GB HDMI – HD, HDMI Cable and HDMI over IP

The first problem we hit here is the term ‘expensive’. The problem is, expense is an individual’s idea of cost and a personally held viewpoint, because it is a subjective term, there is wide varying opinion from one consumer to the next about what classifies a product as being ‘expensive’.

It is true to say that most HDMI cable manufacturers are feeding you a line about the necessity of spending upwards of £50-£100 on relatively short cable lengths. There is definitely too much misinformation and smoke and mirrors being fed to consumers in big name retail stores and in big name advertising. You only have to look on a few forums to find a whole mountain of well-informed people rightly shouting the facts about the true nature of HDMI and condemning the profiteers essentially ripping customers off.

What do I need to look out for in a good HDMI Cable then?

Good design and manufacturing quality are important in every product, whether that be a bin bag or a cable, we all know that super cheap no frills products can often leave us despairing, especially when the bottom of your bag drops out or your cable finally breaks down just as your sitting down to watch your eagerly anticipated blu-ray release on your new (not to mention expensive) HDTV.

In competitive markets there will always be a wide spectrum of varying prices and quality of products. You can buy a HDMI cable for as little as 99p or as expensive as £200. The crazy thing is it is entirely possible that a short length 99p cable will give just as good a picture quality as the £200 HDMI cable. This is down to the nature of HDMI being a lossless digital signal. The bombshell here for the uninformed is that digital HD video images such as those produced by your PS3, Satellite HD box or blu-ray player cannot have varying grades of picture quality between two cables, this is technically impossible.

Of course, a 99p cable is unlikely to have a decent build quality or be made from good quality materials. It may not last you very long but it is good to use it as an example when explaining the nature of HDMI.

We recommend www.hdcable.co.uk’s HDMI cables range starting at £8.99 and believe that their offering promotes great value for money. A quick look around their website will show that they are well-made, durable, use high quality materials, incorporating a high specification, with version 1.3 device support and fully certified by the HDMI authority.

That’s a like-for-like product for under £10 that most well known retailers will be selling for at least 3 times as much! With delivery included and a lifetime replacement warranty, its a deal not worth missing!

So would a short length HDMI cable priced over £50 represent a false economy? In our opinion. Yes.

In our opinion, the key things to look out for when buying a HDMI cable are as follows.

OK, you’ve just bought your brand new shiny Nintendo Wii. You take it home, remove it from the box and connect everything up to your HDTV. You wait for the screen to load and then you are totally appalled at what you see…

What is this mess? Why is the picture quality so bad – surly a console launched in 2006 should have better graphics than this?!

If you have experienced this horror recently, read on…

It is true to say that the Wii was never designed with its graphical ability as being its primary USP. But playing on the console on a large HDTV screen (say anything above 32”) and your are left with a pixelated, standard definition, mess.

Now this certainly isn’t a problem for a lot of gamers – simply staying a few steps further away from the TV should suffice for most. However, for some, this lack of graphical prowess can be a little bit of a disappointment.

There is a solution – what many don’t know is that the Wii can output at 480p – it’s just the standard composite cable that the Wii ships with that can’t. So what do you do, you say? Well simple. You buy a Nintendo Wii Component Cable!

The Wii Component Cable will allow you to take a 480p signal to your HDTV drastically improving the picture. Awesome!  

If you live in the UK – you can pretty much pick these up easily for under £10 with free delivery. I would recommend it!

The picture improvement is quite impressive. Gone are those blurry images leaving some real definition for you to oodle over.

Just image search for “wii composite vs component” and have a look at some of the results.

If you can’t be bothered searching for it yourself have a look at this for an example.

Audio Video AV Directory – Audio video (AV) suppliers and companies.

This year’s standout product at CEDIA, Just Add Power’s HDMI over IP solution is now available in the UK.

Undoubtedly the most exciting new product this year, HDMI over IP has got integrators across the country all hot under the collar. Exclusive UK distributor connectivityuk.com have already put the product in the hands of some eager CEDIA award-winning integrators keen to put the technology through its paces – so far feedback and results have been extremely impressive. The professionals all agree, HDMI over IP is “game-changing”.

There is so much to talk about; it’s hard to know where to start!

HDMI over IP brings together the scope and scalability of everyday Ethernet LAN networks to distribute full HD 1080p video and 5.1 audio. Using advanced processing technology the HDMI data stream is encoded, broadcast over the network as IP packet data and then decoded back to a full 1080p signal… a completely different technology to traditional baluns and extenders.

Comprising of two products currently, the Transmitter and the Receiver, HDMI over IP can be implemented as a point-to-point solution just like a traditional balun pair, a point-to-many solution like a traditional distribution amp or most excitingly a many-to-many solution like a traditional matrix switcher.

Reliability is also one of HDMI over IP’s strong points being the only HDMI over Cat5 cable extender solution that is immune to the skew, distance, and resolution headaches that plagues all the other HDMI extender offering on the market. HDMI over IP requires just a single Cat5/6 cable and this can be run over a huge 300 metres without loss.

HDMI over IP is an integrator’s dream, not only because of its virtually limitless application scope, but also because of its easy integration with Crestron, Control 4 and pretty much all widely used control systems.

To implement a matrix solution a Managed Ethernet Switch is required, this is because the HDMI over IP technology uses virtual local area networks (VLANs) to create HDMI channels on a network. Receiver units on the network can connect to any chosen VLAN to display that particular HDMI channel. For example, you could have Sky HD on one VLAN, a Blu-ray player on another VLAN, a HD Games Console on another, and so on. It is possible to control which VLAN a receiver connects to by adjusting the configuration of the Managed Ethernet Switch. This can be done via an RS-232 or Ethernet control device or just a simple web-browser window.

HDMI over IP takes advantage of Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). This enables instant switching – there is absolutely no picture dropout. IGMP is the vehicle that allows a Receiver to join an already in progress data stream broadcast. When you tell a Receiver to change to a different VLAN, it joins the already in progress video instantly.

HDMI over IP has some clear benefits over rival systems:

1. Scalability – typically an Ethernet switch will have more than enough ports to accommodate all the TX and RX units required in a set-up, often there will be spare ports left over, especially on 24 or 48 port switches. If another HDTV or HD source is required to be added to their collection, another TX or RX unit can simply be purchased and added into the network. With traditional Matrix switches you are buying into a fixed form factor that does not typically accommodate upgrading or expansion.

2. Flexibility – you can mix and match different resolution displays on the network without having to lower the quality of your HDMI sources. Other HD Matrix solutions typically require the inputs to match the resolution of the least common denominator. Because the HDMI over IP Receivers have built-in resolution adjustment, you can go ahead and set your HDMI sources to their highest resolution supported (1080p, 1080i, 720p, etc). This means you can enjoy 1080p content on the main screens, and save some money by installing 720p screens for the kitchen or the kid’s bedrooms.

3. Affordability – when you compare a legacy HDMI Matrix switch with all of the devices needed to distribute the signal throughout the home, the HDMI over IP solution generally comes out as better value. Not to mention the frustration of wondering if the long HDMI cables or the finicky baluns will work with the necessary cable distances. The HDMI over IP solution can extend a HDMI source much further than Baluns, and it is always reliable and consistent.

It is hard not to see the huge potential in HDMI over IP technology. What can be now be achieved with High-Def distribution projects exceeds all previous limits.

Visit www.hdmi-over-ip.co.uk to learn more.