Many people have said a lot on this topic.


Okay. Test for what? Will the Gefen switcher and the Scientific Atlanta HD DVR and the two outputs going to the projector and the plasma have DEFINED somewhere what is right and what is wrong?

We have effects. I see no definition of what we should have.

Okay, I am not quite understanding your question.
However, as with any thing else in CI it is a good idea to hook up the equipment (or at least representives of) with the actual cable that you plan to instal. As mentioned is this and other threads HDMI/HDCP product compatability is and will continue to be an issue. Do not guess or take a reps word for it. Make sure that it ALL works, my testor will verify that the cable is sound not that the gear will work.

Ernie:

Based on discussions we had in the Digital Video class at CEDIA, any system that involves multiple displays being sourced from a common component could (and most likely will) have issues regarding HDCP. The source is not setup to respond to the EDID from two devices simultaneously.

All:

As for the solution to distributed video in the digital realm, the ultimate and best solution is Serial Digital (SDI). Unfortuneately, none of the major hardware manufacturers are ever going to give it to us because of the lack of DRM.
SDI sure looks to be the best solution due to simplicity, and a large installed base of broadcast facilities that have proven its robustness. To bad we'll never see it :(

Brad

I just ran a 50 foot HDMI cable from a D* HDTIVO to a Toshiba display with no issues using Key Digital Cobra HDMI cable.

If you are going to connect multiple devices to a single HDMI input you will need to use a HDMI switcher. These will need to have a built in scaler which will manage the EDID and HDCP between devices and display. I do have a HDMI switcher in the lab for which I am writing a module but, alas, I have just one digital device, an old Sony HD-200 which has a DVI connector. Neither the Integra DVD players nor the Sony 777ES have HDMI connections.

Alan

Alan:
Are you going to be at the Anaheim show?

When is it and what is the price of hotels in Anahem?

When I took Michael Tinsberg's course on digital video he made the same point about testing cables when running them. Few who have ever had the privellege of being in the same class as I will believe how strangely silent I was at this class. Yet here I did speak up and ask how might one test a cable with no pins if one did not own a portable oscilliscope --and given the 7k cost that is an item I suspect will be found in too many trucks pulling cable. He suggested keeping a small TV and HDMI DVD player in the truck. "Will this guarantee success with the actuall display and digital sources we will likely to install on this job", I added as a follow up. Not in all cases, was his response.

He did claim that with his cables you could go 75 ft and with his repeater and 2 of his 75 foot cables you could succussfully manage EDID and HDCP. I am no fan of the subjuctive in any language except in the case when a doctor is informing me that I probably will not need penacillin shots. Yet this is the case we find ourselves. With the possibility that the new D* DVR/IRDs may only have HDMI a possibility we may need to take more trial by fire risks. Love this job, hate the industry.

Alan

Alan: Nov 7-10
I did not make the room res. but Paul from Parasound told me he found a room for $130.00 a nite.
I have also gone 175' with no problems using my repeater on a SA8300HD, Samsung DVD and a Pioneer DV59 DVD.
My tester should run a dealer about $80.00. It will do a "wire is good" test, we can not test for compatability.

Julie, sorry, but you emailed me some time ago that you had passed my questions on to someone. That is why I used the word Experts, with quotation marks because I had not had any response yet...but I have not had any response even now.


Julie, I take it you put in that thread because he said something good in it, but I can't find it. What name does he use? Or did you intend for us to go to www.invisiontech.com to look for his comments?



I was trying to bring attention back to the original post at the top of this thread. I have some components; when I hook 'em up, I get weird results and there is no documentation to tell me what to expect, what I can get, or how to make it not be weird. So,


I can test day after day but if nobody has given me a list of things to test for, well, how can I get anywhere?


That is exactly what was done. And that is the connection condition when the problems showed themselves. The other two threads did not seem to indicate that they were using substitute cables and things did not work right; things just did not work right!


So you have a solution for the copper part of the equation. What is the equipment supposed to do? Where do we find this out? Does it vary from manufacturer to manufacturer?

I am seeing yet another product that is not ready for prime time.

What we are seeing is a new standard for really high speed data where certain steps in the hand shake may be problematic. 1.66gps is an asoundingly fast data rate. How many gigbit computer networks have you seen? I recall having to set some computers to half duplex 10baseT to get them to communicate with some of the first cable modems. What I am told we are seeing is manufacturers implementing the EDID and HDCP handshakes in the least expensive way possible. This handshake takes place but once and if anything is missed there is no way for one device to tell the other to send it again. This all strikes me as similiar to how serial protocols are generally used by those of us in the CI field. We use them as one way protocols because using feedback is too costly and possibly too difficult. It works as long as the wire is not very long and the data rate fairly slow.

Yet the HDMI standard is still changing and the data rate is really fast. It does appear to varry from manufacturer to manufacturer as some take the higher road. The cable does seem to be imporant, especially the termination. At these data rates having every wire the same length and terminated at the exact same circumstances supposedly matters. How did I learn about any of this? I took Michael Tinsberg's class at CEDIA on digital video standards. I would not say the class was empty but there were plenty of seats in the class I was in. Final quiz: According to the specification, what is the longest a HDMI wire is supposed to be? I think you will find that many of the problems begin at this little fact. Everyone assumes short cable runs between decentralized equipment. We generally centralize equipment and so are pushing the standard beyond its capabilities. This happens in serial communication too. I can send RS232 data or composite video much father then the specification permits. But those standards have been around for a very long time. As installers we have less experience and few product solutions to our issues, partially as these issues have still being discovered. I have a fairly high end lab in my office. I have no devices with HDMI in them. I have still to see the new Integra equipment with HDMI switching that we saw at CEDIA. There will be a shake out period.

Alan

Alan is correct. It is nt so much the copper as it is mfgr's cheaping out or not realy understanding how to make it work.
We are working on putting up the compatability issues (here possibly) as dealers/mfgrs bring them to our attention.

That Invision Tech link leads to some home inspection company's site...

The Invisions guy is Jeff.
I am having diner with him tonite if there are any questions I will ask him.

A client wants to know whether he should buy a close out receiver at a great price with no HDMI switching or wait a year for the model he *may* want, that will come with the HDMI switching built in.

Are more monitors coming out with more than one HDMI input?

I'm supposing that HD set top boxes and HD DVD players when they arrive will be our sources - is that about it?

hard question

I would say HDMI is becoming more and more important

- with ICT on BD and HD-DVD and possibly on other stuff (cable/sat boxes/PCs....) that HDMI is becomming more important

- BD/HD-DVD also have added new better audio codecs (Dolby HD, DTS plus) that are lossless.

If he needs a receiver now, I would recommend something he does not mind upgrading in a year or two. I am guessing the new receivers that can handle 7.1 lossless through HDMI will come out sometime in 2008 and be extremely expensive.

And the answer is, that is to say, "this little fact" is: