I've been one of many people to discuss HDMI's various versions at great length over the last couple years (as my HDMI FAQ will attest). In recent months, I've been hearing talk of a new wrinkle in the latest version. Tom Norton has recently weighed in on this new twist in this Ultimate AV column .

Here's an overview of the article. HDMI v1.3 players exist, but they don't do the one thing that most people expected them to do: pass a bitstream of Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio. As it turns out, there are three players on the market today that employ HDMI v1.3 transmitter chips. Those three are the Playstation 3, the Samsumg BD-P1200, and the Toshiba HD-A20. None of these offer hardware that can pass a bitstream of TrueHD or DTS-HD MA (and man do we need a shorter name for DTS-HD MA). There are apparently some new HDMI v1.3 transmitter chips available that can support a TrueHD or DTS-HD MA bitstream, but they appear to be too new to have made it to market in any products.

This is one reason that implementing HDMI v1.3 in a receiver or processor has got to be an exercise in frustration for manufacturers: there's not even a way to test the decoding of these new formats because there are no sources available that can deliver them to the receiver.

Interesting. So, there is no problem with the Onkyo receiver, rather it is with the HD-DVD and BluRay players?

There's no problem with the Onkyo receivers that anybody can tell (certainly none in relation to the output of these bitstreams), but there's also no way to test the Onkyo receivers' decoding of these formats. I guess that maybe they had some test hardware available for R&D, but nothing using production source player hardware.

Wow. that's all I can really say. I've never been witness to such a mess. This whole thing with HDMI firmware versions is a consumer nightmare. I know I only understand the basics but compared to many, I'm smarter for just being a member to this site. This whole thing must really confuse the crap outta the regular store shopper looking for the latest gear.

What I think most irritates me about the HDMI mess is the fact that I can see some great benefits to HDMI, if all the problems could be removed from the equation. It would simplify hooking up a system and it would allow any digital format's audio and video data to stay in the digital domain as long as possible (something that is otherwise difficult or even impossible for DVD-A, SACD, and the new HD audio formats). The mess that we have now has been ongoing for a number of years now, though. For example, one of the major reasons that Outlaw went with DVI switching on the Model 1070 and Model 990 was the uncertainty and confusion surrounding HDMI versions, and they made those decisions back around 2004 (possibly even before that). It's gotten better since then, but not as much as you'd hope it would.

I hear you Gonk.
I just love the fact that some management team/group went to engineering. Said, "you have a great idea we are going to throw it out on the market .... see ya."
Engineering is left staring at the computer screen of the Rev1 chip design that has not even made it to manufacturing.

An hour later, the Management team sold it to upper management as 'the next big thing' - first to market...."Yes", as the upper Management is thinking of $$$'s - so the bean counters get excited.........

And the rest is history ...... or the mess we are slopping around in.....

Later

It's unrelated to HDMI, but the HD format war in which HDMI is all mixed up looks likely to linger a while longer. Paramount and DreamWorks have gone HD-DVD only today. (Rumors have popped up that Microsoft helped backroll the decisions, not that it matters much either way to consumers who can expect the format war to stretch into next year.) Never a dull moment...