The announcement last month of Revision 1.4 of the HDMI specficiation, while unquestionably a good thing, has also promoted an outpouring of ‘FUD’ (fear, uncertainty and doubt) among integrators. That’s the view of Jeff Boccaccio, president of DPL Laboratories.
The announcement, he said, builds on the initial promise of HDMI, which is a “new digital era connectivity solution [with] the ability to aggressively drive an unlimited expansion of technology for consumer electronics.”
However, he said, his company, which runs the Digital Performance Level rating programme for HDMI products, had received “hundreds of phone calls and countless emailsÖ mostly integrators and installers expressing FUD.”
“There is absolutely nothing here to panic over,” he counselled. “Rev 1.4 will not affect your day-to-day activities for some monthsÖperhaps up to a year. Go ahead with your existing installations and don’t worry about your existing proposals.”
Boccaccio welcomed the additional features of the HDMI 1.4 spec, which include providing a reverse audio path for audio from the TV set, provision for video resolutions up to 4K X 2K, 3D technology, Ethernet capability, and even automotive applications. However, he warned that much commentary on industry-related blogs on the new spec was “speculative at best. We will not know all the details of this important revision until the final 200- to 300-page HDMI specification document is released at the end of this month!”
Backward compatibility of the new revision is an example of an issue that remains to be clarified, he stated.
“When the final specification of Rev. 1.4 is finally released, then and only then will we have a clear understanding of the changes to the interface and the resultant improvements it will bring.”
