So, with both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD ostensibly debuting this year, what are the chances that there will be an actual standard for HDMI soon? I ask because we're talking about getting the big screen TV this Christmas and I want to upgrade the trusty old 1050.

I'm looking at getting a 1070 with the pending tax refund. I want the advantages the new Outlaw gear provides and I can't spend enough at one time to move to separates. I would make the move in stages, since the 1050 has pre-amp outs, but I doubt my ability to convince my wife that spending close to $1,500.00 on an amp (something that she won't be able to discern a difference with) is a good idea. It’d cost less to upgrade to the 1070 and she already thinks spending that much money is a bit much.

Anyway, I read (on the Digital Bits, maybe?) where you won't be able to get digital audio out from the next gen players w/o HDMI cables. Since the current generation of Outlaw gear utilizes DVI (a decision I agree with), I'm wondering when the HDMI standard will be set. If soon, what are the chances that Outlaw will incorporate it? I don’t mind dragging my feet on my receiver upgrade if there is a chance that Outlaw will be implementing something within the next year.

Alternatively, if I’m misunderstanding what I’ve read on the subject of the audio out for the next gen players, someone please clarify for me! I’m trying to semi-future proof my purchasing and would appreciate any advice or insight.

Trick answer: The "HDMI Standard" is set, but for the moment it is only set at the 1.2 level. In order to pass through the HD video streams AND Dolby Digital + AND DTS-HD (now "DTS Master Audio") along with some other stuff they've got up their sleeves, we need to wait for HDMI 1.3 -- or beyond! Hard to tell when that is going to land. Of course once the standard is set there is a time lag until chips "sample" (so that manufacturers such as Outlaw can design products) and then are eventually available for production runs that go into real products.

Real answer: "Those who know aren't telling, and those who are telling really don't know."

I've seen any number of web articles and new items in other media that have butchered attempts to explain the HD situation, and sadly I expect to see many, many more over the next few years.

There is already an adopted standard for HDMI that will work with both Blu-ray and HD-DVD - in fact, it appears that both the current standard (1.2) and the previous standard (1.1) will work with these formats. In both cases, however, the catch is that the player needs to decode the audio so that the HDMI output consists of an eight-channel PCM digital stream. At that point, it's a relatively simple task for players to toss in a set of DAC's and offer a 7.1 analog output. The information I've seen (there's a good article out there produced by Dolby that was pointed out to me late last year) indicates that there will be an HDMI 1.3 at some point (although when that will be adopted is unknown - I've seen sites suggesting it could be as soon as this summer or as late as never). When/if it arrives, HDMI 1.3 will allow the player to pass the original digital bitstream to a receiver or processor. That is the arrangement that many people are desperately wanting to see, since it moves us back to the hardware structure of requiring players to solely act as mindless transports and focusing all the processing and D/A burden (at least on the analog side) on the receiver/processor.

Outlaw was able to roll out a slew of new gear over the course of the last year (the only products in their current line-up that were there in January 2005 are the LFM-1 and some of their cables). In order to do that and not be out in the cold when Blu-ray and HD-DVD arrived, they elected to use DVI because it was the closest thing to a safe bet that existed at the time. Because that decision gives them three products (two processors and a receiver) that thanks to their 7.1 direct analog inputs and DVI switching can be successfully paired with a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player, I would expect all three to see typical Outlaw production lives. If I'm right on that, we should expect to see all three stay in production at least through late 2007.

OK, I have a stupid question.

If this whole movement with HDCP and HDMI-only connections from new Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players to HDTV monitors is all about digital copy protection, why didn't they just limit connections to analog output only using component video and/or some new VGA? In order to make a copy of that one would need to convert it back to digital and then write it to a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD writable disk or to a hard disk. It would be like copying CDs (legitimately of course) by playing the CD through the analog RCA outputs and then back into a recorder which does yet another A/D conversion before burning the digital copy. One might be able to make a decent copy this way, but it certainly would not be identical to the original.

That's where it gets really funny... There is this concept of the "analog hole" that exists in the minds of Hollywood powers-that-be - it's a fear of granting access to the high resolution analog signal. (Yep, analog, not digital. Where four or five years ago they were adamant about restricting DVD-Audio and SACD to the analog domain exclusively, they're now trying to restrict Blu-ray and HD-DVD to the digital domain.) That's why the copy protection for Blu-ray and HD-DVD includes a software flag that restricts analog output to 540p when the flag is included - depriving folks with analog HD sets of the true HD resolution for discs that the studios most want to protect.

On a similar note, I saw the other day that the late March launch for HD-DVD had been pushed back a month or two because AACS (the encryption scheme used by both formats) hasn't agreed on a final standard. It seems there's some debate over the details Blu-ray's "BD+" - their ability to revise the encryption scheme at any later date if (when) the current encryption is cracked - and that has prevented the full standard from being officially completed, forcing both formats to wait. Until the standard is pinned down, neither software nor hardware can be released for manufacturing. It sounds like both formats may launch nearly simultaneously some time around May.

I think that I am not alone in feeling that the corporate powers that be have learned nothing from the failure of dvd-audio and SACD and seem to be taking us down that same dark path. It is frustrating to see something as exciting as HD dvds be so fouled up before it even gets off the ground. The war to be the company that makes the most profit off the new format seems likely to keep any of them from making a profit thus dooming another fine format to the world of what could have been.

Thanks, Gonk. I've been working with computers and playing with A/V for a very long time, and thought maybe it was just me that did not undertstand. Having bought an HDTV just before DVI and HDMI started appearing, it is pretty frustrating to think about it becoming obsolete. And, rdperry, I too wonder about corporate understanding of the mass consumer electronics marketplace. They released DVD-A and SACD thinking there was a great demand to improve upon CDs, but the marketplace spends untold millions on devices (iPods) and lossy compressed downloads that cost almost as much per song as an original CD for a fraction of the bits. Now they are worried about copy protection of 1080-line resolution HD video when people are downloading 200-line resolution versions of last week's sitcoms at $1.99 a show so they can watch them on their video iPods on the train going to work.

You would think they would learn that those that want to copy illegally will figure out how to break the system and do it. Most of us don't have the time or inclination and will pay a reasonable price for the convenience of a well thought-out legal product.

Slightly off topic:
I've said it before,and I'll say it again. I blame Sony.


Lonster

Thanks to everyone for bringing this topic up. It's something that I'm currently pondering and slightly confused about. So, I will put forth this questions/statments to just make sure that I'm on the right track.

1. Does the lack of a HDMI 1.3 standard have anything to do with displays? If I were to buy a HDTV this year with HDMI, would I be affected?

2. If no to above, then I suppose we are talking about either the receiver/processors or the DVD players. Which one or both?

RDPERRY and I are in the same boat; have these idiots learned nothing from SACD/DVD-A?

As an aside I just bought a Denon 1920 for both the HDMI and SACD/DVD=A capability, and I wonder why.

The planned revisions to HDMI that I've heard about have all related to audio or to the shape of the connector; video shouldn't be changing. The audio relates to receivers/processors and to source components. HDMI 1.3 will allow one additional features: outputting DD+, DTS-HD, and Dolby TrueHD as undecoded bitstreams.

The Denon 1920's HDMI output gives you 720p anad 1080i output of DVD's. It may also give you digital output of DVD-A, if you have a receiver or processor with HDMI 1.1 input and DVD-Audio decoding (which is still pretty rare). I don't think the 1920 includes HDMI 1.2, which adds the ability to output an SACD bitstream digitally.