HDMI, Oh My…

I’m sure, back in 2002, when Hitachi, Matsushita Electric (now Panasonic), Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson (now Technicolor), RCA and Toshiba came together to create HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface), they had no idea of the confusion and frustration the format would pose to consumers and professional integrators alike. With so many different HDMI versions, the landscape has gotten quite confusing.

The concept was sound; make a backwards-compatible connector to DVI-HDCP (DVI with HDCP) and DVI-HDTV (DVI-HDCP) using the CEA-861-B video standard at the time smaller.

In 2003, the first HDMI 1.0 interface rolled out replacing DVI in the consumer market, and by 2004, 5 million devices were in the market. In 2005, 17.4 million, in 2006, 63 million and by 2007 the number of HDMI enabled devices had reached 143 million, making HDMI the de facto standard of AV interface. The problem with HDMI is it is not a backwards-compatible format with itself. It started with HDMI 1.0, and continued to expand. Take a look at the progression: 

HDMI to fiber solution, and all should be fine, that is, until it changes again.