Thread: The Great HDMI Conspiracy

HDMI, the greatest thing to hit multimedia since someone slapped moldy bread on a soldier's wound, right?

"It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency (RF) coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, or VGA." - Source

Not so fast. While HDMI promises one connection per device, it's not exactly an improvement in either video or audio quality:

The best standard "prior" to HDMI in terms of video quality was VGA, which supports "up to 2048×1536px @85 Hz (388 MHz)." - Source

The latest version of HDMI, meanwhile, sports a resolution of 2560×1600p75 (75 Hz refresh rate, progressive). - Source

So, is VGA inferior to HDMI? Nope. In fact, it'll push higher resolutions at higher refresh rates (85 Hz). At the HDMI/Blu-ray standard of 60 fps (p60), HDMI can do 1920x1200 with 30-bit per pixel color. But VGA can do 1920x1200, 30-bits at 85 Hz.

For audio quality, pre-HDMI solution was S/PDIF (RCA coax or TOSLINK fiber optic), which supports 24-bit DAT-quality rates of 48 kHz. Specifically, it was "originally limited to 48 kHz at 20 bits. Extended to support all modern formats, except Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, and DTS HD audio streams." - Source

So, is TOSLINK inferior to HDMI? Yes, but only marginally. The cable itself is more than capable of transmitting full Dolby Digital Plus (DD+ or E-AC-3 (Enhanced AC-3), but the S/PDIFF Tx/Rx electronics sending and receiving the light signal fall short.

Is it some inherent limit of the cables themselves?

Nope. It's been engineered that way to sell you ridiculously expensive HDMI cables are huge markups...

At least that's what was planned. You can still buy 1.3 or earlier HDMI cables for $60, or you can buy the latest version, 1.4, for as little as $12 online.

In the meantime, I'm chugging along with a Blu-ray player using component video and S/PDIF (TOSLINK) audio, and my DTS audio system never sounded better. As for video, I've an old 27" Sony flatscreen with component inputs that sports unbelievably realistic color, and whose resolution is remarkable when in 16:9 compressed mode.

For my computer, I'm using VGA at 1920x1200 @ 85 Hz video and S/PDIF (RCA coax) audio.

HDMI? Fuhgettabout it.

What I really wish they'd done instead is develop a simple gigabit or 10GBASE-T Ethernet audio-visual standard. With a synched audio-visual signal, it can easily transmit DTS-HD (7.1) or Dolby True HD (8 channels) over gigabit Ethernet via CAT-6 or 7, and would have no problem delivering the next generation signal, either, whether 10.2.

For that matter, it wouldn't have any problem delivering next-generation theater-quality video and 22.2 surround sound via 10GBASE-T (Cat 6a or Cat 7). That's ONE cable, capable of distances up to 100 meters.

By the way, 22.2 is the surround sound component of UHDTV (ultra-high-definition TV), the follow-on to HDTV. "It uses 24 speakers (including two subwoofers) arranged in three layers." UHDTV is roughly the same resolution as IMAX, and sports 16 times as many pixels as HDTV. For home use, the 22.2 would likely be downgraded to a 10.2 presentation.

The conspiracy is that they'll try selling you multiple $125 UHDMI cables for each of your components (minimum of three, one each between your TV, receiver/amp, and your Blu-ray player), when the cost for CAT-6a cables is about $1 per foot, and they come in pretty much any length you want or need. They reinvented the wheel, and charged us 10x what it would have cost had they stuck with the established digital standard of Ethernet.

For those who don't think it'll work, think on this: The uncompressed UHDTV video signal is 24 Gbit/s, and the uncompressed 22.2 audio signal is 28Mbit/s, for a total of less than 25 Gbit/s. The compression design for transmission, however, involves a maximum of 600 Mbit/s video and 28 Mbit/s audio. That's less than 700 Mbit/s. Gigabit Ethernet would be pushed, but it could do it. 10GBASE-T could handle several independent streams.

So why didn't they settle on gigabit Ethernet or 10GBASE-T? Simple: So the the industry could make cheap electronics using a different standard while charging you 10x what it cost them to make.

I am set up with HDMI here, but I bought cheap-ass cables from Amazon. Need to do some reconfiguration, the Blu-ray player only does 60 Hz, and the standard here is 50 Hz.