The truth about HDMI 1.3 and "Does this TV have it"
A few months ago, certain news sites decided to report that the HDMI Group have decided to add more to the HDMI specification. I have no idea why they reported this because unless my memory is already going, they didn't do the same thing when HDMI 1.3a (yes, there is a newer version that 1.3), 1.2a, 1.2, and 1.1 were announced.
So now there's a lot of people asking "does this TV have HDMI 1.3". The answer at the time of writing (January 2007) is almost always "No it doesn't" and people are scared because they think they're not getting future-proof technology.
The truth about HDMI 1.3 is that it guarantees you little and in my opinion isn't anything to get excited about. The HDMI 1.3 spec means that TV manufacturers have the *choice* to add these features. For example, unless I'm mistaken, the current HDMI spec technically does allow the TV to automatically switch to the HDMI video input when you turn on a DVD player/Sky decoder that's connected over HDMI - but most TVs don't do this simply because the manufacturers haven't chosen to program this function in.
Here's what HDMI 1.3 will potentially give you:
1. Support for 30-bit, 36-bit, and 48-bit colour depths and xvYCC colour standards. Nice feature to have if it's there, but neither HDTV, HD DVD, nor Blu-ray supports this colour depth. Even if they did, you would still be limited by the range of colours that the LCD panel in the TV could produce.
2. Incorporates automatic audio syncing (lip sync) capability. Most DVD players and devices already include an adjustment for this - and when was the last time you used it? Have you ever noticed out of sync sound using the current HDMI versions?
3. Supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks. Now this is a neat feature - but one you'd be demanding on an AV receiver/amp, not on a TV with their (comparatively) puny built-in speakers.
As far as I gather, that's it. So, if you're looking for HDMI 1.3 and are putting off a TV purchase because of that, hopefully this will put things into perspective.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4200066
A few months ago, certain news sites decided to report that the HDMI Group have decided to add more to the HDMI specification. I have no idea why they reported this because unless my memory is already going, they didn't do the same thing when HDMI 1.3a (yes, there is a newer version that 1.3), 1.2a, 1.2, and 1.1 were announced.
So now there's a lot of people asking "does this TV have HDMI 1.3". The answer at the time of writing (January 2007) is almost always "No it doesn't" and people are scared because they think they're not getting future-proof technology.
The truth about HDMI 1.3 is that it guarantees you little and in my opinion isn't anything to get excited about. The HDMI 1.3 spec means that TV manufacturers have the *choice* to add these features. For example, unless I'm mistaken, the current HDMI spec technically does allow the TV to automatically switch to the HDMI video input when you turn on a DVD player/Sky decoder that's connected over HDMI - but most TVs don't do this simply because the manufacturers haven't chosen to program this function in.
Here's what HDMI 1.3 will potentially give you:
1. Support for 30-bit, 36-bit, and 48-bit colour depths and xvYCC colour standards. Nice feature to have if it's there, but neither HDTV, HD DVD, nor Blu-ray supports this colour depth. Even if they did, you would still be limited by the range of colours that the LCD panel in the TV could produce.
2. Incorporates automatic audio syncing (lip sync) capability. Most DVD players and devices already include an adjustment for this - and when was the last time you used it? Have you ever noticed out of sync sound using the current HDMI versions?
3. Supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks. Now this is a neat feature - but one you'd be demanding on an AV receiver/amp, not on a TV with their (comparatively) puny built-in speakers.
As far as I gather, that's it. So, if you're looking for HDMI 1.3 and are putting off a TV purchase because of that, hopefully this will put things into perspective.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4200066
