I guess unlike most, my main attraction to HDMI up until now has been for the Hi-Rez M/C audio, As others have said DVI is fine for present day video. I've been waiting on Firewire for what seems forever and finally have given up on it ever showing up in a decent Pre/Pro. I want to be able to use my fancy DACs and bass management in whatever Pre/Pro I end up with. I thought that was your position too Ritz but the converstion just went around in circles and I'm still not sure if we were agreeing or disagreeing.

Oh and for the record I agree Outlaw made the right choice on shipping a DVI unit vs waiting another year or two for a decent HDMI implementation. I'm hopeful the big name Pre/Pro guys will show some HDMI prototypes at CEDIA in the next week or two. Maybe by next year this time we will have some viable HDMI solutions available.

Ritz:

You hinted that you had some association with "The Biz". Have you seen any decent demonstrations of JPEG 2000, which is being touted as a compresssion scheme for digital cinema?

I tend to agree the early adopters may resist HDMI. I bought an HDTV b4 most & have component in as the only way in at 1080 besides the TV's internal HDTV tuner. I'm still very happy with the display quality & would not buy a new TV just to watch blu-ray. So that leaves this early adopter out without a component out option on the new HD-DVD's. If people like me don't buy, then it will fall flat. With regard to copy protection, not sure what their problem is, except they are stupid. Component 1080i or p would be very hard for the average consumer to record. BUT, DVD-John will likely break HDMI weeks after release and because PC's will have interfaces that support HDMI, people will be recording HDMI. Fools.

Obie,

You can have multichannel hi resolution audio today (and long before today) using DVI and plain old coax or TOSlink for audio. I don't really consider DVD-A/SACD to be high resolution because you normally have some cheesy "lowest bidder" parts doing the D/A conversion in the player rather than having a higher end outboard DAC. The "promise" of HDMI, if you can call it that, is being able to push the bits in the digital domain from the transport to the DAC without that extra D/A--A/D conversion process in the middle. Unfortunately, that convenience is going to come at the expense of all the annoying copy protection crap that I was moaning about earlier. So I'd prefer to keep the status quo. DVI + coax/TOSlink is working wonderfully for me. I can't imagine even wanting to "upgrade" for quite some time since there isn't any source material out there that my current setup can't handle. When I can wander down to the neighborhood Blockbuster video and get 1080p content, maybe I'll consider it. Until then, I consider the latest HDMI spec to be much ado about nothing.

Cheers,

Pod,

Yup, I'm in the content business, but I haven't had any personal exposure to jpeg 2000. I deal mainly with H.264/mpeg-4/mpeg-2.

Cheers,

I think stabie has touched on the underlying problem with both HD optical disc formats. They are abandoning the early adopters like stabie by crippling the component video output. On top of this, they are confusing the typical consumer with two competing formats that only offer a benefit over DVD if you have a new HDTV and a surround sound setup (preferably an even newer one that will support Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD). It's eerily reminscent of DVD-Audio and SACD - both offered benefits over CD if you had the receiver/processor and speakers to truly make use of them, and the competition between the has pretty much crippled both formats.

Ritz – I’ve got to admit you make my head spin trying to follow your logic. Your very reason for being anti SACD or DVD-A is the very reason I'm so interested in HDMI audio. That being a broadband digital interface into my Pre/Pro so I can use its DACs and processing without going through an extra D/A conversion. HDMI solves this problem and I don’t understand why the copy protection is such an issue in this case. It is not like the HDCP is degrading the signal, as it should be totally transparent. This is not like some of the really nasty analog video forms of CP we have endured for years. If you want to throw your self on the HDCP sword go right ahead but IMHO you will be missing out.

I’m sorry but the status quo of stereo PCM at 16/44, or lousy Dolby/DTS Multi-Channel is not Hi-rez. S/PDIF (coax /TOSLINK) just does not have the bandwidth to do what I would qualify as Hi-Rez audio. I’ve invested enough in SACDs to know that even a cheap player with “lowest bidder” parts can sound pretty impressive using the analog outputs. I can only imagine how good it would be if I could just use that cheap player as a transport and do all the processing and D/A in my Pre/Pro where I can spend more and use it for all my sources. Even if the new HD versions of Dolby and DTS are decoded in the player HDMI will still allow you to use, no, actually require you to use external DACs. I just don’t see the downside here.

Is your issue with HDCP just based on fair usage? As far as copy protection schemes go HDCP is fairly unobtrusive when it comes to audio. I guess what I’m saying is if the studios are willing to give me a quality product that is significantly better then what is out I will give up some degree of fair usage. To be honest I’d be content with HDMI 1.2 as it does pretty much everything I would want. If they want to add 1080P at 60fps let them but I’ll probably still be using my analog CRT for another 20 years.

"To be honest I’d be content with HDMI 1.2 as it does pretty much everything I would want. If they want to add 1080P at 60fps let them but I’ll probably still be using my analog CRT for another 20 years."

Given that level of frugality, I'm somewhat surprised that you are embracing a spec that will effectively force you to buy all new equipment from the source to the display. Again, as I mentioned above, I don't feel this "upgrade" will offer me anything I don't already have with the exception of a potential reduction in cabling clutter.

And yes, I've got major fair use issues with copy protection. It almost never works, causes a great deal of consumer confusion, and results in people like you and I being boxed into buying new equipment that's really not necessary in order to legally consume the content.

Best regards,

Ritz - I think you are mistaking my strong desire to keep my ceiling hanging 3 eyed monster of an analog projector for frugality. It is anything but cheap. If you want to hear me rant about HDCP ask me how I got my HDMI cable box to work with my projector. My discussion of HDCP in this thread has been limited to audio, hence the statement 1.2 offers pretty much everything I need. When it comes to video and HDCP and its repercussions on analog my love of HDCP is at about the same level as yours, maybe even less so

I don't mind upgrading when I think a technology is a worthwhile investment, it is part of the hobby. I think from an audio perspective HDMI provides a very good improvement in technology. I notice you have a jitter buster in your equipment list, in theory HDMI or Firewire should be able to all but eliminate jitter. Had Firewire ever caught on in the audio world I would have been perfectly content to have just DVI for video, but Firewire seems to be going nowhere in the Pre/Pro world.

Another aspect of your logic I don’t understand is your dislike of HDMI seems to be based solely on your mistrust of HDCP. Yet HDCP is still present on DVI. At least it is on the two DVI interfaces I have here. How do you reconcile this with your strong anti HDMI bias? I hope you don’t think I’m picking on you as I really do respect your opinion, even though I don’t necessarily agree with all of it.

Hello Gentleman and Ladies,

Often times, with discussions like these, tempers rise and quality conversation is lost. This thread is a perfect example of why the Outlaw Saloon is such a special forum. Thank you to all involved for keeping the debate so enjoyable to follow after a few bumps out of the gate!

Best,

Scott