This is an interesting news item. HDMI will almost inevitably be a significant standard in another year or three (unless something unexpected happens), because it's going to be the best interface for audio on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. It is not the first digital audio connection to support DVD-Audio and SACD (both Firewire and Denon's proprietary link already do both), but it is somewhat better situated to see widespread adoption.

What I'm curious about is the hardware requirements associated with going from HDMI 1.1 to HDMI 1.2. Based on this quote from Kosman's original post -

Quote:
"HDMI 1.2 has several changes to better support the PC industry, including a minor modification to the electrical specification to ensure compatibility of current and future HDMI receivers with a low voltage, AC coupled transmitter (for example, a transmitter in an integrated graphics chip)," said Leslie Chard, President of HDMI Licensing, LLC. "The HDMI Founders also intend to define additional HDMI electrical and connector options that would allow PC vendors to more easily develop HDMI-compatible products."
I would suspect that HDMI 1.1 devices will not be truly hardware compatible with HDMI 1.2. It seems odd also that there is no mention of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray in this announcement, since those are the two that really give HDMI's audio side some long-term value. (Not to say that support for SACD and DVD-Audio doesn't have value, but both formats have been languishing for years now and there's no sign of that changing any time soon.)
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gonk
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