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Why you need HDMI

As I work for a high-end custom integrator, I have a different relationship with HDMI at home and at work. At home, I love HDMI and Haven’t had a problem with it. At work, HDMI is a nightmare. I think it’s appropriate to discuss HDMI right now as it is a popular topic with a lot of confusion surrounding it.

So my first factoid concerning why you need HDMI: You don’t need HDMI. Component video is perfectly capable of handling the highest resolution video up to 1080p. Component, as a technology, is much more robust than HDMI and fits much more varied installation requirements. Some might argue the latest video codecs are only available via HDMI. That’s not true. All standalone Blu-ray Disc players output these codecs over analog cables to a surround receiver (if the player decodes the codec that is - but that’s the same caveat I give HDMI).

Just because you don’t need HDMI doesn’t mean you should avoid it.



HDMI is simple

As I mentioned earlier, I love HDMI at home. It works. Getting crisp high-def video and audio with one cable is great. It looks good, it’s fast to set up, and I don’t have a whole mess of cables behind the TV. The simple elegance of HDMI is its biggest draw.

At home you can have one cable from your HD DVD player, one cable from your satellite box, and one cable from your Playstation 3 into your A/V receiver and then one into your TV and that’s it. No more are you required to run bundles of cable from each device and deal with knots when trading out hardware.

With the new HDMI-CEC functionality a lot of new TVs and devices are coming with, it’s now possible to control your whole setup with one remote as well - without programming a thing!

HDMI is a pain

The problem with HDMI starts with its design. HDMI is the child of DVI, a perfectly capable interface for computer displays but poor for home installations. Component video is a coaxial cable with an analog RF signal. While this has problems of interference over long runs, the signal is usually still good at the display and you can cut the wire and terminate it wherever you want. DVI, on the other hand, is a twisted-pair cable with pre-terminated ends. The signal strength gets very weak in longer runs so the signal drops out. It’s also harder to pull a pre-terminated cable through a wall than a round cable and you can’t make custom lengths so you end up with short cables or long cables.

HDMI includes a couple more faults that DVI didn’t have. The DVI termination has screws giving a solid connection that can’t be shaken loose but HDMI’s connection is a slot which isn’t very firm at that. A heavier cable can wiggle its way out of an input on a TV, or in the back of a cabinet. HDMI also has increased the available bandwidth on the DVI cable to 10.2 Gbit/s which is nearly three times that of DVI causing longer runs to be even more prone to losing signal integrity.

At this stage in the game, HDMI is also difficult to distribute. Crestron, Control4 and other brands have Cat-5 distribution products that are very elegant and simple, but it’s based on the component technology. I’m sure in the next few years HDMI distribution will be standard, but right now we’re using very complicated means to distribute high-def disc players - and we’ll usually end up just using component from the player hoping the ICT flag is never turned on.

HDMI is the future

For most consumers, HDMI is the future. The compatibility problems we’ve seen in the past are practically non-existent now, and groups like SimplayHD are giving the industry confidence in the digital technology. Switches, distribution amps and even Cat-5 baluns are now available and practically every receiver and source device has HDMI. So what should you know about HDMI when you shop?

HDMI 1.3 is the latest specification available. The new features include:

• HDMI-CEC - I mentioned this previously.
• Deep Color & xvYCC - These refer to the increased color space used in modern displays. There are currently no sources supporting extended-gamut color space.
• Advanced Audio Codecs - With the advent of TrueHD and DTS:HD Master Audio, everyone is looking to get them. HDMI 1.3 is the easiest way to get it, and all it takes is a new receiver and Blu-ray and/or HD DVD player.

There were more additions, but these are the most important.

When you go to buy an HDMI cable, don’t be fooled by clever marketing gimmicks. Big, heavy cables aren’t necessary to prevent interference, it’s a twisted-pair cable. You don’t need gold connectors. And one of the most confusing - there is no such thing as an HDMI 1.3 cable. You can buy very inexpensive HDMI cables from some online retailers under $20 that work just as good as the $200 cable at Best Buy. If the cable works, you can’t improve the picture any more (unless you have spots on the screen, digitization or lines - but then the cable isn’t working). If you need long runs in your walls, we use active HDMI cables from Vizionware that work great. Lots of companies like Key Digital, Gefen and Tributaries also have HDMI extender amplifiers for use with passive HDMI cables for longer runs.

Tracking HD DVD sales

I’ve been sick the last few days (it wouldn’t be a holiday if I didn’t spend it miserable), so I’ve been catching up on the news of the week. It’s not really news, it’s like updates to old news. The Blu-ray side is claiming leadership in Europe with 73% of the high-def market there selling over 1,000,000 movies and 20,000,000 Blu-ray Discs of all media (presumably PS3 games and R/RE media - which still seems pretty high). They’ve also boasted about the 2:1 sales lead they maintain in the States. On the other side, the HD DVD PR Group has announced a total of 750,000 players, including the Xbox add-on. I found that a little strange because they have usually left out the add-on numbers and focused on the standalone sales. A couple weeks ago they boasted they were “near” 500,000 standalone player sales. Perhaps they didn’t get to that number yet so they went with the more impressive number of 750,000 hoping you would get confused and think they were still talking about standalone players (as one Twice reporter did).

I’ve frequently been confused with numbers from both sides because they might claim one thing and the next month another. So I’ve tried to gather as many sources as I could to track 2007 sales for HD DVD. This list may not be exhaustive, but I did my best.

Date	Xbox Add-on	Standalone	Total
14-Dec-06	42,000	-	-
8-Jan-07	92,000	83,000	175,000
17-Apr-07	-	100,000	-
11-Jun-07	-	150,000	-
25-Jun-07	155,00	-	~350,000
?-Sep-07	210,000	-	-
1-Nov-07	-	330,000*	-
8-Nov-07	-	420,000	-
27-Nov-07	-	-	750,000

*Based on 8 November numbers minus 2 November sales

I probably missed some announcements considering they come out every couple weeks, if you know any more let me know and I’ll add them to the list. I hate making HTML tables, so I’m glad this post it through.

Since 2001, Kaleidescape has been the leader in home media servers, delivering high-quality DVD content to distributed locations throughout the home via ethernet network. Many other companies have sprung up to challenge the entertainment server market offering myriad features, but every one of them has had to follow in the steps of Kaleidescape - often borrowing ideas. The elegance and ease of use Kaleidescape offers with their user interface is one thing every company emulates.

Aside from the hardware and software offerings, Kaleidescape has been watched by the entire A/V convergence industry for their court battles with the DVD-CCA. This is a complicated story, so I’ll try to make it brief. Kaleidescape is the only company to have obtained a license from the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA) to remove the Content Scramble System (CSS) from the DVD to rip and play back from the hard drive. This license requires Kaleidescape to use a closed system with proprietary software and hardware to limit the content’s output to mirror CSS specifications. This includes limiting analog video outputs at 480p, and the protection keys and unscrambled data cannot be on “user-accessible buses,” like the PCI slot. There is even a separate license obtained from Macrovision required for the analog outputs.



However, in spite of all the licenses Kalidescape has received, the DVD-CCA continues to claim the system does not stand up to the CSS requirements. The DVD-CCA has repeatedly sued Kalidescape over this claim and has lost every case. Most recently was a March ruling where the judge found in favor of Kalidescape. Since this ruling, the DVD-CCA is attempting to amend the license making it so the DVD must be physically present for the video to play back and that the CSS codes cannot be moved to a hard drive. This is ridiculous, of course, as it completely voids any advantage a hard drive based storage system yields. The good news is that the courts and appeals courts have all agreed with Kaleidescape in several court decisions. The amendment reads as follows:

6.4. Certain Requirements for DVD Products, shall not be designed to descramble scrambled CSS Data when the DVD Disc containing such CSS Data and associated CSS Keys is not physically present in the DVD Player or DVD Drive (as applicable), and a DVD Product shall not be designed to make or direct the making of a persistent copy of CSS Data that has be descrambled from such DVD Disc by such DVD Product.

Founder and CEO Michael Malcolm wrote a scathing letter to the Content Protection Advisory Council (CPAC) claiming the group is attempting to put his company out of business. The CPAC is made up of several electronics manufacturers Malcolm claims are using their position to stifle competition. None of the CPAC companies make a media server system. Malcolm wrote that the amendment violates antitrust regulations.

The purpose of this proposed amendment is to put Kalidescape out of business by excluding the Kalidescape system from the DVD playback devices authorized by the CSS License Agreement.”

I asked Malcolm if his company was seeking legal action against the DVD-CCA and he denied that in no uncertain terms. However he has previously stated they were looking at it.

Looking to the future

Like another product innovator, Apple, Kaleidescape doesn’t usually talk about future products and features. When I spoke to Michael Malcolm, founder and CEO of Kaleidescape, he would not comment on any plans to bring Blu-ray or HD DVD to the Kaleidescape platform. On August 16, Mercury News reported Malcolm believes the quality of DVD upscaling is so good that you cannot tell the difference between the new formats and regular DVD. This might hint at no future adoption of the formats. Another hint is Kaleidescape is looking to a future of delivering high-def content over the internet, something Microsoft is pushing as well.

In fact, their initial goal was to create an internet delivery system and even filed a number of patents on that technology. Malcolm told Engadget in a 2005 interview that the hurdle that has yet to be overcome is getting studios to agree to digital delivery. “To do Internet delivery of movies, you need to convince the content owners to license their movies to you, and you need a large enough installed base that it’s economically interesting to them,” he said. “But you need people to buy the platform, and you can’t get there without the movies.”

With studios like Universal, Disney and Lions Gate bowing high-def content on such services like VUDU and Xbox LIVE over the internet, I wonder if Kaleidescape will revisit digital delivery. In the meantime, they offer pre-loaded movie collections including categories such as “Academy Award Winners Best Picture,” and “The Criterion Collection Catalog.” This is a quick and easy way to fill up your hard drives with quality films cataloged properly with no work from yourself, and the best part is many of these films are hard-to-find.

Sony Blu-ray player price drop

Sony’s BDP-S300 Blu-ray Disc player will receive a $100 price drop next week to make an MSRP at $399, the lowest yet. Originally a sale was planned for a $100 rebate which was taken back for this new MSRP. Sony head Howard Stringer made comments about a week ago saying he expected this new price point but nothing lower, obviously they were planning this break when he made that statement.



There will most likely be sale prices in spite of Stringer’s remarks. One Black Friday ad for Best Buy had this player at $399 plus Spider-Man Blu-ray and a $100 gift card, bringing the total price to $299 cash value.

Blu-ray is also continuing the 5 free disc promotion through February.

The Blu-ray Disc Association keeps talking about doing whatever it takes to win this “war,” but I think they’ve got so much support and market position that if they were to really throw their weight completely behind the format this skirmish would have ended a while back. From where I sit it looks like the HD DVD side is really pushing their format and the Blu-ray side is over-confident and think it doesn’t matter what they do because the market will decide sooner or later in their favor.

New satellite service provides 1080p direct to your home

Currently the best picture you can receive over cable or satellite (including FiOS) is 1080i with 5.1 Dolby audio. Things are about to change.



XStream HD is a new company out of Virginia set to bring 1080p with 7.1 audio direct to your home. How do they do this? They have a new vision of not just providing content but also distributing it throughout your home. A proprietary media server will receive content from geosynchronous satellites and then deliver it to receivers in multiple locations.

This sounds like an exciting new technology. The company is claiming the 7.1 audio will be “uncompressed.” Finally a service provider who focuses on quality!

The product will be premiered at CES 2008. I hope it lives up to the hype and offers a wide variety of content. The last time we had a satellite provider offering high-quality HD content it tanked (Voom).

Panasonic BD1.1 player now available

In spite all of the reports otherwise, the new Panasonic DMP-BD30K is not delayed, it is in stock in stores and in homes. Why were there reports saying it was delayed until December 1st? Because “journalists” (bloggers really) are lazy and they report on rumors without doing any research. Amazon listed it for December 1st so everyone thought it was delayed, but that doesn’t mean Circuit City and other retailers haven’t been selling them in the meantime.



The DMP-BD30K came out of the blue (no pun intended) late last month. There were no previous announcements (possibly to prevent hurting sales of current players) and it hit the market a week later. Why would it hurt sales of other players? It’s the first, and only currently available, BD1.1 player on the market.

BD1.1 brings persistent storage and dual-video encoders to the player to add true Picture-in-Picture support for upcoming BD1.1 discs (such as Sunshine, Resident Evil: Extinction, and others). Denon will have on available in mid-December.

Daewoo announced a BD2.0 player but there have been no signs of it in the market. BD2.0 adds ethernet support to the BD1.1 spec.

As of October 31st of this year, BD1.1 is mandatory on newly-marketed players and BD2.0 is optional.

Why I don’t like Apple

Let me begin this whole posting by making some things clear. I am in general fed up with the entire computing industry. I feel like I’m being forced to walk the line of mega-corporations. I’m OK with industry standards and change, but too many times companies would rather go it alone and that bugs me. Yes, there is a place for proprietary software, but where standards work across multiple platforms and multiple applications, there’s something to say about about.

A little back-story: I’ve had computers my whole life starting with Basic on the Atari system. I’ve been on the internet longer than that name even existing. Remember the bulletin-board days? My first x86 PC had 500MB of storage. I’ve used pretty much every main-stream operating system from Apple II, Windows 3.1 up to today’s systems from Microsoft, Ubuntu and Apple. Several years ago, I was learning desktop publishing on PowerMac machines. This is where I developed such a distaste for Macintosh. I would spend hours working on a project just to have the system freeze and die on me (yes, I save and I use autosave). This happened so frequently and on several different PowerMacs that I would save my files on a ZIP disc to make sure I wouldn’t lose anything. This may not be the typical user experience, but it was mine.

Since then I have been a pretty big “hater” of Apple. Mac wasn’t good enough to be a door stop.



But something happened. Apple moved to Intel processors and essentially made their computers PCs running Mac OS. Microsoft also decided they wanted to move to Vista.

The last couple years I have been trying to move away from Microsoft and have been looking at different Linux distributions. I have Ubuntu Feisty Fawn and Windows XP as a dual-boot at home. I really like Ubuntu, but I also like Adobe software. I do quite a bit of graphic design and when I work on a project I know anyone I send it to is going to be working with Adobe so I can’t use a random open source solution. Add to that the fact that I despise Vista and I have a problem.

This year, I needed a laptop. I was going to need a mobile design studio basically. Dell has Ubuntu laptops, but that wouldn’t do the trick for me because I need this laptop to design with. At the time I would have had to go with an older laptop or get a new laptop loaded with Vista. Did I mention I despise Vista? So I did what I thought I would never have done, I bought a MacBook.

This is where I wanted to start my post, but I got a little distracted telling the back story.

It’s funny because Mac has this myth about it amongst the population that it’s a better product than any other computer. Apple has done a marvelous job marketing Mac as an elite system, and the high prices also help with that concept. When any of my friends or co-workers saw my MacBook (or random people walking by when I’m out in public) they immediately beam about how cool it is and gush about how Mac is so much better than Windows. I keep getting asked if I’m in love or if I’m going to drop Windows and never look back. The answer is, “No.”

This MacBook I’m typing on right now is no better than a PC.

Strong words, yes? But it’s true. Mac guys might talk about how it’s virus free. That’s true, but so is my Windows machine at work and my dual-boot computer at home. They might say it’s more stable than Windows. That’s yet to be seen. I don’t have many crashes on my PCs, but I do have my MacBook freeze on me frequently sometimes requiring a hard reboot. Does it crash more? No. I probably have more software issues on Windows, but I haven’t had to reboot in quite a while on them either.

I do like OS X better than Vista, but really that’s just an operating system giving access to applications. There are some things about OS X that annoy me, but Vista annoys the hell out of me. Some Windows guys might say you can get rid of all the annoying features of Vista. That’s true, but why not run XP instead and not have to worry about it? Or get OS X which is closer to where I’d be if I were to modify Vista anyway.

And now what you’ve all been waiting for: Why I don’t like Apple:

I don’t like the fact that you have to be in the Mac club. I don’t like the arrogant attitude of Mac owners which has found its way into prime-time commercials featuring a smarmy college student being sarcastic. I don’t have to live the Mac lifestyle, I don’t want to be part of the elite club. I know this is a generalization, but it is a perception based on the most vocal supporters. It’s probably the same reason I don’t like being associated with any group with really vocal idiots that make the rest of the group bad. It’s like Ann Coulter is the image of conservativeism. Huge Chavez is the image of socialism. Osama bin Laden is the image of Islam (somehow). James Dobson is the image of Christianity. You get my point? “Smarmy college student” is the image of Apple.

Further, looping back to the opening, Mac OS X is “smooth” because it comes with a bunch of applications pre-installed. Windows can’t get away with that (they’ve tried) because Microsoft gets sued by third-parties. It’s nearly as if the Mac platform is entirely proprietary because of it. It adds to the “club” feel and turns me off as well.

And that’s a brief summary of why I don’t like Apple.