Hi Definition television: 'The never-ending story'

Too bad I'm not referring to the novel of Michael Ende, but to a different and less pleasant story. The competition between next generation optical media, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, is again causing problems to the end-consumers.

Besides the advantages and disadvantages of each format, here at CD Freaks we already talked about the difficulty to choose the right equipment to fully enjoy the Hi Definition multimedia contents with Home Cinema systems and how there could be also problems with new videogame consoles.

And now here we go again. You just bought a Hi-Definition television, you are comfortably seated on your preferred couch, and you are trying to enjoy your new player, when you suddenly notice that there is something wrong: Where is the extreme hi quality video? Why it seems that there is no difference at all with the "old" DVD video?

The explanation could be really simple: you just bought an "old" hi-def television, one supporting the present HDMI 1.1 standard, not compliant with the "new" HDMI standard 1.3. - Rats! It can't be true: I bought my television this afternoon, it can't be already old.

Too bad the truth is that again, because of a
not precisely defined standard, the consumer is the one who will pay for this
confusion.

What you need to know about HDMI 1.3    What's HDMI 1.3? The new HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) standard which TVs and other devices need for HD (High Definition) TV and disc formats.  If you have an HDMI connection on your TV it should look like this (HDMI 1.3 will look the same as the current HDMI 1.1): What can it do? It raises the data-carrying bandwidth of a normal HDMI cable from 165MHz to 340MHz which offers potential for greatly improved picture and sound. Is it just TVs that will be affected? Nope, AV receivers and DVD players may get it too, and there's potential for portable devices and camcorders, as well as PCs to raise their game via HDMI 1.3. When will HDMI 1.3 start to appear? The first HDMI 1.3 device is strongly rumoured to be the Sony PS3 games console, which has been promised for November 2006. Will standard HDMI gear work with HDMI 1.3-equipped kit? Yes, but you won't be able to access HDMI 1.3's potentially superior picture and sound capabilities, as well as features like lip sync correction

All this confusion surely will not help the spread of these new technologies. Besides the still very high prices, if recently purchased equipment is already "obsolete" when for the first time it reaches stores, how many times will the end user buy equipment and different versions of the same movies, to satisfy the movie industry?

They are already trying to sell us the same movie in VHS (someone bought it also in Betamax), in DVD, in Blu-ray and in HD-DVD. Who knows? Maybe in the future we can buy Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy movies also in holographic discs...

Trying as much as possible to avoid buying an already obsolete television, take a look at the original article here.

Source: AVReview