So I was doing some research yesterday on HDMI and DVI. This stuff is good so listen closely.

So DVI came first in about 1998 mainly as a means to change people from the VGA (analog) interface to a DVI (digital) interface. Basically, HDMI is DVI with a different connector. This is from a cable standpoint. You already know that HDMI can send audio as well as video.

Another thing I learned was that DVI has a parallel channel in place for very large resolutions and refresh rates. This is to support computers with multiple monitors and people with heavy graphic capabilities. HDMI didn’t use this parallel channel, but because it piggybacked on DVI the cable had the capability. That is where HDMI version 1.3 comes in.

HDMI version 1.3 added a bunch more capability. More color depth, lip sync, and bandwidth for lossless audio, but essentially in the same wrapper. How did HDMI find all this extra bandwidth? That parallel channel on the DVI/HDMI cable that was just sitting there. This is where it gets important.

HDMI supports some things that sound cool, but you need to know how this all fits into the big picture. First, HDMI 1.3 adds color depths up to 16 bits (billions of colors). Sounds cool? Sure but remember most home theater and TV displays can’t show that many colors (even if they support the connection). Also, DVD and HDTV DVDs have a 8-bit color depth (or 17 million colors). So lets get some understanding here.

The biggest reason YOU need HDMI 1.3 for is two things. Lossless audio and lip sync. Color depth should only be considered if you are using the display for a computer, personal video, or a console game that supports bit depths higher than 8.

Almost all Blu-ray, digital cable, DVD, HD DVD, console games, and satellite providers are 8-bit today.

So this year when looking at our CES coverage remember that HDMI 1.3 is not very important for the Home Theater display, but is vitally important for receivers and processors because of the lip sync and new lossless audio formats. That is where you will get the most bang for your buck this year.

Also, remember you shouldn’t need to upgrade your cable to get HDMI 1.3 compliance. Those you have today should work just fine. So save your pennies, and if you must buy a cable look to someone like monoprice. Monster cables will just make you bend over and grab your ankles.

Connecting systems to displays with DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort: What we got here is failure to communicate

Why today’s best HDTVs aren’t worth buying

Seems that the competing press releases are starting to come out of the woodwork. Warner Bros. is expected to announce that they have a new disk that will have both (yes both) Blu-ray and HD DVD on the same disk! Also, LG is suppose to announce a player that will play both formats and come out in early 2007.

Warner Readying HD-DVD/Blu-ray Hybrid Announcement for CES DVD HD-DVD Blu-Ray at TheManRoom The Man Room
New Disc May Sway DVD Wars

Dreams Do Come True! LG’s Makes World’s First Blu-ray/HD DVD Dual-Format Player

So, I saw this video last week of a guy claiming to have cracked the AACS encryption on HD DVD. It was grainy as all these movies are, but it looked convincing. Now yesterday the hacker listed more of how he cracked the key.

Essentially there are 3 (maybe more) keys used. There is a device key a volume key and a title (video) key. The hacker went for the volume key since it seemed a weak link and possibly the hardest to revoke.

So now just like science every hacker is trying to reproduce the results, and once that happens the floodgates should open up. One interesting thing that I found interesting was that both HD DVD and Blu-Ray only made 1MB of space for a revocation table. Hackers, just for spite, could just start publishing keys left and right to fill up the revocation area. Of course with a limited size such as this, couldn’t someone just come up with a large revocation list on an ISO and essentially wipe out the revocation list?

This is just getting better by the day. Now we can finally backup our movies just like the law allows us to. I guess we don’t need managed copy now. ;>

HD DVD Encryption Cracked? - Brian’s Brain - Blog on EDN - 400000040

This was bound to happen with the PS3 20Gig at $499 it was making for quite a cheap (abeit high quality) blu-ray player.

So now Samsung has cut their price by a Benjamin and big box retailers are following with even bigger discounts bringing the player down to the $550ish range. The is great news for blu-ray and consumers. Manufacturers, though are going to start feeling the profit pinch. Hopefully they are finding more efficiencies in their manufacturing processes which will help offset these price cuts.

Samsung Drops Blu-ray Player Price | High-Def Digest

In the “take it with a grain of salt” category.

eproductwars.com shows that blu-ray sales ranks are picking up steam fast and should supplant HD DVD by the second quarter (my guess, not thiers). Anyway it seems that all those people who bought PS3s and finished Resistance now just want to watch movies. Hmmm. I wonder who predicted that one?

HD DVD and Blu Ray sales rank at Amazon
Huge blu-ray sales rank surge at dvdwars part 2 - AVS Forum

OK, I haven’t posted for a week and I feel like if I don’t get something out to the masses I’ll explode. So here goes.

My PS3 is awesome. Works great and Blu-Ray is a dream. Almost all titles have been good except X-men 3. My wife kept asking if there was something wrong with the player, but when I popped Superman returns in she said “Yeah, that’s what it’s suppose to look like”. I think the studios are still futzing with the settings on their new fangled hi-def equipment.

Now most of you know I have a Runco CL-410. Great projector for upconversion. Not so good with true hi-def. I see lines in some of the shrubs on Motorstorm. I may have to upgrade to “true” 1080p next year (Don’t tell the wife :>)

I tried the PSP remote play with one of my nephews PSPs thinking it would be something where I could remotely play PS3 games. No love. It just plays media like stored videos, pictures, and music. It kept dropping out even when I messed with the reponse time on the PSP, and sitting in the same room! I can play a file off of my server in my house, why can’t I hear music in the same room? The movie trailers were cool, but I think more could have been done on the PS3 side to downconvert these then send them (not stream them) to the PSP. I sure home Sony has as large team working out these kinks.

PS2 titles are not as good as they could be. I am worried though because as most of you know Sony bolted on a PS2 inside the PS3. I think that is why they are having trouble with pumping the resolution through HDMI and also why this may not be able to be fixed with a patch. HDMI didn’t exist in the PS2. What scares me is Sony coming out with a PS3.5 with the PS2 being emulated and PS2 games looking great because then the video hardware for the PS3 can be used. Stay tuned.

On another note, I think you guys (and gals) already know about the Denon receivers coming out next year with HDMI 1.3 support. It is just days away from CES 2k7 and I still don’t see any other receiver manufacturer announcing their lineup. I sure hope the field isn’t dry in this respect (Come on Pioneer!).

Lastly I want to comment on the “shortage” of PS3s. I got mine just a few weeks after launch. No problems. Went to a BB, CC and Walmart over the weekend. Counted over 50 PS3s on the shelves. I think some as consumers thought it was a bad move on Sony’s part to put a high price on their units. I think it was brilliant. It short circuited the bundling and scalping because your average 12 year old doesn’t have $800 (PS3, game or two and some accessories) just laying around. The most under reported item I see is the lack of Wii’s on the shelves. I haven’t seen a one since launch. If your counting, there are now more PS3 out there than Wiis. Maybe there was something to the story of the Sony manufacturer that was sabotaged this fall because they certainly have been able to pump them into the channel all through December. I even got my PS3 remote this past weekend at CC.

Well we hope to have a lot more to say in the next few days as press releases come out prior to CES.

Peace and gaming,

Mole

Seems SED must be having some troubles. Toshiba has sent a sob story that they won’t have any at CES 2007. This doesn’t bode well. Could be because of all the LCD and Plasma prices crashing over the holiday maybe SED can’t be a competitor in this arena.

SED, we hardly knew ye!

The SED HDTV Delayed Again

Hello everyone! It’s been a lot of fun doing HDBlog this year, thank-you for reading. It’s Christmas time, and I’ll be taking about two weeks off from HDBlog.net for the holidays. So come back around January 5th or so, and you’ll see regular updates again!

Merry Christmas everyone, and have a happy new year!

One of my favourite shows to watch in HD is “Day Break”. It’s Groundhog Day with cops and bad guys, basically. And it’s a really really good show. I am majorly ticked that rating were so low that ABC decided to shelve it. Episodes were supposed to run until the end of December before going on hiatus, but now that’s changed. ABC plans to air the remaining produced shows on its website. Which just sucks. There are only a few good shows that I watch, like Prison Break, Heros, The Unit, and Day Break. Day Break was fast becoming my favourite show, too, and now it’s gone! Ga! It’s like Firefly all over again! Noooooooo!

Adam Baldwin - “Day Break” Tv Series is off ABC schedule

PS And no, I didn’t like Day Break just because Adam Baldwin from Firefly was in it. Though that was a nice bonus.

Digital TV Design Line has an in-depth article about laser light sources in projection TV’s. Like the one Mitsubishi will be introducing. If you’re interested in the technology, you might like to read it.

Why do we care about laser light sources? Well, they have a wider colour gamut, for one. Plus they’re brighter than traditional light sources as well, and will perform evenly over their lifetimes, instead of getting dimmer or changing their colour characteristics. Plus rear-projection displays will be able to be made much thinner than traditional ones, thanks to their “narrow composite beam angle”.

Exciting times indeed. I can’t wait see these HDTV’s.

Trends in laser light sources for projection displays

I haven’t seen many reviews of the Philips BD player, which is weird. There have been tons on the Samsung player, of course, because it was the first. But the Panasonic and Philips were up next, and I’ve seen some mention of the Panasonic, but not much about the Philips. I guess CNET was reading my mind, because they recently took a gander at the Philips and gave it a 6.3 out of 10, or “Good”.

Basically, the Philips gets knocks for not doing what all the other BD players don’t do. It doesn’t decode TrueHD or DTS HD Master soundtracks. Plus, it’s expensive compared to the PS3 - the Philips goes for an MSRP of $1000, while you can get a PS3 with HDMI 1.3 for $500.

Other than some audio issues, the Philips is an excellent player. The picture quality is very good. It also has a good remote, and good DVD upconversion. So you can’t really go too wrong with this player. Except, well, the PS3 does the same for much less.

Philips BDP9000 Blu-ray Player Review

John Bitove has applied for a license to create an HDTV network in Canada. His HDTV Networks Inc. wants to create an HDTV network in eight markets: Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. Thankfully, my city is in that list.

John wants to show Canadian, original Canadian, and foreign content on his network. All you need in one of those network areas is the ability to receive HD programming. I assume this means over-the-air.

So I have to wonder, will I finally be getting Smallville in HD?

Businessman plans free HDTV network for Canada

Blue laser diodes, those little things that go in HD DVD and BD players, have been in short supply. So much so that Sony had to scale back the launch of the PS3 because they didn’t have enough blue laser diodes to go around.

There have only been two suppliers of blue laser diodes up until now, but that’s changing. Sharp is getting into the business too.

Sharp started mass-producing the diodes this month, at a rate of 150,000 per month. I have to wonder if any of those Sharp diodes will make their way into PS3’s …

Sharp starts blue laser diode production

First PS3, XBox HD DVD Add-On Sales Numbers The PS3 has supposedly sold about 197,000 units in North America at launch. And Microsoft has sold about 42,000 HD DVD add-ons for the Xbox 360.