High-Definition Multimedia Interface
Encyclopedia
HDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency
(RF) coaxial cable
, composite video
, S-Video
, SCART
, component video
, D-Terminal, or VGA
(also called D-sub
or DE-15F). HDMI connects digital audio/video sources (such as set-top box
es, DVD
players, HD DVD
players, Blu-ray Disc
players, AVCHD
camcorder
s, personal computer
s (PCs), video game console
s (such as the PlayStation 3
, Xbox 360
, and Wii U), AV receiver
s, tablet computer
s, and mobile phone
s) to compatible digital audio
devices, computer monitors, video projector
s, and digital television
s.
HDMI implements the EIA/CEA-861 standards, which define video formats and waveforms, transport of compressed, uncompressed, and LPCM audio, auxiliary data, and implementations of the VESA EDID
. HDMI supports, on a single cable, any uncompressed TV or PC
video format, including standard, enhanced, high definition
and 3D
video signals; up to 8 channels of compressed or uncompressed digital audio; a Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) connection; and an Ethernet
data connection.
The CEC allows HDMI devices to control each other when necessary and allows the user to operate multiple devices with one remote control
handset. Because HDMI is electrically compatible with the CEA-861 signals used by digital visual interface
(DVI), no signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of video quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used. As an uncompressed CEA-861 connection, HDMI is independent of the various digital television
standards used by individual devices, such as ATSC and DVB, as these are encapsulations of compressed MPEG video streams (which can be decoded and output as an uncompressed video stream on HDMI).
Production of consumer HDMI products started in late 2003. In Europe, either DVI-HDCP or HDMI is included in the HD ready
in-store labeling specification for TV sets for HDTV, formulated by EICTA
with SES Astra
in 2005. HDMI began to appear on consumer
HDTV camcorder
s and digital still cameras in 2006. Shipments of HDMI were expected to exceed that of DVI in 2008, driven primarily by the consumer electronics market. HDMI Licensing, LLC announced on October 25, 2011 that there were over 1,100 HDMI Adopters and that over 2 billion HDMI enabled products have shipped since the launch of the HDMI standard. Starting on October 25, 2011, all future development of the HDMI specification will be done through a new organization called the HDMI Forum.
, Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic
/National
/Quasar
), Philips
, Silicon Image, Sony
, Thomson (RCA)
and Toshiba
. Digital Content Protection, LLC provides HDCP
(which was developed by Intel) for HDMI. HDMI has the support of motion picture producers Fox
, Universal
, Warner Bros.
and Disney
, along with system operators DirecTV
, EchoStar (Dish Network
) and CableLabs
.
The HDMI Founders began development on HDMI 1.0 on April 16, 2002, with the goal of creating an AV connector that was backward-compatible with DVI. At the time, DVI-HDCP (DVI with HDCP) and DVI-HDTV (DVI-HDCP using the CEA-861-B video standard) were being used on HDTVs. HDMI 1.0 was designed to improve on DVI-HDTV by using a smaller connector and adding support for audio, and enhanced support for YCbCr
and consumer electronics control functions.
The first Authorized Testing Center (ATC), which tests HDMI products, was opened by Silicon Image on June 23, 2003, in California, United States. The first ATC in Japan was opened by Panasonic
on May 1, 2004, in Osaka. The first ATC in Europe was opened by Philips
on May 25, 2005, in Caen, France. The first ATC in China was opened by Silicon Image on November 21, 2005, in Shenzhen. The first ATC in India was opened by Philips on June 12, 2008, in Bangalore. The HDMI website contains a list of all the ATCs.
According to In-Stat, the number of HDMI devices sold was 5 million in 2004, 17.4 million in 2005, 63 million in 2006, and 143 million in 2007. HDMI has become the de facto standard
for HDTVs, and according to In-Stat, around 90% of digital televisions in 2007 included HDMI. In-Stat has estimated that 229 million HDMI devices were sold in 2008. On April 8, 2008 there were over 850 consumer electronics
and PC companies that had adopted the HDMI specification (HDMI Adopters). On January 7, 2009, HDMI Licensing, LLC announced that HDMI had reached an installed base of over 600 million HDMI devices. In-Stat has estimated that 394 million HDMI devices will sell in 2009 and that all digital televisions by the end of 2009 would have at least one HDMI input.
In 2008, PC Magazine
awarded a Technical Excellence Award in the Home Theater category for an "innovation that has changed the world" to the CEC portion of the HDMI specification. Ten companies were given a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for their development of HDMI by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
on January 7, 2009.
On October 25, 2011, the HDMI Forum was established by the HDMI Founders to create an open organization so that interested companies can participate in the development of the HDMI specification. All members of the HDMI Forum have equal voting rights, may participate in the Technical Working Group, and if elected can be on the Board of Directors. There is no limit to the number of companies allowed in the HDMI Forum though companies must pay an annual fee of $15,000 with an additional annual fee of $5,000 for those companies who serve on the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors will be made up of 11 companies who are elected every 2 years by a general vote of HDMI Forum members. All future development of the HDMI specification will take place in the HDMI Forum and will be built upon the HDMI 1.4b specification.
and WUXGA (1920×1200) at 60 Hz. HDMI 1.3 increased that to 340 MHz, which allows for higher resolution (such as WQXGA, 2560×1600) across a single digital link. An HDMI connection can either be single-link (type A/C) or dual-link (type B) and can have a video pixel rate of 25 MHz to 340 MHz (for a single-link connection) or 25 MHz to 680 MHz (for a dual-link connection). Video formats with rates below 25 MHz (e.g., 13.5 MHz for 480i/NTSC) are transmitted using a pixel-repetition scheme.
/Electronic Industries Alliance
861 standards. HDMI 1.0 to HDMI 1.2a uses the EIA/CEA-861-B video standard, HDMI 1.3 uses the CEA-861-D video standard, and HDMI 1.4 uses the CEA-861-E video standard. The CEA-861-E document defines "video formats and waveforms; colorimetry and quantization; transport of compressed and uncompressed, as well as Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM), audio; carriage of auxiliary data; and implementations of the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) Enhanced Extended Display Identification Data Standard (E-EDID)".
To ensure baseline compatibility between different HDMI sources and displays (as well as backward compatibility with the electrically compatible DVI standard) all HDMI devices must support the sRGB color space at 8 bits per component. Support for the YCbCr color space and higher color depths ("deep color") is optional. HDMI permits sRGB 4:4:4 (8–16 bits per component), xvYCC
4:4:4
(8–16 bits per component), YCbCr 4:4:4
(8–16 bits per component), or YCbCr 4:2:2
(8–12 bits per component). The color spaces that can be used by HDMI are ITU-R BT.601, ITU-R BT.709-5
and IEC 61966-2-4
.
For digital audio, if an HDMI device supports audio, it is required to support the baseline format: stereo (uncompressed) PCM. Other formats are optional, with HDMI allowing up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio at sample sizes of 16-bit, 20-bit and 24-bit, with sample rates of 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 176.4 kHz and 192 kHz. HDMI also supports any IEC 61937-compliant compressed audio stream, such as Dolby Digital
and DTS
, and up to 8 channels of one-bit DSD
audio (used on Super Audio CD
s) at rates up to four times that of Super Audio CD. With version 1.3, HDMI supports lossless compressed audio streams Dolby TrueHD
and DTS-HD Master Audio
. As with the YCbCr video, device support for audio is optional. Audio Return Channel (ARC) is a feature introduced in the HDMI 1.4 standard. "Return" refers to the case where the audio comes from the TV and can be sent "upstream" to the AV Receiver using the HDMI cable connected to the AV receiver. An example given on the HDMI website is that a TV that directly receives a terrestrial/satellite broadcast, or has a video source built in, sends the audio "upstream" to the AV receiver.
The HDMI standard was not designed to pass closed caption data (for example, subtitle
s) to the television for decoding. As such, any closed caption stream must be decoded and included as an image in the video stream(s) prior to transmission over an HDMI cable to be viewed on the DTV. This limits the caption style (even for digital captions) to only that decoded at the source prior to HDMI transmission. This also prevents closed captions when transmission over HDMI is required for upconversion. For example, a DVD player that sends an upscaled 720p/1080i format via HDMI to an HDTV has no way to pass Closed Captioning
data so that the HDTV can decode it, as there is no line 21 VBI in that format.
The connector on the right is gold.
There are five HDMI connector types. Type A/B are defined in the HDMI 1.0 specification, type C is defined in the HDMI 1.3 specification, and type D/E are defined in the HDMI 1.4 specification.
Type A: Nineteen pins, with bandwidth to support all SDTV, EDTV
and HDTV modes. The plug (male) connector outside dimensions are 13.9 mm × 4.45 mm and the receptacle (female) connector inside dimensions are 14 mm × 4.55 mm. Type A is electrically compatible with single-link DVI-D.
Type B: This connector (21.2 mm × 4.45 mm) has 29 pins and can carry double the video bandwidth of type A, for use with very high-resolution future displays such as WQUXGA (3,840×2,400). Type B is electrically compatible with dual-link DVI-D, but has not yet been used in any products.
Type C: A Mini connector defined in the HDMI 1.3 specification, it is intended for portable devices. It is smaller than the type A plug connector (10.42 mm × 2.42 mm) but has the same 19-pin configuration. The differences are that all positive signals of the differential pairs are swapped with their corresponding shield, the DDC/CEC Ground is assigned to pin 13 instead of pin 17, the CEC is assigned to pin 14 instead of pin 13, and the reserved pin is 17 instead of pin 14. The type C Mini connector can be connected to a type A connector using a type A-to-type C cable.
Type D: A Micro connector defined in the HDMI 1.4 specification keeps the standard 19 pins of types A and C but shrinks the connector size to something resembling a micro-USB connector. The type D connector is 2.8 mm × 6.4 mm, whereas the type C connector is 2.42 mm × 10.42 mm; for comparison, a micro-USB connector is 2.94 mm × 7.8 mm and USB Type A is 11.5 mm × 4.5 mm.
Type E: Automotive Connection System defined in HDMI 1.4 specification.
(dependent on the cable's construction quality and conducting materials) limits usable lengths in practice. HDMI 1.3 defines two cable categories: Category 1-certified cables, which have been tested at 74.5 MHz (which would include resolutions such as 720p60 and 1080i60), and Category 2-certified cables, which have been tested at 340 MHz (which would include resolutions such as 1080p60 and 2160p30). Category 1 HDMI cables are marketed as "Standard" and Category 2 HDMI cables as "High Speed". This labeling guideline for HDMI cables went into effect on October 17, 2008. Category 1 and 2 cables can either meet the required parameter specifications for interpair skew, far-end crosstalk, attenuation and differential impedance, or they can meet the required nonequalized/equalized eye diagram requirements. A cable of about 5 meters (16 ft) can be manufactured to Category 1 specifications easily and inexpensively by using 28 AWG
(0.081 mm²) conductors. With better quality construction and materials, including 24 AWG (0.205 mm²) conductors, an HDMI cable can reach lengths of up to 15 meters (49 ft). Many HDMI cables under 5 meters of length that were made before the HDMI 1.3 specification can work as Category 2 cables, but only Category 2-tested cables are guaranteed to work.
As of the HDMI 1.4 specification, these are the following cable types defined for HDMI in general:
Cable manufacturers are officially prohibited from marketing the cables by HDMI standard version (for instance "HDMI 1.4 cable"); the cables are distinguished by bitrate
support only.
signal that HDCP requires. HDCP DDC signals must be multiplexed with TMDS video signals to be compliant with HDCP requirements for HDMI extenders based on a single Category 5
/Category 6 cable
. Several companies offer amplifiers, equalizers
and repeaters that can string several standard HDMI cables together. Active HDMI cables use electronics within the cable to boost the signal and allow for HDMI cables of up to 30 meters (98 ft). HDMI extenders that are based on dual Category 5
/Category 6 cable
can extend HDMI to 250 meters (820 ft), while HDMI extenders based on optical fiber
can extend HDMI to 300 meters (980 ft).
(DDC) is a communication channel based on the I²C
bus specification. HDMI specifically requires support for the Enhanced Display Data Channel (E-DDC), which is used by the HDMI source device to read the E-EDID data from the HDMI sink device to learn what audio/video formats it supports. HDMI requires that the E-DDC support I²C
standard mode speed (100 kbit/s) and allows optional support for fast mode speed (400 kbit/s).
(TMDS) on HDMI carries video, audio and auxiliary data via one of three modes, called the Video Data Period, the Data Island Period and the Control Period. During the Video Data Period, the pixels of an active video line are transmitted. During the Data Island period (which occurs during the horizontal and vertical blanking intervals), audio and auxiliary data are transmitted within a series of packets. The Control Period occurs between Video and Data Island periods.
Both HDMI and DVI
use TMDS to send 10-bit characters that are encoded using 8b/10b encoding
for the Video Data Period and 2b/10b encoding for the Control Period. HDMI adds the ability to send audio and auxiliary data using 4b/10b encoding for the Data Island Period. Each Data Island Period is 32 pixels in size and contains a 32-bit Packet Header, which includes 8 bits of BCH
ECC parity data for error correction and describes the contents of the packet. Each Packet contains four subpackets, and each subpacket is 64 bits in size, including 8 bits of BCH ECC parity data, allowing for each Packet to carry up to 224 bits of audio data. Each Data Island Period can contain up to 18 Packets. Seven of the 15 Packet types described in the HDMI 1.3a specifications deal with audio data, while the other 8 types deal with auxiliary data. Among these are the General Control Packet and the Gamut Metadata Packet. The General Control Packet carries information on AVMUTE (which mutes the audio during changes that may cause audio noise) and Color Depth
(which sends the bit depth of the current video stream and is required for Deep Color). The Gamut Metadata Packet carries information on the color space
being used for the current video stream and is required for xvYCC.
Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) is a feature designed to allow the user to command and control two or more CEC-enabled boxes, that are connected through HDMI, by using only one of their remote controls (for example by controlling a television set
, set-top box
, and DVD player
using only the remote control of the TV). CEC also allows for individual CEC-enabled devices to command and control each other without user intervention.
It is a one-wire bidirectional serial
bus that uses the industry-standard AV.link
protocol to perform remote control
functions. CEC wiring is mandatory, although implementation of CEC in a product is optional. It was defined in HDMI Specification 1.0 and updated in HDMI 1.2, HDMI 1.2a and HDMI 1.3a (which added timer and audio commands to the bus). USB to CEC Adapters exist that allow a computer to control CEC enabled devices.
Trade name
s for CEC are Anynet+ (Samsung
); Aquos Link (Sharp
); BRAVIA Link and BRAVIA Sync (Sony
); HDMI-CEC (Hitachi); E-link (AOC
); Kuro Link (Pioneer); CE-Link and Regza Link (Toshiba
); RIHD (Remote Interactive over HDMI) (Onkyo
); RuncoLink (Runco International
); SimpLink (LG
); HDAVI Control, EZ-Sync, VIERA Link (Panasonic
); EasyLink (Philips
); and NetCommand for HDMI (Mitsubishi
).
The following is a list of HDMI-CEC commands:
HDMI is backward-compatible
with single-link Digital Visual Interface
digital video (DVI-D or DVI-I, but not DVI-A). No signal conversion is required when an adapter or asymmetric cable is used, and consequently no loss in video quality occurs.
From a user's perspective, an HDMI display can be driven by a single-link DVI-D source, since HDMI and DVI-D define an overlapping minimum set of supported resolutions and framebuffer formats to ensure a basic level of interoperability. Since DVI-D displays are not required to support High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection
, in the reverse scenario, a DVI-D monitor is not guaranteed to display a signal from an HDMI source. A typical HDMI-source (such as a Blu-ray player) may demand HDCP-compliance of the display, and hence refuse to output HDCP-protected content to a non-compliant display. Absent this HDCP issue, an HDMI-source and DVI-D display would enjoy the same level of basic interoperability. Further complicating the issue is the existence of a handful of display equipment (high end home theater projectors) that were designed with HDMI inputs, but are not HDCP-compliant.
Features specific to HDMI, such as remote-control and audio transport, are not available in devices that use legacy DVI-D signalling. However, many devices output HDMI over a DVI connector (e.g., ATI 3000-series
and NVIDIA GTX 200-series
video cards), and some multimedia displays may accept HDMI (including audio) over a DVI input. In general, exact capabilities vary from product to product.
There are consumer adapters available to place between a DVI source and HDMI device which can insert a separate audio signal into an HDMI TMDS data stream. DVI connectors on PC video cards have also been increasingly able to take advantage of HDMI features such as audio output.
to encrypt the signal if required by the source device. CSS
, CPPM
and AACS
require the use of HDCP on HDMI when playing back encrypted DVD Video, DVD Audio, HD DVD
and Blu-ray Disc
. The HDCP Repeater bit
controls the authentication and switching/distribution of an HDMI signal. According to HDCP Specification 1.2 (beginning with HDMI CTS 1.3a), any system that implements HDCP must do so in a fully compliant manner. HDCP testing that was previously only a requirement for optional tests such as the "Simplay HD" testing program is now part of the requirements for HDMI compliance. HDCP allows for up to 127 devices to be connected together, with up to 7 levels, using a combination of sources, sinks and repeaters. A simple example of this is several HDMI devices connected to an HDMI AV receiver that is connected to an HDMI display.
Devices called HDCP strippers can remove the HDCP information from the video signal so the video can play on non-HDCP-compliant displays.
and/or capabilities of what can be transmitted over the cable. A product listed as having an HDMI version does not necessarily mean that it will have all of the features that are listed for that version, since some HDMI features are optional, such as Deep Color and xvYCC (which is branded by Sony as "x.v.Color"). Note that with the release of the version 1.4 cable, the HDMI Licensing LLC group (which oversees the HDMI standard) will require that any reference to version numbers be removed from all advertising from the cable only. Non-cable HDMI products starting on January 1, 2012 will no longer be allowed to reference the HDMI number and will be required to state which features of the HDMI specification the product supports.
/24-bit audio. HDMI 1.1 was released on May 20, 2004 and added support for DVD-Audio
. HDMI 1.2 was released August 8, 2005 and added support for One Bit Audio, used on Super Audio CD
s, at up to 8 channels. It also added the availability of HDMI type A connectors for PC sources, the ability for PC sources to only support the sRGB color space while retaining the option to support the YCbCr color space, and required HDMI 1.2 and later displays to support low-voltage sources. HDMI 1.2a was released on December 14, 2005 and fully specifies Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) features, command sets and CEC compliance tests.
, sRGB, or YCbCr, compared to 24-bit sRGB or YCbCr in previous HDMI versions. It also optionally supports output of Dolby TrueHD
and DTS-HD Master Audio
streams for external decoding by AV receivers. It incorporates automatic audio syncing (audio video sync) capability. It defined cable Categories 1 and 2, with Category 1 cable being tested up to 74.25 MHz
and Category 2 being tested up to 340 MHz
. It also added the new type C Mini connector for portable devices.
HDMI 1.3a was released on November 10, 2006 and had Cable and Sink modifications for type C, source termination recommendations, and removed undershoot and maximum rise/fall time limits. It also changed CEC capacitance limits, clarified sRGB video quantization range, and CEC commands for timer control were brought back in an altered form, with audio control commands added. It also added support for optionally streaming SACD in its bitstream DST format rather than uncompressed raw DSD like from HDMI 1.2 onwards.
HDMI 1.3b, 1.3b1 and 1.3c were released on March 26, 2007, November 9, 2007, and August 25, 2008 respectively. They do not introduce differences on HDMI features, functions, or performance, but only describe testing for products based on the HDMI 1.3a specification regarding HDMI compliance (1.3b ), the HDMI type C Mini connector (1.3b1 ) and active HDMI cables (1.3c ).
); an HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC), which allows for a 100 Mbit/s Ethernet
connection between the two HDMI connected devices so they can share an Internet connection; and introduces an Audio Return Channel (ARC), 3D Over HDMI, a new Micro HDMI Connector, expanded support for color spaces, with the addition of sYCC601, Adobe RGB and Adobe YCC601; and an Automotive Connection System. HDMI 1.4 supports several stereoscopic 3D
formats including field alternative (interlaced), frame packing (a full resolution top-bottom format), line alternative full, side-by-side half, side-by-side full, 2D + depth, and 2D + depth + graphics + graphics depth (WOWvx), with additional top/bottom formats added in version 1.4a . HDMI 1.4 requires that 3D displays support the frame packing 3D format at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24. High Speed HDMI 1.3 cables can support all HDMI 1.4 features except for the HDMI Ethernet Channel.
HDMI 1.4a was released on March 4, 2010 and adds two additional mandatory 3D formats for broadcast content, which was deferred with HDMI 1.4 in order to see the direction of the 3D broadcast market. HDMI 1.4a has defined mandatory 3D formats for broadcast, game, and movie content. HDMI 1.4a requires that 3D displays support the frame packing 3D format at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24, side-by-side horizontal at either 1080i50 or 1080i60, and top-and-bottom at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24.
HDMI 1.4b was released on October 11, 2011. All future versions of the HDMI specification will be made by the HDMI Forum that was created on October 25, 2011.
, LG Optimus 3D
(LG Thrill 4G), LG Optimus 2X
(LG Optimus Speed, LG Optimus G2x), Samsung Galaxy Note
, HTC Sensation
, HTC Sensation XE, HTC Evo 3D
, Motorola Atrix, Motorola Triumph
mobile phones all support HDMI playback/screen mirroring via either HDMI output or MHL
output.
Nokia N8
supports HDMI playback via Mini-HDMI (Type C) connector.
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
and Motorola Droid RAZR
both support HDMI playback via Micro-HDMI (Type D) connector.
, BlackBerry PlayBook
and Acer Iconia Tab A500, support HDMI using Micro-HDMI (Type D) ports. Others, such as the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer support the standard using Mini-HDMI (Type C) ports. The iPad
and iPad 2
have a special A/V adapter that converts Apple's data line to a standard HDMI (Type A) port. Samsung has a similar proprietary thirty-pin port for their Galaxy Tab 10.1 that can adapt to HDMI as well as USB drives. The Dell Streak 5 smartphone/tablet hybrid is capable of outputting over HDMI. While the Streak uses a PDMI
port, a separate cradle is available which adds HDMI compatibility.
and HD DVD
, introduced in 2006, offer new high-fidelity audio features that require HDMI for best results. HDMI 1.3 can transport Dolby Digital Plus
, Dolby TrueHD
, and DTS-HD Master Audio
bitstreams in compressed form. This capability allows for an AV receiver
with the necessary decoder to decode the compressed audio stream. The Blu-ray specification does not support video encoded with either Deep Color or xvYCC; thus, HDMI 1.0 can transfer Blu-ray discs at full video quality.
Blu-ray permits secondary audio decoding, whereby the disc content can tell the player to mix multiple audio sources together before final output. Some Blu-ray and HD DVD players can decode all of the audio codecs internally and can output LPCM audio over HDMI. Multichannel LPCM can be transported over an HDMI connection, and as long as the AV receiver
supports multichannel LPCM audio over HDMI and supports HDCP
, the audio reproduction is equal in resolution to HDMI 1.3 bitstream output. Some low-cost AV receivers, such as the Onkyo TX-SR506, do not support audio processing over HDMI and are labelled as "HDMI pass through" devices.
with a DVI interface are capable of video output to an HDMI-enabled monitor. Some PCs
include an HDMI interface and may also be capable of HDMI audio output, depending on specific hardware. For example, Intel's motherboard chipsets since the 945G have been capable of 8-channel LPCM output over HDMI, as well as NVIDIA’s GeForce 8200/8300 motherboard chipsets. Eight-channel LPCM audio output over HDMI with a video card was first seen with the ATI Radeon HD 4850, which was released in June 2008 and is supported by other video cards in the ATI Radeon HD 4000 series
. Linux
can support 8-channel LPCM audio over HDMI if the video card has the necessary hardware and supports the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA). The ATI Radeon HD 4000 series supports ALSA. Cyberlink announced in June 2008 that they would update their PowerDVD playback software to support 192 kHz/24-bit Blu-ray Disc audio decoding in Q3-Q4 of 2008. Corel's WinDVD 9 Plus currently supports 96 kHz/24-bit Blu-ray Disc audio decoding.
Even with an HDMI output, a computer may not support HDCP
, Microsoft's Protected Video Path, or Microsoft's Protected Audio Path. In the case of HDCP, there were several early graphic cards that were labelled as "HDCP-enabled" but did not actually have the necessary hardware for HDCP. This included certain graphic cards based on the ATI X1600 chipset and certain models of the NVIDIA Geforce 7900 series. The first computer monitors with HDCP support were released in 2005, and by February 2006, a dozen different models had been released. The Protected Video Path was enabled in graphic cards that supported HDCP, since it was required for output of Blu-ray Disc video. In comparison, the Protected Audio Path was only required if a lossless audio bitstream (such as Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA
) was output. Uncompressed LPCM audio, however, does not require a Protected Audio Path, and software programs such as PowerDVD and WinDVD can decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA and output it as LPCM. A limitation is that if the computer does not support a Protected Audio Path, the audio must be downsampled to 16-bit 48 kHz but can still output at up to 8 channels. No graphic cards were released in 2008 that supported the Protected Audio Path.
In June 2008, Asus
announced Xonar HDAV1.3, which in December 2008 received a software update and became the first HDMI sound card that supported the Protected Audio Path and can both bitstream and decode lossless audio (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA), although bitstreaming is only available if using the ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre software. The Xonar HDAV1.3 has an HDMI 1.3 input/output, and Asus says that it can work with most video cards on the market.
In September 2009, AMD announced the ATI Radeon HD 5000 series
video cards, which support HDMI 1.3 output (Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support and high bit rate audio), support for 8-channel LPCM over HDMI, and an integrated HD audio controller with a Protected Audio Path that allows bitstream output over HDMI for AAC, Dolby AC-3, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats. The ATI Radeon HD 5870 released in September 2009 is the first video card that supports bitstream output over HDMI for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
In December 2010, it was announced that several computer vendors and display makers including Intel, AMD, Dell
, Lenovo, Samsung
, and LG would stop using LVDS from 2013 and legacy DVI
and VGA connectors from 2015, replacing them with DisplayPort and HDMI.
, VGA, RCA, etc.), using a scaler (digital-to-analog converter
).
, version 1.0 of which was approved in May 2006. DisplayPort is supported in several computer monitors and video cards. The DisplayPort website states that DisplayPort is expected to complement HDMI. Most of the DisplayPort supporters are computer companies. DisplayPort uses a self-clocking micro-packet-based protocol that allows for a variable amount of differential lanes as well as flexible allocation of bandwidth between audio and video, and supports encapsulating multichannel compressed audio formats in the audio stream DisplayPort ports can be made so that they are compatible with single-link DVI
and HDMI. Compatibility is achieved with dual-mode DisplayPort ports, which are marked with the ++DP logo, using attached passive adapters; active adapters allow signal conversion to dual-link DVI and analog VGA.
DisplayPort has an advantage over HDMI in that it is royalty-free, while the HDMI royalty is US$
0.04 per device and has an annual fee of US$10,000 for high-volume manufacturers (annual production of over 10,000 units). DisplayPort version 1.2 added the ability to transport multiple audio/video streams, doubled the maximum data rate from 10.8 Gbit/s to 21.6 Gbit/s, increased the "AUX" channel bandwidth from 1 Mbit/s to 720 Mbit/s, added support for multiple color spaces including xvYCC
, scRGB and Adobe RGB 1998, added global time-code for audio synchronisation and the ability to transfer Ethernet, USB 2.0, DPMS, and other types of data over the "AUX" channel. HDMI has a few advantages over DisplayPort, such as support for Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) signals, and electrical compatibility with DVI (though practically limited to single-link DVI rates).
Radio frequency
Radio frequency is a rate of oscillation in the range of about 3 kHz to 300 GHz, which corresponds to the frequency of radio waves, and the alternating currents which carry radio signals...
(RF) coaxial cable
Coaxial cable
Coaxial cable, or coax, has an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis...
, composite video
Composite video
Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...
, S-Video
S-Video
Separate Video, more commonly known as S-Video and Y/C, is often referred to by JVC as both an S-VHS connector and as Super Video. It is an analog video transmission scheme, in which video information is encoded on two channels: luma and chroma...
, SCART
SCART
SCART is a French-originated standard and associated 21-pin connector for connecting audio-visual equipment together...
, component video
Component video
Component video is a video signal that has been split into two or more component channels. In popular use, it refers to a type of component analog video information that is transmitted or stored as three separate signals...
, D-Terminal, or VGA
VGA connector
A Video Graphics Array connector is a three-row 15-pin DE-15 connector. The 15-pin VGA connector is found on many video cards, computer monitors, and some high definition television sets...
(also called D-sub
D-subminiature
The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector. They are named for their characteristic D-shaped metal shield. When they were introduced, D-subs were among the smaller connectors used on computer systems....
or DE-15F). HDMI connects digital audio/video sources (such as set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
es, DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
players, HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
players, Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
players, AVCHD
AVCHD
AVCHD is a file-based format for the digital recording and playback of high-definition video....
camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s, personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s (PCs), video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
s (such as the PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, and Wii U), AV receiver
AV receiver
AV receivers or audio-video receivers are one of the many consumer electronics components typically found within a home theatre system. Their primary purpose is to amplify sound from a multitude of possible audio sources as well as route video signals to your TV from various sources. The user may...
s, tablet computer
Tablet computer
A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...
s, and mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s) to compatible digital audio
Digital audio
Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...
devices, computer monitors, video projector
Video projector
A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. All video projectors use a very bright light to project the image, and most modern ones can correct any curves, blurriness, and other...
s, and digital television
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
s.
HDMI implements the EIA/CEA-861 standards, which define video formats and waveforms, transport of compressed, uncompressed, and LPCM audio, auxiliary data, and implementations of the VESA EDID
Extended display identification data
Extended display identification data is a data structure provided by a digital display to describe its capabilities to a video source . It is what enables a modern personal computer to know what kinds of monitors are connected to it. EDID is defined by a standard published by the Video...
. HDMI supports, on a single cable, any uncompressed TV or PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
video format, including standard, enhanced, high definition
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
and 3D
3D television
A 3D television is a television set that employs techniques of 3D presentation, such as stereoscopic capture, multi-view capture, or 2D-plus-depth, and a 3D display – a special viewing device to project a television program into a realistic three-dimensional field.- History :In the late-1890's,...
video signals; up to 8 channels of compressed or uncompressed digital audio; a Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) connection; and an Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
data connection.
The CEC allows HDMI devices to control each other when necessary and allows the user to operate multiple devices with one remote control
Remote control
A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...
handset. Because HDMI is electrically compatible with the CEA-861 signals used by digital visual interface
Digital Visual Interface
The Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
(DVI), no signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of video quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used. As an uncompressed CEA-861 connection, HDMI is independent of the various digital television
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
standards used by individual devices, such as ATSC and DVB, as these are encapsulations of compressed MPEG video streams (which can be decoded and output as an uncompressed video stream on HDMI).
Production of consumer HDMI products started in late 2003. In Europe, either DVI-HDCP or HDMI is included in the HD ready
HD ready
The HD ready is a certification program introduced in 2005 by EICTA , now DIGITALEUROPE....
in-store labeling specification for TV sets for HDTV, formulated by EICTA
European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Associations
DIGITALEUROPE is European digital economy based in Brussels, Belgium. The association represents the interests of both national associations and corporate organisations operating in the information technology and consumer electronics sector in Europe towards The European parliament and the European...
with SES Astra
SES Astra
Astra is the name for the geostationary communication satellites, both individually and as a group, which are owned and operated by SES S.A., a global satellite operator based in Betzdorf, in eastern Luxembourg. The name is sometimes also used to describe the channels broadcasting from these...
in 2005. HDMI began to appear on consumer
Consumer
Consumer is a broad label for any individuals or households that use goods generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer occurs in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary.-Economics and marketing:...
HDTV camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s and digital still cameras in 2006. Shipments of HDMI were expected to exceed that of DVI in 2008, driven primarily by the consumer electronics market. HDMI Licensing, LLC announced on October 25, 2011 that there were over 1,100 HDMI Adopters and that over 2 billion HDMI enabled products have shipped since the launch of the HDMI standard. Starting on October 25, 2011, all future development of the HDMI specification will be done through a new organization called the HDMI Forum.
History
The HDMI Founders are HitachiHitachi, Ltd.
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Marunouchi 1-chome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company is the parent of the Hitachi Group as part of the larger DKB Group companies...
, Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
/National
National (brand)
National was a brand used by Panasonic Corporation to sell home appliances, personal appliances, and industrial appliances and was the first name used by Konosuke Matsushita's electric firm to sell his battery-powered bicycle lamps, hoping that they would be a product used by all of Japan, hence...
/Quasar
Quasar (brand)
Quasar is a North American brand of electronics, first used by Motorola in 1967 for a model line of transistorized color televisions. These televisions were well-known for containing all serviceable parts in a drawer beneath the television's cabinet...
), Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
, Silicon Image, Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, Thomson (RCA)
Thomson SA
Technicolor SA , formerly Thomson SA and Thomson Multimedia, is a French international provider of solutions for the creation, management, post-production, delivery and access of video, for the Communication, Media and Entertainment industries. Technicolor’s headquarters are located in Issy les...
and Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
. Digital Content Protection, LLC provides HDCP
High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections...
(which was developed by Intel) for HDMI. HDMI has the support of motion picture producers Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
and Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
, along with system operators DirecTV
DirecTV
DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
, EchoStar (Dish Network
Dish Network
Dish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...
) and CableLabs
CableLabs
Founded in 1988 by cable television operating companies, Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. is a not-for-profit research and development consortium that has cable operators as its members. System operators from around the world are eligible to be members. Members dues are based on revenue...
.
The HDMI Founders began development on HDMI 1.0 on April 16, 2002, with the goal of creating an AV connector that was backward-compatible with DVI. At the time, DVI-HDCP (DVI with HDCP) and DVI-HDTV (DVI-HDCP using the CEA-861-B video standard) were being used on HDTVs. HDMI 1.0 was designed to improve on DVI-HDTV by using a smaller connector and adding support for audio, and enhanced support for YCbCr
YCbCr
YCbCr or Y′CbCr, sometimes written or , is a family of color spaces used as a part of the color image pipeline in video and digital photography systems. Y′ is the luma component and CB and CR are the blue-difference and red-difference chroma components...
and consumer electronics control functions.
The first Authorized Testing Center (ATC), which tests HDMI products, was opened by Silicon Image on June 23, 2003, in California, United States. The first ATC in Japan was opened by Panasonic
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
on May 1, 2004, in Osaka. The first ATC in Europe was opened by Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
on May 25, 2005, in Caen, France. The first ATC in China was opened by Silicon Image on November 21, 2005, in Shenzhen. The first ATC in India was opened by Philips on June 12, 2008, in Bangalore. The HDMI website contains a list of all the ATCs.
According to In-Stat, the number of HDMI devices sold was 5 million in 2004, 17.4 million in 2005, 63 million in 2006, and 143 million in 2007. HDMI has become the de facto standard
De facto standard
A de facto standard is a custom, convention, product, or system that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces...
for HDTVs, and according to In-Stat, around 90% of digital televisions in 2007 included HDMI. In-Stat has estimated that 229 million HDMI devices were sold in 2008. On April 8, 2008 there were over 850 consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
and PC companies that had adopted the HDMI specification (HDMI Adopters). On January 7, 2009, HDMI Licensing, LLC announced that HDMI had reached an installed base of over 600 million HDMI devices. In-Stat has estimated that 394 million HDMI devices will sell in 2009 and that all digital televisions by the end of 2009 would have at least one HDMI input.
In 2008, PC Magazine
PC Magazine
PC Magazine is a computer magazine published by Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009...
awarded a Technical Excellence Award in the Home Theater category for an "innovation that has changed the world" to the CEC portion of the HDMI specification. Ten companies were given a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for their development of HDMI by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences or NATAS was created in 1955 to advance the arts and sciences of television. Headquartered in New York, NATAS's membership is national and the organization has local chapters around the country....
on January 7, 2009.
On October 25, 2011, the HDMI Forum was established by the HDMI Founders to create an open organization so that interested companies can participate in the development of the HDMI specification. All members of the HDMI Forum have equal voting rights, may participate in the Technical Working Group, and if elected can be on the Board of Directors. There is no limit to the number of companies allowed in the HDMI Forum though companies must pay an annual fee of $15,000 with an additional annual fee of $5,000 for those companies who serve on the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors will be made up of 11 companies who are elected every 2 years by a general vote of HDMI Forum members. All future development of the HDMI specification will take place in the HDMI Forum and will be built upon the HDMI 1.4b specification.
Specifications
The HDMI specification defines the protocols, signals, electrical interfaces and mechanical requirements of the standard. The maximum pixel clock rate for HDMI 1.0 was 165 MHz, which was sufficient to support 1080p1080p
1080p is the shorthand identification for a set of HDTV high-definition video modes that are characterized by 1080 horizontal lines of resolution and progressive scan, meaning the image is not interlaced as is the case with the 1080i display standard....
and WUXGA (1920×1200) at 60 Hz. HDMI 1.3 increased that to 340 MHz, which allows for higher resolution (such as WQXGA, 2560×1600) across a single digital link. An HDMI connection can either be single-link (type A/C) or dual-link (type B) and can have a video pixel rate of 25 MHz to 340 MHz (for a single-link connection) or 25 MHz to 680 MHz (for a dual-link connection). Video formats with rates below 25 MHz (e.g., 13.5 MHz for 480i/NTSC) are transmitted using a pixel-repetition scheme.
Audio/video
HDMI uses the Consumer Electronics AssociationConsumer Electronics Association
The Consumer Electronics Association is a standards and trade organization for the consumer electronics industry in the United States. The Consumer Electronics Association is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $173 billion U.S...
/Electronic Industries Alliance
Electronic Industries Alliance
The Electronic Industries Alliance was a standards and trade organization composed as an alliance of trade associations for electronics manufacturers in the United States. They developed standards to ensure the equipment of different manufacturers was compatible and interchangeable...
861 standards. HDMI 1.0 to HDMI 1.2a uses the EIA/CEA-861-B video standard, HDMI 1.3 uses the CEA-861-D video standard, and HDMI 1.4 uses the CEA-861-E video standard. The CEA-861-E document defines "video formats and waveforms; colorimetry and quantization; transport of compressed and uncompressed, as well as Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM), audio; carriage of auxiliary data; and implementations of the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) Enhanced Extended Display Identification Data Standard (E-EDID)".
To ensure baseline compatibility between different HDMI sources and displays (as well as backward compatibility with the electrically compatible DVI standard) all HDMI devices must support the sRGB color space at 8 bits per component. Support for the YCbCr color space and higher color depths ("deep color") is optional. HDMI permits sRGB 4:4:4 (8–16 bits per component), xvYCC
XvYCC
xvYCC or Extended-gamut YCC is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space...
4:4:4
Chroma subsampling
Chroma subsampling is the practice of encoding images by implementing less resolution for chroma information than for luma information, taking advantage of the human visual system's lower acuity for color differences than for luminance....
(8–16 bits per component), YCbCr 4:4:4
Chroma subsampling
Chroma subsampling is the practice of encoding images by implementing less resolution for chroma information than for luma information, taking advantage of the human visual system's lower acuity for color differences than for luminance....
(8–16 bits per component), or YCbCr 4:2:2
Chroma subsampling
Chroma subsampling is the practice of encoding images by implementing less resolution for chroma information than for luma information, taking advantage of the human visual system's lower acuity for color differences than for luminance....
(8–12 bits per component). The color spaces that can be used by HDMI are ITU-R BT.601, ITU-R BT.709-5
Rec. 709
ITU-R Recommendation BT.709, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 709 or BT.709, standardizes the format of high-definition television, having 16:9 aspect ratio. The first edition of the standard was approved in 1990....
and IEC 61966-2-4
XvYCC
xvYCC or Extended-gamut YCC is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space...
.
For digital audio, if an HDMI device supports audio, it is required to support the baseline format: stereo (uncompressed) PCM. Other formats are optional, with HDMI allowing up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio at sample sizes of 16-bit, 20-bit and 24-bit, with sample rates of 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 176.4 kHz and 192 kHz. HDMI also supports any IEC 61937-compliant compressed audio stream, such as Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
and DTS
Digital Theater System
DTS is a series of multichannel audio technologies owned by DTS, Inc. , an American company specializing in digital surround sound formats used for both commercial/theatrical and consumer grade applications...
, and up to 8 channels of one-bit DSD
Direct Stream Digital
Direct-Stream Digital is the trademark name used by Sony and Philips for their system of recreating audible signals which uses pulse-density modulation encoding, a technology to store audio signals on digital storage media which is used for the Super Audio CD .The signal is stored as delta-sigma...
audio (used on Super Audio CD
Super Audio CD
Super Audio CD is a high-resolution, read-only optical disc for audio storage. Sony and Philips Electronics jointly developed the technology, and publicized it in 1999. It is designated as the Scarlet Book standard. Sony and Philips previously collaborated to define the Compact Disc standard...
s) at rates up to four times that of Super Audio CD. With version 1.3, HDMI supports lossless compressed audio streams Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD is an advanced lossless multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories which is intended primarily for high-definition home-entertainment equipment such as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. It is the successor to the AC-3 Dolby Digital surround sound codec which was used as the...
and DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless audio codec created by Digital Theater System. It was previously known as DTS++. It is an extension of DTS which, when played back on devices which do not support the Master Audio or High Resolution extension, degrades to a "core" track which is lossy. DTS-HD...
. As with the YCbCr video, device support for audio is optional. Audio Return Channel (ARC) is a feature introduced in the HDMI 1.4 standard. "Return" refers to the case where the audio comes from the TV and can be sent "upstream" to the AV Receiver using the HDMI cable connected to the AV receiver. An example given on the HDMI website is that a TV that directly receives a terrestrial/satellite broadcast, or has a video source built in, sends the audio "upstream" to the AV receiver.
The HDMI standard was not designed to pass closed caption data (for example, subtitle
Subtitle (captioning)
Subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added...
s) to the television for decoding. As such, any closed caption stream must be decoded and included as an image in the video stream(s) prior to transmission over an HDMI cable to be viewed on the DTV. This limits the caption style (even for digital captions) to only that decoded at the source prior to HDMI transmission. This also prevents closed captions when transmission over HDMI is required for upconversion. For example, a DVD player that sends an upscaled 720p/1080i format via HDMI to an HDTV has no way to pass Closed Captioning
Closed captioning
Closed captioning is the process of displaying text on a television, video screen or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information to individuals who wish to access it...
data so that the HDTV can decode it, as there is no line 21 VBI in that format.
The connector on the right is gold.
Connectors
Type A: Nineteen pins, with bandwidth to support all SDTV, EDTV
EdTV
EDtv is a 1999 American comedy film directed by Ron Howard. An adaptation of the Quebec film Louis 19, le roi des ondes , it stars Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Ellen DeGeneres, Martin Landau, Rob Reiner, Sally Kirkland, Elizabeth Hurley, Clint Howard, and Dennis Hopper.The...
and HDTV modes. The plug (male) connector outside dimensions are 13.9 mm × 4.45 mm and the receptacle (female) connector inside dimensions are 14 mm × 4.55 mm. Type A is electrically compatible with single-link DVI-D.
Type B: This connector (21.2 mm × 4.45 mm) has 29 pins and can carry double the video bandwidth of type A, for use with very high-resolution future displays such as WQUXGA (3,840×2,400). Type B is electrically compatible with dual-link DVI-D, but has not yet been used in any products.
Type C: A Mini connector defined in the HDMI 1.3 specification, it is intended for portable devices. It is smaller than the type A plug connector (10.42 mm × 2.42 mm) but has the same 19-pin configuration. The differences are that all positive signals of the differential pairs are swapped with their corresponding shield, the DDC/CEC Ground is assigned to pin 13 instead of pin 17, the CEC is assigned to pin 14 instead of pin 13, and the reserved pin is 17 instead of pin 14. The type C Mini connector can be connected to a type A connector using a type A-to-type C cable.
Type D: A Micro connector defined in the HDMI 1.4 specification keeps the standard 19 pins of types A and C but shrinks the connector size to something resembling a micro-USB connector. The type D connector is 2.8 mm × 6.4 mm, whereas the type C connector is 2.42 mm × 10.42 mm; for comparison, a micro-USB connector is 2.94 mm × 7.8 mm and USB Type A is 11.5 mm × 4.5 mm.
Type E: Automotive Connection System defined in HDMI 1.4 specification.
Cables
Although no maximum length for an HDMI cable is specified, signal attenuationAttenuation
In physics, attenuation is the gradual loss in intensity of any kind of flux through a medium. For instance, sunlight is attenuated by dark glasses, X-rays are attenuated by lead, and light and sound are attenuated by water.In electrical engineering and telecommunications, attenuation affects the...
(dependent on the cable's construction quality and conducting materials) limits usable lengths in practice. HDMI 1.3 defines two cable categories: Category 1-certified cables, which have been tested at 74.5 MHz (which would include resolutions such as 720p60 and 1080i60), and Category 2-certified cables, which have been tested at 340 MHz (which would include resolutions such as 1080p60 and 2160p30). Category 1 HDMI cables are marketed as "Standard" and Category 2 HDMI cables as "High Speed". This labeling guideline for HDMI cables went into effect on October 17, 2008. Category 1 and 2 cables can either meet the required parameter specifications for interpair skew, far-end crosstalk, attenuation and differential impedance, or they can meet the required nonequalized/equalized eye diagram requirements. A cable of about 5 meters (16 ft) can be manufactured to Category 1 specifications easily and inexpensively by using 28 AWG
American wire gauge
American wire gauge , also known as the Brown & Sharpe wire gauge, is a standardized wire gauge system used since 1857 predominantly in the United States and Canada for the diameters of round, solid, nonferrous, electrically conducting wire...
(0.081 mm²) conductors. With better quality construction and materials, including 24 AWG (0.205 mm²) conductors, an HDMI cable can reach lengths of up to 15 meters (49 ft). Many HDMI cables under 5 meters of length that were made before the HDMI 1.3 specification can work as Category 2 cables, but only Category 2-tested cables are guaranteed to work.
As of the HDMI 1.4 specification, these are the following cable types defined for HDMI in general:
- Standard HDMI Cable – up to 1080i1080i1080i is the shorthand name for a high-definition television mode. The i means interlaced video; 1080i differs from 1080p, in which the p stands for progressive scan. The term 1080i assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a frame size of 1920×1080 pixels...
and 720p720p720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan... - Standard HDMI Cable with Ethernet
- Automotive HDMI Cable
- High Speed HDMI Cable – 1080p1080p1080p is the shorthand identification for a set of HDTV high-definition video modes that are characterized by 1080 horizontal lines of resolution and progressive scan, meaning the image is not interlaced as is the case with the 1080i display standard....
, 4K4K resolution4K is an emerging standard for resolution in digital film and computer graphics. The name comes from its approximately 4,000 pixels of horizontal resolution. The fact that it describes the horizontal resolution is contrary to the standard resolutions 720p and 1080p, which represent the number of...
, 3D3D televisionA 3D television is a television set that employs techniques of 3D presentation, such as stereoscopic capture, multi-view capture, or 2D-plus-depth, and a 3D display – a special viewing device to project a television program into a realistic three-dimensional field.- History :In the late-1890's,...
and Deep Color - High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet
Cable manufacturers are officially prohibited from marketing the cables by HDMI standard version (for instance "HDMI 1.4 cable"); the cables are distinguished by bitrate
Bitrate
In telecommunications and computing, bit rate is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time....
support only.
Extenders
An HDMI extender is a single device (or pair of devices) powered with an external power source or with the 5V DC from the HDMI source. Long cables can cause instability of HDCP and blinking on the screen, due to the weakened DDCDisplay Data Channel
The Display Data Channel or DDC is a collection of digital communication protocols between a computer display and a graphics adapter that enables the display to communicate its supported display modes to the adapter and to enable the computer host to adjust monitor parameters, such as brightness...
signal that HDCP requires. HDCP DDC signals must be multiplexed with TMDS video signals to be compliant with HDCP requirements for HDMI extenders based on a single Category 5
Category 5 cable
Category 5 cable is a twisted pair cable for carrying signals. This type of cable is used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet. It is also used to carry other signals such as telephony and video. The cable is commonly connected using punch down blocks and modular connectors...
/Category 6 cable
Category 6 cable
Category 6 cable, commonly referred to as Cat 6, is a cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Compared with Cat 5 and Cat 5e, Cat 6 features more stringent specifications for crosstalk...
. Several companies offer amplifiers, equalizers
Equalization
Equalization, is the process of adjusting the balance between frequency components within an electronic signal. The most well known use of equalization is in sound recording and reproduction but there are many other applications in electronics and telecommunications. The circuit or equipment used...
and repeaters that can string several standard HDMI cables together. Active HDMI cables use electronics within the cable to boost the signal and allow for HDMI cables of up to 30 meters (98 ft). HDMI extenders that are based on dual Category 5
Category 5 cable
Category 5 cable is a twisted pair cable for carrying signals. This type of cable is used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet. It is also used to carry other signals such as telephony and video. The cable is commonly connected using punch down blocks and modular connectors...
/Category 6 cable
Category 6 cable
Category 6 cable, commonly referred to as Cat 6, is a cable standard for Gigabit Ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e and Category 3 cable standards. Compared with Cat 5 and Cat 5e, Cat 6 features more stringent specifications for crosstalk...
can extend HDMI to 250 meters (820 ft), while HDMI extenders based on optical fiber
Optical fiber
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
can extend HDMI to 300 meters (980 ft).
Communication channel protocols
HDMI has three physically separate communication channels, which are the DDC, TMDS and the optional CEC.DDC
The Display Data ChannelDisplay Data Channel
The Display Data Channel or DDC is a collection of digital communication protocols between a computer display and a graphics adapter that enables the display to communicate its supported display modes to the adapter and to enable the computer host to adjust monitor parameters, such as brightness...
(DDC) is a communication channel based on the I²C
I²C
I²C is a multi-master serial single-ended computer bus invented by Philips that is used to attach low-speed peripherals to a motherboard, embedded system, cellphone, or other electronic device. Since the mid 1990s, several competitors I²C ("i-squared cee" or "i-two cee"; Inter-Integrated Circuit;...
bus specification. HDMI specifically requires support for the Enhanced Display Data Channel (E-DDC), which is used by the HDMI source device to read the E-EDID data from the HDMI sink device to learn what audio/video formats it supports. HDMI requires that the E-DDC support I²C
I²C
I²C is a multi-master serial single-ended computer bus invented by Philips that is used to attach low-speed peripherals to a motherboard, embedded system, cellphone, or other electronic device. Since the mid 1990s, several competitors I²C ("i-squared cee" or "i-two cee"; Inter-Integrated Circuit;...
standard mode speed (100 kbit/s) and allows optional support for fast mode speed (400 kbit/s).
TMDS
Transition Minimized Differential SignalingTransition Minimized Differential Signaling
Transition-minimized differential signaling is a technology for transmitting high-speed serial data and is used by the DVI and HDMI video interfaces, as well as other digital communication interfaces....
(TMDS) on HDMI carries video, audio and auxiliary data via one of three modes, called the Video Data Period, the Data Island Period and the Control Period. During the Video Data Period, the pixels of an active video line are transmitted. During the Data Island period (which occurs during the horizontal and vertical blanking intervals), audio and auxiliary data are transmitted within a series of packets. The Control Period occurs between Video and Data Island periods.
Both HDMI and DVI
Digital Visual Interface
The Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
use TMDS to send 10-bit characters that are encoded using 8b/10b encoding
8B/10B encoding
In telecommunications, 8b/10b is a line code that maps 8-bit symbols to 10-bit symbols to achieve DC-balance and bounded disparity, and yet provide enough state changes to allow reasonable clock recovery. This means that the difference between the count of 1s and 0s in a string of at least 20 bits...
for the Video Data Period and 2b/10b encoding for the Control Period. HDMI adds the ability to send audio and auxiliary data using 4b/10b encoding for the Data Island Period. Each Data Island Period is 32 pixels in size and contains a 32-bit Packet Header, which includes 8 bits of BCH
BCH code
In coding theory the BCH codes form a class of parameterised error-correcting codes which have been the subject of much academic attention in the last fifty years. BCH codes were invented in 1959 by Hocquenghem, and independently in 1960 by Bose and Ray-Chaudhuri...
ECC parity data for error correction and describes the contents of the packet. Each Packet contains four subpackets, and each subpacket is 64 bits in size, including 8 bits of BCH ECC parity data, allowing for each Packet to carry up to 224 bits of audio data. Each Data Island Period can contain up to 18 Packets. Seven of the 15 Packet types described in the HDMI 1.3a specifications deal with audio data, while the other 8 types deal with auxiliary data. Among these are the General Control Packet and the Gamut Metadata Packet. The General Control Packet carries information on AVMUTE (which mutes the audio during changes that may cause audio noise) and Color Depth
Color depth
In computer graphics, color depth or bit depth is the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel in a bitmapped image or video frame buffer. This concept is also known as bits per pixel , particularly when specified along with the number of bits used...
(which sends the bit depth of the current video stream and is required for Deep Color). The Gamut Metadata Packet carries information on the color space
Color space
A color model is an abstract mathematical model describing the way colors can be represented as tuples of numbers, typically as three or four values or color components...
being used for the current video stream and is required for xvYCC.
CEC
Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) is a feature designed to allow the user to command and control two or more CEC-enabled boxes, that are connected through HDMI, by using only one of their remote controls (for example by controlling a television set
Television set
A television set is a device that combines a tuner, display, and speakers for the purpose of viewing television. Television sets became a popular consumer product after the Second World War, using vacuum tubes and cathode ray tube displays...
, set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
, and DVD player
DVD player
A DVD player is a device that plays discs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. These devices were invented in 1997 and continue to thrive...
using only the remote control of the TV). CEC also allows for individual CEC-enabled devices to command and control each other without user intervention.
It is a one-wire bidirectional serial
Serial communications
In telecommunication and computer science, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are sent as a whole, on a link with several parallel channels...
bus that uses the industry-standard AV.link
AV.link
AV.link, also known under the trade names nexTViewLink, SmartLink, Q-Link, EasyLink, etc. is a protocol to carry control information between audio-visual devices connected via the SCART connector....
protocol to perform remote control
Remote control
A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...
functions. CEC wiring is mandatory, although implementation of CEC in a product is optional. It was defined in HDMI Specification 1.0 and updated in HDMI 1.2, HDMI 1.2a and HDMI 1.3a (which added timer and audio commands to the bus). USB to CEC Adapters exist that allow a computer to control CEC enabled devices.
Trade name
Trade name
A trade name, also known as a trading name or a business name, is the name which a business trades under for commercial purposes, although its registered, legal name, used for contracts and other formal situations, may be another....
s for CEC are Anynet+ (Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
); Aquos Link (Sharp
Sharp Corporation
is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first...
); BRAVIA Link and BRAVIA Sync (Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
); HDMI-CEC (Hitachi); E-link (AOC
AOC International
AOC International is the house brand of TPV Technology Limited , the world’s largest manufacturer of computer monitors. TPV Technology Limited is a Taiwan-based company. The group designs and produces a full range of CRT and TFT LCD monitors as well as LCD TVs for distribution...
); Kuro Link (Pioneer); CE-Link and Regza Link (Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
); RIHD (Remote Interactive over HDMI) (Onkyo
Onkyo
is a Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer, specializing in home cinema and audio equipment including receivers and surround sound speakers. The word Onkyo translates as "sound harmony".The company started under the name of Osaka Denki Onkyo K.K in 1946...
); RuncoLink (Runco International
Runco International
Runco International is a subsidiary of Planar Systems, Inc. , an American multinational corporation headquartered in Beaverton, OR, that manufactures a wide range of display devices.-History:...
); SimpLink (LG
LG Electronics
LG Electronics is a global electronics and telecommunications company headquartered in Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea. The company operates its business through five divisions: mobile communications, home entertainment, home appliance, air conditioning and business solution...
); HDAVI Control, EZ-Sync, VIERA Link (Panasonic
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
); EasyLink (Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
); and NetCommand for HDMI (Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi
The Mitsubishi Group , Mitsubishi Group of Companies, or Mitsubishi Companies is a Japanese multinational conglomerate company that consists of a range of autonomous businesses which share the Mitsubishi brand, trademark and legacy...
).
The following is a list of HDMI-CEC commands:
- One Touch Play: the device will become active source when playback starts
- System Standby: switches all connected devices to standby
- Preset Transfer: transfers the tuner channel setup to another TV set
- One Touch Record: start recording immediately
- Timer Programming: allow one device (e.g. a TV set) to set the timer programming of another (e.g. a DVD-recorder)
- System Information: checks all components for bus addresses and configuration
- Deck Control: playback control
- Tuner Control: control the tuner of another device
- OSD Display: use the OSD of the TV set to display text
- Device Menu Control: use the menus of another device
- Routing Control: control the switching of signal sources
- Remote Control Pass Through: pass through remote control commands
- Device OSD Name Transfer: transfer the preferred device names to the TV set
Compatibility with DVI
Backward compatibility
In the context of telecommunications and computing, a device or technology is said to be backward or downward compatible if it can work with input generated by an older device...
with single-link Digital Visual Interface
Digital Visual Interface
The Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
digital video (DVI-D or DVI-I, but not DVI-A). No signal conversion is required when an adapter or asymmetric cable is used, and consequently no loss in video quality occurs.
From a user's perspective, an HDMI display can be driven by a single-link DVI-D source, since HDMI and DVI-D define an overlapping minimum set of supported resolutions and framebuffer formats to ensure a basic level of interoperability. Since DVI-D displays are not required to support High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection
High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections...
, in the reverse scenario, a DVI-D monitor is not guaranteed to display a signal from an HDMI source. A typical HDMI-source (such as a Blu-ray player) may demand HDCP-compliance of the display, and hence refuse to output HDCP-protected content to a non-compliant display. Absent this HDCP issue, an HDMI-source and DVI-D display would enjoy the same level of basic interoperability. Further complicating the issue is the existence of a handful of display equipment (high end home theater projectors) that were designed with HDMI inputs, but are not HDCP-compliant.
Features specific to HDMI, such as remote-control and audio transport, are not available in devices that use legacy DVI-D signalling. However, many devices output HDMI over a DVI connector (e.g., ATI 3000-series
Radeon R600
The graphics processing unit codenamed the Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies...
and NVIDIA GTX 200-series
GeForce 200 Series
The GeForce 200 Series is the 10th generation of Nvidia's GeForce graphics processing units. The series also represents the continuation of the company's unified shader architecture introduced with the GeForce 8 Series and the GeForce 9 Series. Its primary competition came from ATI's Radeon HD 4000...
video cards), and some multimedia displays may accept HDMI (including audio) over a DVI input. In general, exact capabilities vary from product to product.
Audio support
Since the DVI specification does not support audio-transport, an interoperability problem arises when an HDMI-source drives a legacy DVI-display (such as a PC monitor), or conversely, when a DVI-source drives an HDMI-display. While HDMI and DVI compliance rules ensure that a DVI video-connection can be successfully negotiated and established (via a mutually supported display mode), the audio signal must still be transported through means outside of the DVI connection. Typically, an HDMI equipped source will provide additional outputs for audio-only, such as line-level analog and SPDIF, which provide a baseline audio program (such as stereo PCM.) Likewise, when displaying video from an HDMI jack, an HDMI equipped display may support alternate audio-sourcing from a separate pair of analog-audio inputs. Provision for any of these compatibility mechanisms is entirely up to the discretion of the manufacturer, as they are not covered by the HDMI specification. As of 2010, nearly all HDMI equipped sources (set-top and media-extender boxes, Blu-ray/DVD players and PCs) provide separate analog audio outputs, and many HDMI-equipped televisions support alternate-audio input when sourcing video from an HDMI-input.There are consumer adapters available to place between a DVI source and HDMI device which can insert a separate audio signal into an HDMI TMDS data stream. DVI connectors on PC video cards have also been increasingly able to take advantage of HDMI features such as audio output.
HDCP
HDMI can use HDCPHigh-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections...
to encrypt the signal if required by the source device. CSS
Content Scramble System
Content Scramble System is a Digital Rights Management and encryption system employed on almost all commercially produced DVD-Video discs. CSS utilizes a proprietary 40-bit stream cipher algorithm...
, CPPM
Content Protection for Recordable Media
Content Protection for Recordable Media and Pre-Recorded Media is a mechanism for controlling the copying, moving and deletion of digital media on a host device, such as a personal computer, or other digital player...
and AACS
Advanced Access Content System
The Advanced Access Content System is a standard for content distribution and digital rights management, intended to restrict access to and copying of the "next generation" of optical discs and DVDs. The specification was publicly released in April 2005 and the standard has been adopted as the...
require the use of HDCP on HDMI when playing back encrypted DVD Video, DVD Audio, HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
. The HDCP Repeater bit
HDCP Repeater bit
The HDCP Repeater bit is a part of the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection specification and applies to intermediate devices between the source device and the display...
controls the authentication and switching/distribution of an HDMI signal. According to HDCP Specification 1.2 (beginning with HDMI CTS 1.3a), any system that implements HDCP must do so in a fully compliant manner. HDCP testing that was previously only a requirement for optional tests such as the "Simplay HD" testing program is now part of the requirements for HDMI compliance. HDCP allows for up to 127 devices to be connected together, with up to 7 levels, using a combination of sources, sinks and repeaters. A simple example of this is several HDMI devices connected to an HDMI AV receiver that is connected to an HDMI display.
Devices called HDCP strippers can remove the HDCP information from the video signal so the video can play on non-HDCP-compliant displays.
Versions
HDMI devices are manufactured to adhere to various versions of the specification, in which each version is given a number and/or letter, such as 1.0, 1.2, or 1.4b. Each subsequent version of the specification uses the same kind of cable but increases the bandwidthBandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
and/or capabilities of what can be transmitted over the cable. A product listed as having an HDMI version does not necessarily mean that it will have all of the features that are listed for that version, since some HDMI features are optional, such as Deep Color and xvYCC (which is branded by Sony as "x.v.Color"). Note that with the release of the version 1.4 cable, the HDMI Licensing LLC group (which oversees the HDMI standard) will require that any reference to version numbers be removed from all advertising from the cable only. Non-cable HDMI products starting on January 1, 2012 will no longer be allowed to reference the HDMI number and will be required to state which features of the HDMI specification the product supports.
Version 1.0 to 1.2
HDMI 1.0 was released December 9, 2002 and is a single-cable digital audio/video connector interface with a maximum TMDS bandwidth of 4.9 Gbit/s. It supports up to 3.96 Gbit/s of video bandwidth (1080p/60 Hz or UXGA) and 8 channel LPCM/192 kHzHertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
/24-bit audio. HDMI 1.1 was released on May 20, 2004 and added support for DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and is not the same as video DVDs containing concert films or music videos....
. HDMI 1.2 was released August 8, 2005 and added support for One Bit Audio, used on Super Audio CD
Super Audio CD
Super Audio CD is a high-resolution, read-only optical disc for audio storage. Sony and Philips Electronics jointly developed the technology, and publicized it in 1999. It is designated as the Scarlet Book standard. Sony and Philips previously collaborated to define the Compact Disc standard...
s, at up to 8 channels. It also added the availability of HDMI type A connectors for PC sources, the ability for PC sources to only support the sRGB color space while retaining the option to support the YCbCr color space, and required HDMI 1.2 and later displays to support low-voltage sources. HDMI 1.2a was released on December 14, 2005 and fully specifies Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) features, command sets and CEC compliance tests.
Version 1.3
HDMI 1.3 was released June 22, 2006 and increased the single-link bandwidth to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbit/s). It optionally supports Deep Color, with 30-bit, 36-bit and 48-bit xvYCCXvYCC
xvYCC or Extended-gamut YCC is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space...
, sRGB, or YCbCr, compared to 24-bit sRGB or YCbCr in previous HDMI versions. It also optionally supports output of Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD is an advanced lossless multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories which is intended primarily for high-definition home-entertainment equipment such as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. It is the successor to the AC-3 Dolby Digital surround sound codec which was used as the...
and DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless audio codec created by Digital Theater System. It was previously known as DTS++. It is an extension of DTS which, when played back on devices which do not support the Master Audio or High Resolution extension, degrades to a "core" track which is lossy. DTS-HD...
streams for external decoding by AV receivers. It incorporates automatic audio syncing (audio video sync) capability. It defined cable Categories 1 and 2, with Category 1 cable being tested up to 74.25 MHz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
and Category 2 being tested up to 340 MHz
Hertz
The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications....
. It also added the new type C Mini connector for portable devices.
HDMI 1.3a was released on November 10, 2006 and had Cable and Sink modifications for type C, source termination recommendations, and removed undershoot and maximum rise/fall time limits. It also changed CEC capacitance limits, clarified sRGB video quantization range, and CEC commands for timer control were brought back in an altered form, with audio control commands added. It also added support for optionally streaming SACD in its bitstream DST format rather than uncompressed raw DSD like from HDMI 1.2 onwards.
HDMI 1.3b, 1.3b1 and 1.3c were released on March 26, 2007, November 9, 2007, and August 25, 2008 respectively. They do not introduce differences on HDMI features, functions, or performance, but only describe testing for products based on the HDMI 1.3a specification regarding HDMI compliance (1.3b ), the HDMI type C Mini connector (1.3b1 ) and active HDMI cables (1.3c ).
Version 1.4
HDMI 1.4 was released on May 28, 2009, and the first HDMI 1.4 products were available in the second half of 2009. HDMI 1.4 increases the maximum resolution to 4K × 2K, i.e. 3840 × 2160p (Quad HD) at 24 Hz/25 Hz/30 Hz or 4096 × 2160p at 24 Hz (which is a resolution used with digital theatersDigital cinema
Digital cinema refers to the use of digital technology to distribute and project motion pictures. A movie can be distributed via hard drives, optical disks or satellite and projected using a digital projector instead of a conventional film projector...
); an HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC), which allows for a 100 Mbit/s Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
connection between the two HDMI connected devices so they can share an Internet connection; and introduces an Audio Return Channel (ARC), 3D Over HDMI, a new Micro HDMI Connector, expanded support for color spaces, with the addition of sYCC601, Adobe RGB and Adobe YCC601; and an Automotive Connection System. HDMI 1.4 supports several stereoscopic 3D
Stereoscopy
Stereoscopy refers to a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. Both of these 2-D offset images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3-D depth...
formats including field alternative (interlaced), frame packing (a full resolution top-bottom format), line alternative full, side-by-side half, side-by-side full, 2D + depth, and 2D + depth + graphics + graphics depth (WOWvx), with additional top/bottom formats added in version 1.4a . HDMI 1.4 requires that 3D displays support the frame packing 3D format at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24. High Speed HDMI 1.3 cables can support all HDMI 1.4 features except for the HDMI Ethernet Channel.
HDMI 1.4a was released on March 4, 2010 and adds two additional mandatory 3D formats for broadcast content, which was deferred with HDMI 1.4 in order to see the direction of the 3D broadcast market. HDMI 1.4a has defined mandatory 3D formats for broadcast, game, and movie content. HDMI 1.4a requires that 3D displays support the frame packing 3D format at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24, side-by-side horizontal at either 1080i50 or 1080i60, and top-and-bottom at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24.
HDMI 1.4b was released on October 11, 2011. All future versions of the HDMI specification will be made by the HDMI Forum that was created on October 25, 2011.
Version comparison
Note that a given product may choose to implement a subset of the given HDMI version. Certain features such as Deep Color and xvYCC support are optional.| HDMI version | 1.0–1.2a | 1.3 | 1.4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date initially released | December 29, 2002 | June 22, 2006 | May 28, 2009 |
| Maximum clock rate (MHz Hertz The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications.... ) |
165 | 340 | 340 |
| Maximum TMDS Transition Minimized Differential Signaling Transition-minimized differential signaling is a technology for transmitting high-speed serial data and is used by the DVI and HDMI video interfaces, as well as other digital communication interfaces.... throughput per channel (Gbit/s) including 8b/10b overhead |
1.65 | 3.40 | 3.40 |
| Maximum total TMDS Transition Minimized Differential Signaling Transition-minimized differential signaling is a technology for transmitting high-speed serial data and is used by the DVI and HDMI video interfaces, as well as other digital communication interfaces.... throughput (Gbit/s) including 8b/10b overhead |
4.95 | 10.2 | 10.2 |
| Maximum throughput (Gbit/s) with 8b/10b overhead removed | 3.96 | 8.16 | 8.16 |
| Maximum audio throughput (Mbit/s) | 36.86 | 36.86 | 36.86 |
| Maximum color depth (bit/px.) | 24 | 48 | 48 |
| Maximum resolution over single link at 24-bit/px | 1920×1200p60 | 2560×1600p75 | 4096×2160p24 |
| Maximum resolution over single link at 30-bit/px | 2560×1600p60 | 4096×2160p24 | |
| Maximum resolution over single link at 36-bit/px | 1920×1200p75 | 4096×2160p24 | |
| Maximum resolution over single link at 48-bit/px | 1920×1200p60 | 1920×1200p60 |
| HDMI version | 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 1.2a |
1.3 | 1.3a 1.3b 1.3b1 1.3c |
1.4 1.4a |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| sRGB | ||||||
| YCbCr YCbCr YCbCr or Y′CbCr, sometimes written or , is a family of color spaces used as a part of the color image pipeline in video and digital photography systems. Y′ is the luma component and CB and CR are the blue-difference and red-difference chroma components... |
||||||
| 8 channel LPCM, 192 kHz Hertz The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications.... , 24 bit audio capability |
||||||
| Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs... and HD DVD HD DVD HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format... video and audio at full resolution |
||||||
| Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) | ||||||
| DVD-Audio DVD-Audio DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and is not the same as video DVDs containing concert films or music videos.... support |
||||||
| Super Audio CD Super Audio CD Super Audio CD is a high-resolution, read-only optical disc for audio storage. Sony and Philips Electronics jointly developed the technology, and publicized it in 1999. It is designated as the Scarlet Book standard. Sony and Philips previously collaborated to define the Compact Disc standard... (DSD Direct Stream Digital Direct-Stream Digital is the trademark name used by Sony and Philips for their system of recreating audible signals which uses pulse-density modulation encoding, a technology to store audio signals on digital storage media which is used for the Super Audio CD .The signal is stored as delta-sigma... ) support |
||||||
| Deep Color | ||||||
| xvYCC XvYCC xvYCC or Extended-gamut YCC is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space... |
||||||
| Auto lip-sync Audio to video synchronization Audio to video synchronization refers to the relative timing of audio and video parts during creation, post-production , transmission, reception and play-back processing... |
||||||
| Dolby TrueHD Dolby TrueHD Dolby TrueHD is an advanced lossless multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories which is intended primarily for high-definition home-entertainment equipment such as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. It is the successor to the AC-3 Dolby Digital surround sound codec which was used as the... bitstream capable |
||||||
| DTS-HD Master Audio DTS-HD Master Audio DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless audio codec created by Digital Theater System. It was previously known as DTS++. It is an extension of DTS which, when played back on devices which do not support the Master Audio or High Resolution extension, degrades to a "core" track which is lossy. DTS-HD... bitstream capable |
||||||
| Updated list of CEC commands | ||||||
| 3D over HDMI | ||||||
| Ethernet channel | ||||||
| Audio return channel (ARC) | ||||||
| 4K × 2K resolution support |
- 36-bit support is mandatory for Deep Color-compatible consumer electronic devices, with 48-bit support being optional.
- Maximum resolution is based on CVT-RB, which is a VESAVESAVESA is an international standards body for computer graphics founded in 1989 by NEC Home Electronics and eight other video display adapter manufacturers.VESA's initial goal was to produce a standard for 800×600 SVGA resolution video displays...
standard for non-CRT-based displays. Using CVT-RB 1920×1200 would have a video bandwidth of 3.69 Gbit/s, 2560×1600 would have a video bandwidth of 8.12 Gbit/s, and 4096×2160 would have a video bandwidth of 5.35 Gbit/s. - Using CVT-RB 2560×1600 would have a video bandwidth of 8.12 Gbit/s and 4096×2160 would have a video bandwidth of 6.69 Gbit/s.
- Using CVT-RB 1920×1200 would have a video bandwidth of 7.91 Gbit/s and 4096×2160 would have a video bandwidth of 8.03 Gbit/s.
- Using CVT-RB 1920×1200 would have a video bandwidth of 7.39 Gbit/s.
- Even for a compressed audio codec that a given HDMI version cannot transport, the source device may be able to decode the audio codec and transmit the audio as uncompressed LPCM.
- CEC has been in the HDMI specification since version 1.0, but only began to be used in consumer electronics products with HDMI version 1.3a.
- Playback of SACD may be possible for older HDMI versions if the source device (such as the OppoOPPO DigitalOPPO Electronics Corp., Ltd is an electronics manufacturer based in Dongguan, Guangdong, China. Its major product lines include MP3 players, Portable Media players, LCD-TV, eBook, DVD/Blu-ray Disc players and low cost mobile phones...
970) converts to LPCM. - Large number of additions and clarifications for CEC commands. One addition is CEC command, allowing for volume control of an AV receiver.
Mobile phones
The Samsung Galaxy S IISamsung Galaxy S II
The Samsung Galaxy S II is a smartphone running under the Android operating system that was announced by Samsung on February 13, 2011 at the Mobile World Congress. It is the successor to the Samsung Galaxy S, with a different appearance and significantly improved hardware...
, LG Optimus 3D
LG Optimus 3D
The LG Optimus 3D, or LG Thrill 4G in the USA, is a Android 2.2 froyo 3D mobile device released on 7 July 2011 in the UK and has been touted as the worlds first full 3D mobile phone. It has 512MB of RAM and 8GB of onboard storage which can be expanded by up to 32GB using a micro SDHC card...
(LG Thrill 4G), LG Optimus 2X
LG Optimus 2X
The LG Optimus 2X is a smartphone designed and manufactured by LG Electronics. The Optimus 2X is the world's first smartphone with a dual-core processor and third phone in the LG Optimus-Android series. LG debuted the Optimus 2X on December 16, 2010 and the device first became available to...
(LG Optimus Speed, LG Optimus G2x), Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung Galaxy Note
The Samsung Galaxy Note is an Android smartphone and tablet computer that was introduced in 2011. It occupies a niche in Samsung's Galaxy range, bridging the gap between other Galaxy-series smartphones such as the Galaxy S II and tablets such as the Galaxy Tab....
, HTC Sensation
HTC Sensation
The HTC Sensation is a smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC Corporation that runs the Android 2.3 Gingerbread software stack. Officially announced by HTC on April 12, 2011, the HTC Sensation was launched by Vodafone in key European markets including the UK on May 19, 2011 and by T-Mobile in...
, HTC Sensation XE, HTC Evo 3D
HTC EVO 3D
The HTC Evo 3D is an Android 2.3 smartphone that allows for the creation and viewing of 3D content through the use of two 5 MP rear-facing cameras and a glasses-free 3D-capable 4.3" qHD touch screen. In the United States, the Evo 3D is available exclusively on the Sprint/Nextel network...
, Motorola Atrix, Motorola Triumph
Motorola Triumph
The Motorola Triumph is an Android powered smartphone available in the United States exclusively through Virgin Mobile USA. The Triumph is the first Motorola-branded device sold by Virgin Mobile USA...
mobile phones all support HDMI playback/screen mirroring via either HDMI output or MHL
Mobile High-definition Link
Mobile High-Definition Link is a proposed industry standard for a mobile audio/video interface for directly connecting mobile phones and other portable consumer electronics devices to high-definition televisions and displays...
output.
Nokia N8
Nokia N8
The Nokia N8 is a Symbian^3 smartphone of the Nokia Nseries and Nokia's flagship device of 2010. It was released on 23 September 2010 at the Nokia Online Store before being released in markets around the world on 1 October 2010. The N8 features a 12 megapixel camera, a pentaband 3.5G radio and...
supports HDMI playback via Mini-HDMI (Type C) connector.
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc
The Sony Ericsson Xperia arc is an Android smartphone from Sony Ericsson. It was launched on April 1st, 2011 in Europe. The Xperia arc has a touch-screen, the mobile BRAVIA engine which optimises the picture and runs at a resolution of 854×480 pixels, a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor,...
and Motorola Droid RAZR
Droid RAZR
The Motorola Droid RAZR is an Android-based, 4G LTE-capable smartphone designed by Motorola headed for Verizon Wireless in November 2011...
both support HDMI playback via Micro-HDMI (Type D) connector.
Tablets
Some Tablets, such as the Motorola XoomMotorola Xoom
The Motorola Xoom is an Android-based tablet computer by Motorola, introduced at CES 2011 on January 5, 2011. It was the first tablet to be sold with Android 3.0 Honeycomb. The Verizon branded Xoom was the first tablet to run Android 3.1 Honeycomb, however the 3.1 update has not yet been provided...
, BlackBerry PlayBook
BlackBerry PlayBook
The BlackBerry PlayBook is a tablet computer by Research In Motion , best known for the BlackBerry smartphone. It competes against Apple's iPad and a slew of Android-powered tablets....
and Acer Iconia Tab A500, support HDMI using Micro-HDMI (Type D) ports. Others, such as the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer support the standard using Mini-HDMI (Type C) ports. The iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
and iPad 2
IPad 2
The iPad 2 is the second and current generation of the iPad, a tablet computer designed, developed and marketed by Apple. It serves primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, presentations and web content, and is available in black or white...
have a special A/V adapter that converts Apple's data line to a standard HDMI (Type A) port. Samsung has a similar proprietary thirty-pin port for their Galaxy Tab 10.1 that can adapt to HDMI as well as USB drives. The Dell Streak 5 smartphone/tablet hybrid is capable of outputting over HDMI. While the Streak uses a PDMI
PDMI
PDMI is an interconnection standard for portable media players. It has been developed by CEA as ANSI/CEA-2017-A standard Common Interconnection for Portable Media Players in February 2010...
port, a separate cradle is available which adds HDMI compatibility.
Digital cameras and camcorders
As of 2011, most standalone camcorders, as well as many digital cameras, are equipped with a mini-HDMI connector.Blu-ray Disc/HD DVD players
Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
and HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
, introduced in 2006, offer new high-fidelity audio features that require HDMI for best results. HDMI 1.3 can transport Dolby Digital Plus
Dolby Digital Plus
Dolby Digital Plus is a digital audio compression scheme. It is an incompatible development of the technologies used in the earlier Dolby Digital system. E-AC-3 has a number of improvements aimed at increasing quality at a given bitrate compared with legacy Dolby Digital...
, Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD is an advanced lossless multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories which is intended primarily for high-definition home-entertainment equipment such as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. It is the successor to the AC-3 Dolby Digital surround sound codec which was used as the...
, and DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless audio codec created by Digital Theater System. It was previously known as DTS++. It is an extension of DTS which, when played back on devices which do not support the Master Audio or High Resolution extension, degrades to a "core" track which is lossy. DTS-HD...
bitstreams in compressed form. This capability allows for an AV receiver
AV receiver
AV receivers or audio-video receivers are one of the many consumer electronics components typically found within a home theatre system. Their primary purpose is to amplify sound from a multitude of possible audio sources as well as route video signals to your TV from various sources. The user may...
with the necessary decoder to decode the compressed audio stream. The Blu-ray specification does not support video encoded with either Deep Color or xvYCC; thus, HDMI 1.0 can transfer Blu-ray discs at full video quality.
Blu-ray permits secondary audio decoding, whereby the disc content can tell the player to mix multiple audio sources together before final output. Some Blu-ray and HD DVD players can decode all of the audio codecs internally and can output LPCM audio over HDMI. Multichannel LPCM can be transported over an HDMI connection, and as long as the AV receiver
AV receiver
AV receivers or audio-video receivers are one of the many consumer electronics components typically found within a home theatre system. Their primary purpose is to amplify sound from a multitude of possible audio sources as well as route video signals to your TV from various sources. The user may...
supports multichannel LPCM audio over HDMI and supports HDCP
High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections...
, the audio reproduction is equal in resolution to HDMI 1.3 bitstream output. Some low-cost AV receivers, such as the Onkyo TX-SR506, do not support audio processing over HDMI and are labelled as "HDMI pass through" devices.
Personal computers
PCsPersonal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
with a DVI interface are capable of video output to an HDMI-enabled monitor. Some PCs
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
include an HDMI interface and may also be capable of HDMI audio output, depending on specific hardware. For example, Intel's motherboard chipsets since the 945G have been capable of 8-channel LPCM output over HDMI, as well as NVIDIA’s GeForce 8200/8300 motherboard chipsets. Eight-channel LPCM audio output over HDMI with a video card was first seen with the ATI Radeon HD 4850, which was released in June 2008 and is supported by other video cards in the ATI Radeon HD 4000 series
Radeon R700
The Radeon R700 is the engineering codename for a graphics processing unit series developed by Advanced Micro Devices under the ATI brand name. The foundation chip, codenamed RV770, was announced and demonstrated on June 16, 2008 as part of the FireStream 9250 and Cinema 2.0 initiative launch media...
. Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
can support 8-channel LPCM audio over HDMI if the video card has the necessary hardware and supports the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA). The ATI Radeon HD 4000 series supports ALSA. Cyberlink announced in June 2008 that they would update their PowerDVD playback software to support 192 kHz/24-bit Blu-ray Disc audio decoding in Q3-Q4 of 2008. Corel's WinDVD 9 Plus currently supports 96 kHz/24-bit Blu-ray Disc audio decoding.
Even with an HDMI output, a computer may not support HDCP
High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections...
, Microsoft's Protected Video Path, or Microsoft's Protected Audio Path. In the case of HDCP, there were several early graphic cards that were labelled as "HDCP-enabled" but did not actually have the necessary hardware for HDCP. This included certain graphic cards based on the ATI X1600 chipset and certain models of the NVIDIA Geforce 7900 series. The first computer monitors with HDCP support were released in 2005, and by February 2006, a dozen different models had been released. The Protected Video Path was enabled in graphic cards that supported HDCP, since it was required for output of Blu-ray Disc video. In comparison, the Protected Audio Path was only required if a lossless audio bitstream (such as Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA
DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless audio codec created by Digital Theater System. It was previously known as DTS++. It is an extension of DTS which, when played back on devices which do not support the Master Audio or High Resolution extension, degrades to a "core" track which is lossy. DTS-HD...
) was output. Uncompressed LPCM audio, however, does not require a Protected Audio Path, and software programs such as PowerDVD and WinDVD can decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA and output it as LPCM. A limitation is that if the computer does not support a Protected Audio Path, the audio must be downsampled to 16-bit 48 kHz but can still output at up to 8 channels. No graphic cards were released in 2008 that supported the Protected Audio Path.
In June 2008, Asus
ASUS
ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated is a multinational computer technology and consumer electronics product manufacturer headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Its product range includes motherboards, desktops, laptops, monitors, tablet PCs, servers and mobile phones...
announced Xonar HDAV1.3, which in December 2008 received a software update and became the first HDMI sound card that supported the Protected Audio Path and can both bitstream and decode lossless audio (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA), although bitstreaming is only available if using the ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre software. The Xonar HDAV1.3 has an HDMI 1.3 input/output, and Asus says that it can work with most video cards on the market.
In September 2009, AMD announced the ATI Radeon HD 5000 series
Radeon R800
The Evergreen series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices for its Radeon line under the ATI brand name.-Release:The existence was spotted on a presentation slide from AMD Technology Analyst Day July 2007 as "R8xx"...
video cards, which support HDMI 1.3 output (Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support and high bit rate audio), support for 8-channel LPCM over HDMI, and an integrated HD audio controller with a Protected Audio Path that allows bitstream output over HDMI for AAC, Dolby AC-3, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats. The ATI Radeon HD 5870 released in September 2009 is the first video card that supports bitstream output over HDMI for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
In December 2010, it was announced that several computer vendors and display makers including Intel, AMD, Dell
Dell
Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
, Lenovo, Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
, and LG would stop using LVDS from 2013 and legacy DVI
Digital Visual Interface
The Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
and VGA connectors from 2015, replacing them with DisplayPort and HDMI.
Old TVs
HDMI can be used with older televisions that only use analog ports (ScartSCART
SCART is a French-originated standard and associated 21-pin connector for connecting audio-visual equipment together...
, VGA, RCA, etc.), using a scaler (digital-to-analog converter
Digital-to-analog converter
In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter is a device that converts a digital code to an analog signal . An analog-to-digital converter performs the reverse operation...
).
Relationship with DisplayPort
Another audio/video interface is DisplayPortDisplayPort
DisplayPort is a digital display interface standard produced by the Video Electronics Standards Association . The specification defines a royalty-free digital interconnect for audio and video. The interface is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor...
, version 1.0 of which was approved in May 2006. DisplayPort is supported in several computer monitors and video cards. The DisplayPort website states that DisplayPort is expected to complement HDMI. Most of the DisplayPort supporters are computer companies. DisplayPort uses a self-clocking micro-packet-based protocol that allows for a variable amount of differential lanes as well as flexible allocation of bandwidth between audio and video, and supports encapsulating multichannel compressed audio formats in the audio stream DisplayPort ports can be made so that they are compatible with single-link DVI
Digital Visual Interface
The Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
and HDMI. Compatibility is achieved with dual-mode DisplayPort ports, which are marked with the ++DP logo, using attached passive adapters; active adapters allow signal conversion to dual-link DVI and analog VGA.
DisplayPort has an advantage over HDMI in that it is royalty-free, while the HDMI royalty is US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
0.04 per device and has an annual fee of US$10,000 for high-volume manufacturers (annual production of over 10,000 units). DisplayPort version 1.2 added the ability to transport multiple audio/video streams, doubled the maximum data rate from 10.8 Gbit/s to 21.6 Gbit/s, increased the "AUX" channel bandwidth from 1 Mbit/s to 720 Mbit/s, added support for multiple color spaces including xvYCC
XvYCC
xvYCC or Extended-gamut YCC is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space...
, scRGB and Adobe RGB 1998, added global time-code for audio synchronisation and the ability to transfer Ethernet, USB 2.0, DPMS, and other types of data over the "AUX" channel. HDMI has a few advantages over DisplayPort, such as support for Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) signals, and electrical compatibility with DVI (though practically limited to single-link DVI rates).
See also
- Deep Color
- Digital Visual InterfaceDigital Visual InterfaceThe Digital Visual Interface is a video interface standard covering the transmission of video between a source device and a display device. The DVI standard has achieved widespread acceptance in the PC industry, both in desktop PCs and monitors...
- DisplayPortDisplayPortDisplayPort is a digital display interface standard produced by the Video Electronics Standards Association . The specification defines a royalty-free digital interconnect for audio and video. The interface is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor...
- HD readyHD readyThe HD ready is a certification program introduced in 2005 by EICTA , now DIGITALEUROPE....
- HDTV
- List of display interfaces
- MHLMobile High-definition LinkMobile High-Definition Link is a proposed industry standard for a mobile audio/video interface for directly connecting mobile phones and other portable consumer electronics devices to high-definition televisions and displays...
for mobile devices - PDMIPDMIPDMI is an interconnection standard for portable media players. It has been developed by CEA as ANSI/CEA-2017-A standard Common Interconnection for Portable Media Players in February 2010...
- xvYCCXvYCCxvYCC or Extended-gamut YCC is a color space that can be used in the video electronics of television sets to support a gamut 1.8 times as large as that of the sRGB color space...
External links
- HDMI Licensing, LLC.
- HDMI Forum, Inc.
- Dolby Podcast Episode 60 – March 26, 2009 – Part one of a two-part discussion with Steve Venuti, President, and Jeff Park, Technology Evangelist, of HDMI LicensingHDMI LicensingHDMI Licensing, LLC was founded by Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson and Toshiba and is their licensing vehicle for the HDMI standard.-External links:** and the...
. - Dolby Podcast Episode 62 – April 23, 2009 – Part two of a two-part discussion with Steve Venuti, President, and Jeff Park, Technology Evangelist, of HDMI LicensingHDMI LicensingHDMI Licensing, LLC was founded by Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips, Silicon Image, Sony, Thomson and Toshiba and is their licensing vehicle for the HDMI standard.-External links:** and the...
.