Monday May 17, 2010 – Stewart Wolpin
If I were an A/V sales person, I would likely lose my job sometime this summer because I would try to talk customers out of buying an HDTV or A/V receiver (AVR).
And, quite frankly, every sales person with a conscience should follow me to the unemployment line.
Why? Because customers would be buying the AVR under false pretenses, believing they were getting a complete product.
They're not.
All new HDTVs and AVRs are (or should be) equipped with HDMI jacks supporting version 1.4a. Ostensibly, the 1.4 standard, adopted at the end of last year, enables the transport of 3D signals from the Blu-ray player through AVR to the HDTV. The spec was upgraded to 1.4a (and never has a lower case "a" been more important) at the end of February to support the cornucopia of broadcast 3D schemes.
HDMI 1.4a also includes three other benefits, aside from 3D support: Audio Return Channel (ARC), which enables AVRs to pass audio signals back from the HDTV through the HDMI to the amplifier (especially handy for Pandora or Rhapsody from a networked HDTV, or to more easily connect a soundbar), support for future 2K and 4K ultra HD standards, and, something called HDMI E C (Ethernet channel), the capability to pass Ethernet signals from HDMI 1.4 connected device to HDMI 1.4 connected device, which means all you need is one Ethernet connection to any of your HDMI 1.4 devices to bring Ethernet to ALL HDMI 1.4 connected devices.
The problem is, current HDMI 1.4a product supports only 3D and ARC. Chip sets included 2K/4K and HEC support are in production now, but I'm told by several AVR makers that they won't be complete until next year.
Which means all new HDMI 1.4a gear made and sold in the next 6-8 months will soon be obsolete.
Oh, cool your over-reacting, mock-indignitied jets, I hear you say. It's not that big of a deal.
Au contraire, my rationalizing friends. It's not you spending $3,000 on a new 3D home theater system, only to find out eight months from now that you're missing a critical piece no one bothered to tell you about.
What raises my dander is the lack of knowledge, not on the sales floor (we're all used to that bastion of misinformation serving as our industry's front lines), but among the actual makers of gear. In preparation for a large article I'm writing for a consumer magazine, I have interviewed several product managers, and I had to explain the differences between HDMI 1.3, HDMI 1.4 and HDMI 1.4a TO THEM.
I am depressed.
