HDMI is a step backwards for their viewing.
My question of: Do we need HDMI? was not against, neither in favor, it was to motivate thinking, neutral thinking. In fact, as you will see on the 10 articles, I am mainly showing the virtues of the digital connectivity concept, and I am absolutely independient in my thinking and writing, a feature most magazines can not have.
Enjoy the next 9 parts, and thanks again for your kind words about my work Bonner.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
Thanks for your insight of how HDMI has been for you, and for your kind remark about my work.
Believe it or not I just installed a Panasonic Plasma with SA HDbox for a person in DC with both HDMI and component analog, calibrated the set and after a couple of hours of work we found that component analog was looking better than HDMI, I left both connections active and asked the person to decide after long viewing what was better for him. Two months later he still prefers component analog.
I did another installation in FL a year ago with an Elite TV and SA HDbox, doubled up connections to test, calibrated everything, he still prefers component analog, and it was clearly better. Now this is a CRT based Set, probably the best RPTV created, so HDMI would not be expected to provide the full benefit on that set because the signal would have to be converted to analog to drive the tubes anyway. But that is not the point.
The point is, HDMI is not about a connection only, is about all the pieces that are joined together, some setups are showing that HDMI is as great as preached, like yours, some are not.
But there is one catch, for the setups where HDMI is not better, component analog could eventually suffer the constraints of content protection, at that point those owners would feel that the new technology of HDMI is a step backwards for their viewing.
My question of: Do we need HDMI? was not against, neither in favor, it was to motivate thinking, neutral thinking. In fact, as you will see on the 10 articles, I am mainly showing the virtues of the digital connectivity concept, and I am absolutely independient in my thinking and writing, a feature most magazines can not have.
Enjoy the next 9 parts, and thanks again for your kind words about my work Bonner.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
Last edited by Rodolfo on Wed Jul 26, 2006 8:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Richard
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Hi Bonner,
For your application the benefit you are seeing has to do with scaling far more than the connection. When you get your HD DVD don't be surprised if that difference disappears at 1080I with HD DVD only because either connection will be that scan rate. With SD you can't use component HD scan rates.
Upscaleable DVI/HDMI enabled DVD Players
viewtopic.php?t=3539
For your application the benefit you are seeing has to do with scaling far more than the connection. When you get your HD DVD don't be surprised if that difference disappears at 1080I with HD DVD only because either connection will be that scan rate. With SD you can't use component HD scan rates.
Upscaleable DVI/HDMI enabled DVD Players
viewtopic.php?t=3539
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bonnermartin
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- Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:16 pm
Hi Rodolfo,
I found your response very interesting and my question is why did component analogue give a better picture?
I do my best thinking while I am asleep and this morning my mind was full of questions of what would cause an analogue component connection to give a better picture than a HDMI connections. HDMI is a digital connection passing only digital information. So degrading of the information, must be caused by something at either the send end or receive end of the circuit. Is something been added or removed, in the handshake between the two pieces of equipment.
This could make an interesting article. Perhaps with your expertise you may be able answer this question.
For your information I run a TV equipment installation business in Katikati, a rural town as part of my retirement interests and find a lot of installation work where the best connections have not been made between customers equipment. I do not subscribe to all the hype over fancy cables. I install good quality cables, up grading customer installations to S-video, component or RGB or HDMI connections where possible. It is amazing the number of people who will still connect composite of heaven forbit RF, when there were better connections available. I follow the Video Essentials recommendations in my business. Some years ago I was in a double blind test on interconnects and speaker cables while in London UK, where no one was able to consistently pick exotic brand cables over mid price quality cables. Budget cables where identified more consistently because of their weaknesses.
Regards Bonner Martin
I found your response very interesting and my question is why did component analogue give a better picture?
I do my best thinking while I am asleep and this morning my mind was full of questions of what would cause an analogue component connection to give a better picture than a HDMI connections. HDMI is a digital connection passing only digital information. So degrading of the information, must be caused by something at either the send end or receive end of the circuit. Is something been added or removed, in the handshake between the two pieces of equipment.
This could make an interesting article. Perhaps with your expertise you may be able answer this question.
For your information I run a TV equipment installation business in Katikati, a rural town as part of my retirement interests and find a lot of installation work where the best connections have not been made between customers equipment. I do not subscribe to all the hype over fancy cables. I install good quality cables, up grading customer installations to S-video, component or RGB or HDMI connections where possible. It is amazing the number of people who will still connect composite of heaven forbit RF, when there were better connections available. I follow the Video Essentials recommendations in my business. Some years ago I was in a double blind test on interconnects and speaker cables while in London UK, where no one was able to consistently pick exotic brand cables over mid price quality cables. Budget cables where identified more consistently because of their weaknesses.
Regards Bonner Martin
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Rodolfo
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Bonner,
Your question can not be answered with a canned response. Not all the cables are created equal. Not all digital is better than its analog version. Not everything one could see as difference is produced by the cable but as I said, the group effect of the pieces of the connection, in addition to the cable.
In the case of the Pioneer Elite the CRT RPTV needs analog to drive the tubes, if the signal of the source is in analog form, using DVI or HDMI to connect would mean that the signal would have to be conevrted to digital at the source and back again to analog at the TV, any time there are conversions regarless of how good cabling could be, there will be a risk of loosing original quality.
There are many areas in the source and receiving equipment that could make an ideal connection look worst, and there are also areas in the cable itself that could make great equipment be seen degraded, even when transporting simple zeros and ones.
HDMI cabling manufacturing could not use the same old techniques used for analog cable manufacturing, the lenght of all the pieces of that HDMI wire has to be exactly equal, or the difference in lenght could produce the fast signal transported on that wire to have different arrival time at the other end, which would have an effect on the image.
Interestingly enough, a superthick cable that some people could prefer for transporting a signal, could produce a problem as HDMI transport if manufacted incorrectly. The super thickness could cause the ends of each piece not to be exactly equal in length when they arrive at the plug. Equipment did not have anything to do with making the signal worst in this case. Some people could have thought a thicker wire could be better in all the cases, ignoring construction, quality of material, plugs, etc.
In other words, cabling is not all that could go wrong, equipment is not all could be wrong, I always consider cabling a piece of the system, and there many things that interact together on any system that could make the end result not as good as one expects. And we did not even talked about compatibility problems, HDCP, etc.
Cabling has created a lot of confrontations in many exchanges of ideas everytime some says I hear better, I see better, I paid less, I paid more and is better, its all zeros and ones anyway what could go wrong? etc etc. I am not going to get into that subject more than this and I do not plan to argue about it either because cabling produces an special reaction on many people whenever the subject is brought to the surface, but I offer this, I am planning to publish a dedicated Part of this series of articles that briefly discuss HDMI requirements for 1080p and 1.3. Another wiring for those? Stay tuned.
Enjoy your retirement, especially if you are doing something you always liked.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
Your question can not be answered with a canned response. Not all the cables are created equal. Not all digital is better than its analog version. Not everything one could see as difference is produced by the cable but as I said, the group effect of the pieces of the connection, in addition to the cable.
In the case of the Pioneer Elite the CRT RPTV needs analog to drive the tubes, if the signal of the source is in analog form, using DVI or HDMI to connect would mean that the signal would have to be conevrted to digital at the source and back again to analog at the TV, any time there are conversions regarless of how good cabling could be, there will be a risk of loosing original quality.
There are many areas in the source and receiving equipment that could make an ideal connection look worst, and there are also areas in the cable itself that could make great equipment be seen degraded, even when transporting simple zeros and ones.
HDMI cabling manufacturing could not use the same old techniques used for analog cable manufacturing, the lenght of all the pieces of that HDMI wire has to be exactly equal, or the difference in lenght could produce the fast signal transported on that wire to have different arrival time at the other end, which would have an effect on the image.
Interestingly enough, a superthick cable that some people could prefer for transporting a signal, could produce a problem as HDMI transport if manufacted incorrectly. The super thickness could cause the ends of each piece not to be exactly equal in length when they arrive at the plug. Equipment did not have anything to do with making the signal worst in this case. Some people could have thought a thicker wire could be better in all the cases, ignoring construction, quality of material, plugs, etc.
In other words, cabling is not all that could go wrong, equipment is not all could be wrong, I always consider cabling a piece of the system, and there many things that interact together on any system that could make the end result not as good as one expects. And we did not even talked about compatibility problems, HDCP, etc.
Cabling has created a lot of confrontations in many exchanges of ideas everytime some says I hear better, I see better, I paid less, I paid more and is better, its all zeros and ones anyway what could go wrong? etc etc. I am not going to get into that subject more than this and I do not plan to argue about it either because cabling produces an special reaction on many people whenever the subject is brought to the surface, but I offer this, I am planning to publish a dedicated Part of this series of articles that briefly discuss HDMI requirements for 1080p and 1.3. Another wiring for those? Stay tuned.
Enjoy your retirement, especially if you are doing something you always liked.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra