E'pin Sen Ob - Actually I agree with pretty much everything you said. My comment was directed more to the Digital Bits article and the general perception that HDMI1.3 is required for the new formats. My contention is HDMI1.1 can do the job as long as the decoders are built in the player. There is a lot of evidence that indicates that the decoders may stay in the players due to interactive functions and commentaries etc. I've also read that for HD-DVD the disks would have to be authored differently then they are now to decode outside the player.

The Digital Bits article mentions that the Blu-Ray discs will have raw PCM on them, again HDMI1.1 can handle this. I think everyone has gotten used to decoding in their Pre/Pros and just assume that is where these new players are headed. I’m not saying the industry will not eventually move to HDMI1.3 and decoding in the Pre/Pro but I have the feeling that is still a year or two away as the HDMI1.3 spec isn’t even approved yet.

I believe there are also some HDMI1.1 compatible receivers out that are less expensive then the Pre/Pros mentioned. It looks like many also assume it is just HDMI1.3 that is holding things up. That is only half the equation, the real challenge for the Pre/Pro and receiver comapnies may be getting the new Codecs running on their processors.