Alan, we've been through this before, and I've repeated it in this thread. DCP contacted us for a compliance review last year, and found nothing wrong. You just don't seem to want to accept that HDCP decided to allow some Approved Retransmission Technologies that make it possible to do the things we do. We don't "get around HDCP", as you've falsely accused us of doing. We just administer it in a different way than what you are used to hearing about. HDMI and HDCP are all about the content and keeping it protected, and that protection is carried through the Just Add Power solution. You know I can't prove anything, because there is no source of proof available. I don't think you really care what our answers are, and I believe you've already made up your mind to not want to use our products. That's why I don't want to waste my time answering your questions, as you don't really want answers.

That said, for the sake of civility I will now address each of your specific functionality questions:


We do not support it natively. As we've said before, the vast majority of distributed video applications we've been asked to support use the 2.0 speakers in the TV's or seperate in-ceiling speakers fed by the audio distribution solution independently. For example, we have several sports bars installed with 50-70 screens, and none of those customers need Dolby HD audio to watch NFL Sunday ticket. For residential dealers with a requirement for surround sound in some zones we have provided them with example 3rd party solutions that can be used to extract the full 7.1 audio and distribute it independently. Look at the Atlona AT-HD570 for an example of a device that can accomodate this requirement. We will gladly give a detailed schematic to legitimate dealer requests.


Yes. Our solution has nothing to do with CEC and doesn't support it at all. Every CI we've worked with seems to know lots of other ways to implement their desired level of remote control functionality. Some even use the same CATx cable for the JAP 1G solution to carry their distributed control solution. We'd be happy to help you accomplish the same if you ever decide to use our solution.


False, the CAT6023/CAT6613 chipsets we are using do support deep color. Personally, I think this is really a BS question, because nobody has ever released a deep color title, and no studio has indicated any intention to ever to this. But yeah, if you plug in that imaginary deep color source it will work with our system. I wish I had one - do you have one?


No, we already support some 3D, but this is not easy to answer completely, as 3D isn't quite finished yet (the last time I counted there were 11 competing standards and practically zero content). For example, we do have reports of SkyHD 3D in the UK already working fine with the 1G devices. Frankly, I've not heard from a single installer that they have a need for distributed 3D content. Until a 3D winner becomes apparent (which may never happen), there is no way for us to determine if there is a demand for distributed 3D content. I do know it is not safe to walk around your house, a sports bar, or the shopping mall, wearing 3D glasses. If/when the market settles, we will then be able to address that requierment. Consider that a "leak" of our eventual 3G series, but please try to keep it a secret....


Our product works over Ethernet and we support Ethernet. Now perhaps you are talking about that flaky HDMI 1.4 Ethernet channel concept:

Here is the current Internet/Ethernet worldview of HDMI 1.3 (and everybody else)



Here is the vision of HDMI 1.4 - your TV becomes the Router!



I don't think this has anything to do with our distributed video applications - I also think it has a snowballs chance in hell of catching on. Everyone is thinking the Ethernet Channel is about delivering IP to your TV through something like your AVR - that's not what the folks at www.hdmi.org are showing (this is their illustration). More importantly, it should be noted that our devices don't require or use internet content, so this feature is not applicable to our solution.

Now with regards to the conflicting legal advise you have been getting from other manufacturers, I have just one question. Were the ones giving you the advice actually legitimate bar certified lawyers being paid to give you legal advise? I've heard that legal advise is generally worth the price you paid for it. I am not a lawyer, and it's not our responsibility to explain those other companies answers and positions to your satisfaction. The next time one of them offers you legal advise, I would suggest you ask them if they are a lawyer.

Now you may not have noticed, but this is not some sneaky infomercial thread like you've suggested. The OP started the thread with a legitimate interest in wanting to learn more (unless you've decided 39centstamp is now part of the JAP viral marketing conspiracy). Furthermore, I have never had any contact with poster "amirm" before, and you are being rude to accuse him of being a compromised contributor to the conversation, and I suggest you apologize to him for that.

The tendency for said poster to give the wrong answer is surely proportional to vagueness of the one asking the question ;). You asked:

"Is Ethernet available as well as HDMI? Or is this RJ-45 just passing HDMI?"

You want good answers, ask clearly what you want to know. "Ethernet available" doesn't mean anything to anyone. And I answered how it is not "just passing HDMI over RJ-45."

If you know enough to know that my answer was wrong, why did you ask the question?


Blu-ray doesn't support that either. Do you want to write a letter to BDA about that?


What the heck is Dolby HD? Do you mean TrueHD? If so, you don't need HDMI 1.4 for that. Bitstreaming works just fine over HDMI 1.3 and you could decode TrueHD and send out PCM which would then work in all flavors of HDMI.


Once more, you don't need 1.4 for CEC. Are you trying to write a poem so that all of these rhyme or is there a better purpose? :)


Now this is a strange question. Your source is not sending an Ethernet signal for the receiver to receive. Ethernet over HDMI is a singe cable convenience for the receiver. The Ethernet connection feeds it connectivity to the Internet which presumably would come from your router, not from the video source.

Who is everyone else? My xbox doesn't have 1.4. My PS3 doesn't have 1.4. My cable STB doesn't have 1.4. None of my 6 HD DVD or BD players have 1.4 either. I don't bitstream over HDMI either as that would eliminate audio mixing in BD players.


First you don't like my answers and now you demand one ;) :).


What do you mean by high-speed data? Ethernet? If so, raise your hand if you are using HDMI for that. Hmmm, no one raised their hand :D.


Look, if it doesn't support audio, I am bummed as that is a valid complain. All the other things you are saying are non-essential things that many other people don't support or have no use for.

I have no connection to the company other than being pleased that someone is finding a low cost and *very* clever way to route a pain-in-the-neck signal (HDMI) around the home. If you don't appreciate it, then move along. No one is forcing you to use it and rest of us don't need you to save us :).


No I was not. Had nothing to do with HDMI. Not sure I would show my face anywhere if I did :D.

I am going to let my earlier posts stand and not bother to debate these points further. I've stated my position clearly. I sincerely hope this solution is legal. In fact, your implementation is precisely what I wish manufacturers had built into their products. If a processor sat between source and display there would be far fewer HDMI issues and much faster EDID handshakes.

A statement that confirms that source and display never communicate would be a start. What features of HDMI protocol are and are not supported. At that point each CI can vote with his pocket for a solution that works but which may carry risks. Some would agree with Amir that the features you left out are unnecessary. Others might prefer to wait for solutions that ( with new chip sets ) will solve many of the older issues but conform to a more conventional mode of authentication; one that carries with it zero risk of invalidation.


With respect to Amir: I hope you are a better engineer then you are at logical argument.

Bluray specification most certainly does support deep color. No disc released to date has deep color encoded on it. There are x-box titles that are encoded with deep color. If you don't think deep color matters ( and I've seen it and it'd be far more dramatic than 1080P ) how about 3D? Think the 3D display you just praised in Widescreen might require this data?

Just because there are few sources using 1.4 doesn't mean that HDMI connections in receivers, switchers, and splitters, particularly equipment that is not yet on the market oughtn't to be compliant with the specification. Crestron DM and the soon to be released Ethereal baulins will be 1.4 compliant. They will allow you to distribute INTERNET ( does stating Internet make it clearer? Thought not. ) as part of the HDMI system. These devices will support deep color and 3D. It's bandwidth, chip sets and system design are future compatible. This is the CI forum, not the ultimate high end forum on AVS. If I knew that 2 CAT6 cables would deliver this to the display reliably and I had a control system that supported CEC modules, that might be all of the cables I'd run to that location. Would this be valuable information a CI might find useful?

Uncompressed multi-channel audio is part of the original HDMI specification. This is news to an editor from Widescreen Review? It's absence in this product might be seen as information one would want.

CEC has been part of the original HDMI protocol Implementations were rare till recently and then typically only among a manufacturer's family of products. If it's part of the protocol oughtn't it to be available? Wait a second? Don't most CI's not want to turn off this feature? Till now, yes. But in theory, particularly in high end CI systems, you'd want to use this channel to carry control data to the device. High end control systems are making use of this data channel. Useful info for a CI? News to a Contributing editor from WideScreen Review?


If you need Internet at the display, if you need control at the display and you have a single CAT wire there are baulin systems soon to be on the market ( but which no Blackwire's have come blasting shofer's ) that will do all of the above. JAP solution will only carry HDMI on their single CAT5.

I did a very basic Prodigy job with 7 Blurays 2 x-box, 2 Wii and 3 AppleTVs. That's 12 network ports on a Gigabyte switcher. If I wanted to include the display in that system? An other 7 ports. Think having Internet on the HDMI system might be valuable to a CI?

HDMI picture is made up of audio/video data stream the EDID and HDCP handshakes, power, CEC data. Most manufacturers of HDMI distribution systems have chosen to separate these out on to 2 wires, into the data stream carrying the video on one wire and the serial data and audio on the second. The separation of the video data--high speed, and the handshake data--low speed is found on a HDMI male/female connection. This separation is news to a contributing editor from Widescreen Review?

It turns out that getting the video or high speed data to the display is less challenging that getting the low speed or serial data for the handshakes to the display. This is news to a contributing editor from Widescreen Review?

Become involved in the business of CI and you may discover that Internet is more important that you might think. I'd love to send display control data via CEC but if that's out wouldn't it be nice to send them as Ethernet packets? As far as you're concerned serial protocols, discrete IR are also irrelevant? The system I'm using would have to allow me to input Internet on one end and extract break it out on the other. Products that do this already exist and will be more common once new products using the new chip sets are released. They are coming shortly. This is news to a contributing editor from Widescreen Review?

Current implementations of CEC, well, suck. But what if I could append to the HDMI system serial commands for those devices? What if the switcher allowed me to insert this data on to the HDMI system so I did not have to run additional cables for IR/RS-232? Might this be seen by the typical CI as valuable?

CI in this market actually would like a product like JAP's. It's a value product that solves a lot of HDMI's issues, first and foremost it provides a picture on the display every time. By itself this makes JAP's product news and a valuable addition to a CI's arsenal. If you purchase this for your own home and the evil HDMI entities later adjudge it as illegal you gnash your teeth and purchase a traditional matrix switcher using baulins. You've lost some money and perhaps have a few extra ports on a switch. If the CI sells a product that is invalidated he's going to have to replace it out of his pocket and/or defend a law suit.

This dilemma may not be JAP's fault but information is still power. Each person can assume his own risk tolerance.

Any way, I'm done. Amir can continue to pass on misinformation and Ed continue to sell without my participation. I've had my say. forewarned is forearmed.
Alan

Whoa, Alan I think you misread his post. It looks to me like he is saying YOU could IGNORE HIM.

Please don't get me wrong, I think Alan makes a lot of very valid points and its definitely no argument that the JAP solution isn't a FULL HDMI solution, however he has said again and again that their solutions is completely legal and compliant. Maybe he can't explain why, but that's not for him to decide either.

You say this and then post 5 pages worth of stuff :D. So much for letting things stand.


Damned by faint praise :D. I am not sure I am good at either but I try.


I am more than involved. I have my own CI company. See my signature below.


Got it [says he as he scratches his head as to why this is a requirement then for JAP].


If his device gets revoked, yes, that is a bad thing. If you had paid attention you would have noticed that I also commented on that point, except that i did that with personal knowledge and not FUD from his competitors ;).


I am sure I say things that are wrong from time to time. No one is always right.

Ed, please in no way take this as piling on, it's just the opposite. You've been quite extraordinary at listening to our channel, so perhaps if I explain some of our previous experiences with similar issues, you will understand why some are deeply concerned about the legal aspects.

Hopefully you are familiar with Kaleidescape. If not, I suggest you do a little Googling about their lawsuits. When Kaleidescape first came out they made a HUGE issue out of the fact that they had gone to extensive lengths and spent huge amounts of money to make sure their solution was "legal". They gave us endless assurances that it was the one and only solution we could sell with no worries because they were a DVD CCA licensee, and told us how they had spent a huge amount of money with lawyers to make sure their solution was fully compliant.

Fast forward a year or two and Kaleidescape is sued by the DVD CCA who says their solution is in violation of their contract and that lawsuit has been going on for a few years now and it is very worrisome. If Kaleidescape loses that lawsuit the exposure for our channel will be huge, there are CI's who have put in systems in the 6 figures. Imagine telling those customers the system cannot be repaired or worse, it gets shut down! Now Kaleidescape has come out with a solution for Blu Ray and dealers have similar concerns about that solution being compliant.

That is but one example, I could give you so many more with other vendors in this industry providing solutions they assure CI's are "legal" when they are either not, or exist in a grey area. Balanced power products are another great example, they are sold by numerous companies in our industry for residential use even those NEC code clearly states balanced power should only be used in commercial applications. Said manufacturers always claim their products are in compliance or that a loophole applies.

Bottom line, as a custom installer we are used to companies assuring us that their solutions are "legal", only to discovered later that the assurances we received were false, and that is where our fear comes from. In the case of HDMI there are a lot of claims being thrown around in the marketplace with some companies claiming their solutions are "legal" and other companies saying they are not (I am NOT referring to your company in this instance).

Anyhow, that is why some of us are deeply concerned about this issue. So anything you can do to assure us that we won't be facing a Kaleidescape type situation/fear is much appreciated. Like Amir, I am very happy to see this solution on the market.

For those with their panties in a ruffle, I ask this.

Do other vendor's solutions pass the criteria you are setting forth for JAP?

From an outsider looking in, there does seem to be quite the negative, aggressive tone with JAP & Blackwire.

I will say, full disclosure was in order with BW but think these conversations can be quite informative for both us CIs and the manufacturer if done in thew proper way.

As a CI, I'm glad a manufacturer is here filling in some of the blanks. I think Ricks post about K Scape is EXTREMELY relevant to this and helps shed some light on Alan's quest for info that really came across as some old skool nut twistin.

How can he PROVE that it's a legal solution?

He can't really prove it but can disclose more details of their implementation so that we take more comfort in what they have done. The detail provided so far (approved HDMI transceivers) tells us that the two end-points are kosher (which we could have guessed) but we are still in the dark as to what happens on the wire.

The magic word we need to hear is that the packets of video on the Ethernet wire are encrypted. Second magic word or phrase would be that they did not cook up their own scheme but rather, used an approved method for doing so. Finally, hearing that such a method is either licensed or approved by DCP, would give us all the comfort we would need.

Expanding a bit, the HDMI receiver's job is to receive a secure stream, and output it in the clear (non-secure) ready for processing or display. The bits normally would be used inside an A/V device which is harder for prying eyes to go after them. Once you packetize that data and put it in a standards-compliant way on the Ethernet wire though, all bets are off as sniffing and capturing of Ethernet traffic is readily doable. Sure, you would have to reverse engineer their compression scheme but based on what they have disclosed, that seems rather trivial. And in some way having them precompressed makes capturing easier as the data rate is lower. Decoding of said bits can then happen offline in a PC.

Mind you, I think DCP appears quite lax about going after people as opposed to say, people who hack BD. I have heard of stories of other devices which strip off HDCP and as best as I know, they are not chased. But risk remains as David pointed out earlier.

why is everyone being such douchers?

BW is a nice enough guy, but needs to work on his people skills.... and needs to understand the world does not revolve around him....

[email protected] is a good guy

look we all know hdmi sucks dirty rotten smelly ass! jap has a solution that works. only question is it black and white or a grey area?

jap is not the problem

hdmi and the stupid consortium is the problem!

if you guys would put as much effort into crucifying the hdmi man as you are with BW and jap, maybe we would not be in this horrible situation to begin with....

Just my guess but probably because they don't fear the economic implications of it in the same way that Hollywood fears the implications of easy access to ripping which in turn means easy access to file sharing. Of course the latter is already a reality but I think they are trying to stop it from reaching a Napster level of ubiquity.

However I don't assume it will remain this way forever, it could just be low on their radar *now* as they deal with more pressing threats. I can absolutely see them going after it big time if/when a lot of shows start to get flagged as unrecordable at which point they could see such devices as a way to record and share content.

Amir, perhaps you missed my earlier reference to HDCP Approved Retransmission Technology (google it please). DCP has approved a number of manufacturers to produce devices that fall under the ART classification. Reading about ART's will prove the existence of legal loophole that allow things outside the the perceived normal "rules" that still can be legally produced because they clearly are designed to effectively frustrate attempts to access, intercept, or redistribute the content in any way that compromises the protection of the content. Several CI's have complained about us not supporting a network client to watch the content, and that's not ever going to happen, because we believe it would compromise the content. The content in the Ethernet packets is encrypted with the necessary level of robustness to satisfy the concerns of the content owners. It shouldn't shock anyone that you can get permission to distribute HD content over Ethernet (ever heard of NetFlix or Vudu?). Those movie delivery systems deliver the precious protected content over the INTERNET in an encrypted way that satisfies the content police. We restrict our solution to only work on a LAN topology (the JAP signal cannot be forwarded over the Internet via a router) and it is protected at all times.

I imagine the source of frustration for some is the fact that we don't disclose exactly which technology we are using. Such a detailed disclosure would only serve the purpose of making it easier for competitors to copy our ideas. I'd much rather lose the business of a few paranoid CI's then write a detailed cookbook for the competition.

BTW, we're not the first to implement the concept - look up Avocent Emerge MPX1000, SVSI Volante, or Black Box Video and Audio over Ethernet Extender System - we just figured out how to make it more economical than our more expensive predecessors. None of them have disclosed the most important technical details of their solution, and neither will Just Add Power. We just managed to get the costs down to the point that the technology would appeal to the CI marketplace.

agree, I think that is the issue. that some have and they want to have a definitive answer. It is easy to show a blind eye now, but what happens if the studios go to HDMI and say "look we got rid of Analogue because you said you where secure, prove it to us by closing the loopholes or we get rid of HDMI and go with someone else.", HDMI will then go to HDCP (if it is past their grasp) and say "look the studios got rid of Analogue because HDCP is supposed to be secure, prove it by closing the loopholes or we both lose out."

Here you address Amir’s point #1 and are saying that your solution is approved by the DCP. My only concern is why do you use the term “legal loophole”? Can you clarify?


Cool, so on point # 2 you are good too. Can you answer point # 3?


I’m not looking for any disclosures on the exact technology you are using beyond the questions Amir asked above, all of which you’ve answered save # 3. Are you at liberty to answer that question?

Lastly, I know Alan can be a bit tenacious but I tried to explain in the most cordial of ways why this is a huge concern for some CI’s. To respond by dismissing us as a “few paranoid CI’s” is disappointing and frankly poor PR, especially when some of us “paranoid CI’s” have been recommending people look at your product. Do you think I would even be asking these questions unless I was interested in supporting the product? It is routine for me to have potential customers express concerns to me because they were burned in a relationship with another CI. I can't imagine dismissing their concerns as "paranoid".

I don't understand this. If the encryption is proprietary, then it would need ART and then you should be able to prove it by pointing to the list (look, here we are on the ART list and we are fully compliant). If it is not proprietary and it is a 3rd party encryption that you use (which is the way I understand it) then what are you protecting by not divulging what you use? Obviously the encryption is not what is important to making "visual lossless" video over Ethernet but the encoder/decoder you use. Why not just say we use encryption X and here is X on the list?