It has been quite a while since our last installment.  Ian and I pick things up again after several months by taking a look at what has been going on in the industry and how it impacts our custom installs.  Naturally, we want you to listen to the Podcast, but here are some of the topics we cover.

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HOW ARE YOU GOING TO EMBRACE ALL OF THOSE “NEW LITTLE BOXES” THAT HAVE STARTED FLOODING THE MARKET

There has been a barrage of media/content/streaming/web/search/set top boxes that have hit the market recently.  Not that there is anything wrong with a little competition, but it is becoming overwhelming – and the announcements just keep on coming.  Not only are there all of these new pieces of hardware we may have to manage and support somehow, but there also seem to be firmware and software updates for each one rolling out constantly.  How are we, as custom integrators, embracing them and keeping up with the idiosyncrasies of each one?  I imagine it is with a lot of difficulty.

There are several other podcasts and blogs delving into the particulars of each device, so Ian and I do not address those aspects here.  Instead, we discuss the potential impact the popularity of these boxes has on our designs and installations.

It used to be that we were in control of the hardware driving the displays and audio systems.  We could dictate the devices we could integrate, control, and support and our clients pretty much went along with our recommendations.  But now, the times, they are a changing.

My view is that there is going to be a huge influx of these little boxes starting this holiday season and our clients are going to expect them to just “plug and go.”  We have seen some of this previously with devices like the Xbox 360, PlayStation, and Wii, but what is about to happen is different.  There were only of few of these options with wide-spread adoption and we could plan for and support them without jumping through too many hoops.  The market space has started to get crowded already and there is no consistency in form factor, connectivity, functionality, control, or integration between them.

Some require the box to sit “in line” with the HDMI runs.  Some require cabling them to separate inputs (and some still are component video only).  Some really could use features like the Audio Return Channel for HDMI as a way to get the audio back into our surround sound or distributed audio systems, but we have not seen any with HDMI 1.4.  Some require (proprietary) RF remotes and others use IR.  Some will understand IP-based control commands, but few supply documentation on how to do it.  More and more now require keyboards of some type, too.  Others now integrate with mobile phones or tablets over Wi-Fi, while others use docks as a way to leverage mobile devices.  Some could fit in racks while others are designed to sit out in the entertainment area – and a few make it impossible to mount them at all!  You get the picture.  All in all, none really are designed to integrate with a custom installation or complex systems.  And it does not look as if it is going to get better anytime soon.

We do not provide many solutions in this Podcast, but we do offer some suggestions:

1)     I think the most relevant one is to appoint a Product Champion for each of the major products.  You need at least one person who understands how each product works and what it takes to connect it up and make it deliver on its promises.  It would be great if that champion also could create templates for your control/automation offerings, in addition to documenting what you will need to configure and support it.  That person then trains the staff and becomes the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for that device.  There will be an initial outlay to purchase the devices and dedicate the time to know them inside and out, but it will be a good investment as part of a strategy for keeping abreast of these new trends in the marketplace.  It surely beats being blind-sided when your clients call up needing help the day after Christmas.  Naturally, you want to plan on recouping your investments by offering your design and integration services for this new wave of entertainment devices.

2)     An often overlooked option is to look at ways to provide the same functionality with what you already have in place.  One of the advantages of a platform like Windows Media Center (or any other HTPC solution) is that it is extensible.  There are some great new add-ins that give you the same features offered by using these separate boxes with more being developed constantly.  While it used to be questionable whether you should install additional software into WMC, Windows 7 has provided a much more stable platform that allows you to offer these packages reliably.  Once again, appointing a Product Champion for these may be a good approach.

3)     Get on the front-end of these purchases, especially before the holiday season really kicks in.  There never is a bad time to have an excuse to meet with your clients again.  You know their tastes, lifestyles, and purchasing habits.  Find out if they are planning to make any “impulse” purchases for one of these boxes and take advantage of a reason to “enhance” their system to support it.  Of course, if you have designed the structured wiring and connectivity platform with flexibility in mind, you probably already have the connection points sitting in the walls or baseboards just waiting for a new box to be plugged in.  All you have to do is incorporate your new control templates into their current automation systems and you are ready to go!

There is so much momentum in the industry that you no longer can ignore this trend.  It is time to start getting on board and finding new ways to take advantage of the opportunities it offers.  The worst thing you can do is simply ignore it.  Your customers will be expecting you to know how to integrate your systems with their shiny new play toy – and if you cannot deliver, you may lose out on some great new money-making opportunities.

 MICROSOFT’S KINECT

What an awesome device.  I think the Kinect is going to usher in a new generation of interactivity, gaming, and content consumption (maybe not for Windows Media Center, but definitely for other services Microsoft is starting to deliver).  At first, it seems innocent enough and just another gaming peripheral.  However, from an integrator’s perspective, it opens a lot of possibilities – and a lot of potential problems.

Kinect really could drive the need for multi-purpose and/or game rooms – in addition to “video chat areas” throughout the home.  For gaming, it definitely takes a lot of space to play – more than the Wii or Move, for sure.  It is an all-body workout for multiple people and it gets pretty crazy in the room (as in no breakable equipment nearby).  The ideal distance from the players to the Kinect device is somewhere around eight to twelve feet.  Everything, including furniture, needs to be out of the way.  Currently, that eliminates its use in most home theater environments unless you have designed in motorized seating and platforms tiers that easily can be tucked into the walls or at least out of the way.  This could change the whole way you design the area in front of the screen and the types of furniture you use.  Additionally, it works better with some decent lighting.  Most room lighting systems we design do not have “audience-facing” lights nor do the existing lights cover the area in front of the screen very well.  You should consider adding an extra circuit or two worth of lighting at the front for illuminating the play area.

From a Windows Media Center perspective, there is not much new.  Kinect does not control that experience.  However, you can start to see where Microsoft is taking the technology via the Kinect Hub from within the Xbox Dashboard.  They do give you the ability to control the Zune Marketplace, Last.fm, Netflix, and some other content resources.  It is not quite there yet, but it definitely removes the need for a controller or remote for those experiences.  It also might be worth considering as a control interface for those clients with accessibility issues.

Another “feature” is the ability to do teleconferencing (or Telepresence/video chats) using the built-in color camera and microphone.  This feature also takes the Xbox 360 out of the multi-purpose gaming room and into other parts of the house.  We see this as an excellent alternative to the video chat capabilities being built into some of the newer TVs and displays while there definitely are some new avenues of business opening up for those integrators who start getting into it early.  This especially is true for those clients who work at home and need to communicate with the office or for small businesses who do not want to invest in some of the more expensive video conferencing alternatives. 

There also are great possibilities for “add-on sales and services.  As mentioned, the lighting becomes critical to pull this off successfully, but there are some other things we can sell if we start getting creative.  What about the backdrop?  How distracting are the piles of clutter or walls behind most couch areas or home offices?  What about putting in some automated screens that drop down from the ceiling with painted nature scenes or even using video screens with a rear-facing projector and some nice backdrop scenes?  Many clients would see a lot of value in that, even for chatting with the grandkids in some other state. 

Yes, the Kinect is ushering in a whole new playing field for gaming and entertainment interaction.  I look forward to the first automation controller applications written using the XNA developer’s toolkit for the 360.  And, by the way, the same applications will run on Windows Phone 7. 

One last area to consider is how the Kinect impacts your equipment layouts.  If you have the Xbox 360 located in the front of the room near a “standard” TV or display, it is no big deal.  What about those installations where it resides in a rack, at the back of the room, or in a console between the theater seats?  How will you connect it up?  Since it comes with a USB adapter and power supply, you may want to consider using a USB extender, although many integrators currently have not worked much with these.  What about the majority of theaters with screens instead of flat panel displays.  Where are you going to put the Kinect unit itself?  It does have some definite placement limitations that need to be considered as part of your designs. 

Get to know this device.  You are going to be seeing a lot more of them and you need to be prepared.  Take advantage of the new opportunities it offers. 

CONTENT INTEGRATION

We also spend some time discussing the integration of various content platforms.  This whole wave of mobile device integration in with tablets and other portable devices tied to more and more on-line services in with the ability to purchase content from various sources while being able to play whatever your clients want on any device from anywhere really taxes our ability to make the whole concept of content consumption transparent.  I will not try to write up all of the permutations and some approaches to making the various experiences seamless here.  We do discuss some of the issues in this podcast, but it is going to take a series of Installments to cover this topic.  Stay tuned.

CABLECARD

One last area I wanted to touch on is the Ceton tuner cards that finally are making their way into the wild.  As you will recall back in our earlier installments around Installment 00B (http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/TDL/b/custom/archive/2009/04/16/pre-cursor-to-installment-00b.aspx) delving into the guts of CableCARD, we talked about the MCIA Digital Cable Tuner Diagnostic Tool and how great it is for understanding and troubleshooting CableCARD-based installations using Windows Media Center.  I wanted to remind everyone that the DCT Diag Tool now is available to download for anyone from The Green Button at http://thegreenbutton.com/files/folders/wmc_installers/entry451891.aspx.  Do not forget to check out the help file.  It is very informative, if I must say so myself (since I wrote it).  This tool has been tested with the Ceton CableCARD tuners and is a great way to optimize your setups and to make sure all of the channels work as subscribed.

That about wraps things up for this Installment.  Next time we will cover some more industry news and then start on power designs and their implications.  Thanks for listening and reading.

  =D-

We first cover my checking out the new Samsung 3-D displays as part of their 3-D Road Tour for Installment 031.  We also discuss the current state of DLNA devices, a little on my thoughts about calibrating for 3-D, and some updates from my guest appearance on Entertainment 2.0 at http://thedigitalmediazone.com/2010/07/02/entertainment-2-0-84-the-future/.  The big thing we dive into this time is HDBaseT.  I try to dispel some of the rumors running around the Internet.   This is a very long post because there is a lot to cover.

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When I was discussing my view of Microsoft’s interconnected future on the Digital Media Zone show, I got into the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) efforts a little bit and could not remember the name of the file format they are trying to standardize.  It is the Common File Format (CFF) and is part of the key store that Neustar will be hosting for the DECE.  I also have been reminded by my good friend Ben Drawbaugh at EngadgetHD that what the DECE is offering and what Disney and its partners are doing with their KeyChest are more complimentary than competitive.  The DECE is building an entire platform with a common DRM-based infrastructure and CFF while KeyChest is just a way to be able to play content in different environments without having to pay for it multiple times.  He has a short post on it at http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/10/disneys-keychest-is-not-drm/.  It still is a little confusing to me where the two technologies are complimentary instead of being competitive, but I still think the DECE is a key component of “universal” content consumption moving forward.

Now on to the good stuph.  I recently published a condensed version of this at CEPro Magazine as a technical sidebar to Julie’s article on HDBaseT(http://www.cepro.com/article/inside_hdbaset_technology_a_better_hdmi_extender).  You can see how passionate I am about what I see as sensationalized misinformation regarding the new HDBaseT standards in my comments to Clint DeBoer from Audioholics, so I really wanted to dig into the actual technologies behind HDBaseT.  Here goes……

CLEARING UP THE HDBASET TECHNICAL FUD

HDBaseT™ is not an “HDMI killer” as many in the media would lead you to believe with their Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) coverage of the technology recently. In fact, its impact will be completely the opposite. The HDBaseT chips actually require an associated HDMI chip embedded within that same device to operate. This means HDBaseT ultimately may increase the proliferation of HDMI as a technology – if and when it takes off.

FIGURE A: The Valens VS100 System Functional Diagram

A more accurate view is that HDBaseT may end up supplanting the current HDMI cabling options, especially the wide variety of HDMI Extenders used for longer distances. It eventually also may eliminate the current use of HDMI Type A connectors now found on most A/V devices, but that is yet to be seen.

One of the problems that integrators wrestle with is whose products to use for extending HDMI over longer distances. Right now, each vendor’s engineering designs, technologies, and implementations are proprietary with no “electrical interoperability” between them. That means that one has to use that vendor’s products for all connection points within the HDMI chain. It also means that no one vendor’s technology will be embraced and standardized on by the entire CE industry for inclusion into Blu-ray players, A/V receivers, HDMI Matrix Switchers, TV sets, or test tools. The HDBaseT Alliance wants to solve that problem.

HDBaseT’s biggest feature is that it uses standard CAT-5e or CAT-6 twisted pair cabling with RJ-45 connectors. This eliminates most of the problems people are experiencing when using standard HDMI cables and connectors. However, there currently are no fiber options, nor may there ever be.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Most of the current crop of good HDMI Extenders simply “extend” the HDMI signals across a pair of CAT-5 or CAT-6 twisted pair cables. This is especially true for the Transmission Minimized Differential Signaling (TMDS) lines that carry the video, audio multiplexed in with the video, and associated timing clock signals, which all occupy one of the twisted pair cables. These lines are susceptible to all of the electrical issues associated with trying to carry high frequency signals across long wire runs. The second cable usually carries all of the handshaking signals (with customized electronics for maintaining signal integrity) and the low current power for driving the HDMI receiver electronics. If a vendor has opted to use a single cable, they have devised some proprietary scheme for trying to deliver a comparable HDMI signal at the other end.

HDBaseT works differently. It is based upon the same technology used for coding Ethernet signals onto twisted pair cabling. It is called Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM). This is a means by which digital data is represented as a coding scheme using different levels of DC voltage at fairly high rates (in the order of 125 mega pulses per second or more for Ethernet). While Ethernet uses 5 Level PAM (PAM-5), HDBaseT uses a proprietary version that is slightly different. Some of the newer high speed Ethernet coding schemes, like 802.an (10GBaseT), use 16 Level PAM.

In case of HDBaseT, they use PAM as the way to “modulate” all of the HDMI and control signals onto each set of twisted pair wires. However, the intellectual property is in the proprietary coding scheme used to get all of that data onto the wire bundle. This gives them the advantage of being able to send the content across the a single CAT cable without the electrical characteristics of the wire affecting performance as much as the current HDMI signal “extender” approach that just shovels the bits across the wire at high speeds.

It is important thing to note that, while HDBaseT uses the same coding technology as Ethernet and does have an Ethernet channel, it is not Ethernet based. It is not packet based and does not use Internet Protocols (IP) either. It just happens to use the same type of twisted pair cable that most associate with Ethernet. We will cover more on this in just a bit.

HOW DOES HDMI “TRANSLATE” INTO HDBASET?

To really understand what HDBaseT is all about, it is useful to take a look at the chipsets themselves. Valens Semiconductor (http://www.valens-semi.com/), currently the only provider of the HDBaseT chips, unfortunately does not have much detail posted yet. They currently are supplying two chips – one is the transmitter (VS100TX) and the other is the receiver (VS100RX).

FIGURE B: Valens VS100TX High-Level Block Diagram

FIGURE C: Valens VS100RX High-Level Block Diagram

The pins of interest initially are the TMDS lines that interconnect directly with the TMDS lines on the associated HDMI transmitter or receiver chip. I will use the designators from the transmitter (VS100TX in FIGURE B) for this example, but the concepts are the same for the receiver as well. Rx0, Rx1, and Rx2 on the left-hand side correspond to the three red, blue, and green TMDS color channel outputs from the HDMI chip (note that they are viewed as receiving the HDMI TMDS data from the perspective of the HDBaseT chip). The +/- designates that that it is two “wires” that normally make up one of the differential twisted pairs within an HDMI cable. The RxC is the associated TMDS Clock line. These signals also carry the audio that is multiplexed over the video lines the in same way as an HDMI cable.

The important sets of pins are on the right-hand side of the diagram. The top set of pins corresponds to the four PHY-layer HDBaseT twisted pair wires to the RJ-45 jack (HDBT0 through 3). You notice that the HDBaseT chip simply acts as a pass-through for the HDMI TMDS signals that then get modulated using the HDBaseT coding scheme mentioned previously.

The other set of pins on the bottom right connect to a standard HDMI Type A connector. It will be up to the vendors to decide if they want to include that connector in their devices or to just use the RJ-45 instead. This is another reason why HDBaseT augments HDMI instead of replacing it as some speculate.

Some other pins of note are the additional lines normally run individually within an HDMI cable. These include the Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) line and the Display Data Channel (DDC) line. Since these also are “passed-through” from the associated HDMI chip, all of the functionality for CEC, HDCP, EDID discovery, Content Type Signaling, and things like the HDMI 3D_Structures embedded in the video stream work as they would if it were an HDMI cable.

While there is no dedicated wire in the HDBaseT cable for Hot Plug Detect (HPD) like there is with HDMI, there is logic built into the chips at both ends that raises a flag on the source side whenever a new device is plugged in. This logic is used for initiating the process for obtaining the EDID information from the new device and initiating the HDCP key exchange, just as it would with an HDMI cable.

Another thing to note is that the Link Layer Ethernet channel is independent of the HDMI 1.4 chipset interface. While this works for sending Ethernet across the HDBaseT cable, I wonder if it will have the capability to bridge to the Ethernet channel on newer HDMI 1.4 chipsets that offer HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC) capabilities. I assume that integration will be a vendor-specific implementation. Similarly, there does not appear to be any capability to interface with the HDMI 1.4 Reverse Audio Channel feature. While this currently may not be a mass market requirement, it could impact how well this version of the technology integrates with these newer features of the HDMI 1.4 platform moving forward.

For the maximum video resolution, the length of a point to point wire run needs to remain under 100 meters. You can extend the overall source to sink length to 200 meters using an HDBaseT switch. Additionally, you potentially could daisy chain switches to increase that distance if required. This could be a big plus when using the technology for commercial installations or for digital signage applications.

However, there is a little known consideration when trying to play content over more than 100 meters. Once again, the powers that be in Hollywood want to be in control of any premium content being distributed throughout the home. They want to be able to limit the content distribution to a single household and see 100 meters as enough length to cover most homes. Therefore, HDBaseT has a built-in capability to impose a “logical” limitation on the end-to-end length of an HDBaseT infrastructure to 100 Meters. HDBaseT has a built in mechanism for accurately detecting the maximum source to sink distance. Limiting the maximum distribution distance can be enabled by the content providers for certain types of material. My hope is that this never is enacted, but the capability to do it is there.

5PLAY

In addition to using a standardized RJ-45 connector and twisted pair cabling, HDBaseT includes several other features to enhance the HDMI standard. The entire bundle is marketed as 5Play™. It includes

1. Uncompressed high definition video
2. The same audio formats supported by HDMI
3. A variety of options for device control
4. 100BaseT Ethernet
5. Additional DC power over the same cable

VIDEO

It should be apparent by now that the video implementation is a simple pass-through from an HDMI chipset. All of the same resolutions incorporated into the HDMI 1.4 specifications appear to be supported. However, there currently is no public information available on how deep the bit depth will go for Deep Color nor is there any information on the support for the new Color Spaces introduced with 1.4. It does support 2K and 4K at the same frame rates in addition to the new mandatory 3-D formats. There currently is no integration with DisplayPort, but there is talk of being able to work with dual port versions (DisplayPort ++) via the HDMI interface.

Since the DDC line, which carries the HDCP encryption handshaking, is passed through, playback of premium content is consistent with HDMI. It actually may end up being more reliable since the HDBaseT coding scheme is not as susceptible to the resistive, capacitive, and crosstalk-related electrical problems that a normal HDMI cable may experience. Coding schemes tend to have less degradation over longer distances than strictly sending out high-speed binary ones and zeros.

AUDIO

Audio is passed through the same as video, so all formats are included. Once again, protected audio content will work as well. At some point, we may see HDBaseT used for audio-only distribution, but the costs may prohibit its wide use.

CONTROL

This is where the additional features of 5PLAY can really add value. We already talked a little about the integration with HDMI’s CEC capabilities. HDBaseT participates in the same CEC topology tree as a “normal” HDMI interface.

HDBaseT also has the capability to support other low-speed control mediums like RS-232 and IR over the same cable. HDBaseT does not specify how these other control signals are implemented and vendors have the ability to engineer solutions to meet their specific requirements and value-added features. One of my fears is that, since the implementation of the additional control capabilities does not appear to be standardized, they potentially open the door for a level of incompatibility across different vendors’ products. Since HDBaseT also has an Ethernet channel, IP control would be transparent, too.

Another interesting aspect from a control standpoint is the ability to run USB over HDBaseT. Icron Technologies Corporation (http://www.icron.com/), makers of several interesting long distance USB products including USB over Ethernet, has announced that they will be offering a product that uses HDBaseT for sending USB over twisted pair. Note, however, that while HDBaseT supports USB 1.1 and 2.0, it cannot handle the higher 480 Mb/s speed of USB 2.0.

ETHERNET

HDBaseT also support 100 Mb Ethernet over the same cable. There is talk about supporting gigabit Ethernet with some future release, but 100 Mb is in keeping with the new HDMI Ethernet Channel (although it still is not known if vendors will be able to bridge the two, as mentioned previously).

There is a great feature of HDBaseT that I have not seen discussed anywhere. HDBaseT has what I call an “Ethernet Fallback Mode (EFM). Remember we highlighted that HDBaseT uses a coding modulation similar to 100BaseT Ethernet. If you plug an HDBaseT device into an Ethernet-only infrastructure, the HDBaseT device is smart enough to realize it and only enables the Ethernet capabilities of the connection. This definitely will help eliminate any potential confusion around using a “standard” RJ-45 for both connection types and eliminates the need to have separate connectors for Ethernet and HDBaseT.

POWER

There appears to be a lot of confusion in the press about the power distribution features. At the wire level, HDBaseT conforms to the new IEEE 802.at-2009 Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+) standard. The PoE+ devices can deliver up to about 25 watts of power over a single pair of wires. Remember that HDBaseT supports an Ethernet-only infrastructure for data. This also holds true for power by conforming to the PoE+ standard. This is DC power though. It is not AC.

The PoE+ standard delivers up to about 57 volts DC at about 400 mA. HDBaseT is claimed to have the additional ability to deliver 100 watts of DC power by sending power over the other pairs in the cable bundle. By keeping the voltage up and the current low, there is little heat rise in a single pair. However, it is not recommended to bundle several HDBaseT cables together when delivering high power to newer classes of higher power devices.

This is where it gets a bit confusing to me. The IEEE 802.3at-2009 PoE standard, also known as PoE+ or PoE plus (ratified September 11, 2009), provides up to 25.5 W of power. Some vendors have announced products that claim to comply with the new 802.3at standard and offer up to 51 W of power over a single cable by utilizing all four pairs in the CAT-5 cable. That still is a far cry from 100 watts though.

The higher-power 100 watt rating also is designed around the goal in the industry, especially for LED-based LCD TVs, of 1 watt per diagonal inch. When taking into consideration the voltage drop over 100 meters of cable, that means you should be able to drive a 40 inch display off of a single HDBaseT leg. Keep in mind that this does not take into account the voltage drop across 100 meters of wire, either. While it may be listed as supplying 100 watts, it is not much current (less than half an amp). If there were higher current, the wires would start to get hot.

The HDBaseT reference designs on the Valens site show two power supplies for a single HDBaseT run. However, it is possible for a vendor to send power over the HDBaseT connection to the receiving device from the power source on the transmitter end. This eliminates the need to have yet another wall wart behind a TV. It is not clear if all vendors will support this configuration.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Version 1.0 of the HDBaseT specification and chipsets was just released to the HDBaseT Alliance members while the certification testing still is being worked out. But, as with most technologies, there always is the next generation on the horizon. The HDBaseT Alliance is focused on getting market traction with the current release and reference designs.

· One of the areas under consideration for improvement is in the way HDBaseT handles EDID and CEC when connecting a single source to multiple displays. There currently is not a defined way to perform EDID management like what we are seeing in some of the newer HDMI Matrix Switchers. This is becoming more of an issue as we move into mixed modes of 2-D and 3-D displays and is a consideration in your overall HDBaseT designs.

· There is work being done on making HDBaseT switches more intelligent in the way they discover and convey what devices are plugged into the ports.

· There also is an effort to standardize on running USB over an HDBaseT connection.

It will be interesting to see what other new features the HDBaseT Alliance conjures up as they move forward. Version 1.0 is a great start. Time will tell if the industry embraces it. While HDMI provided a means to deliver audio and video over a single cable, HDBaseT moves us into a single plate solution for everything.

  =D-

Installment 030 finally wraps up our series on HDMI by taking the pieces we have discussed previously and applies them to selecting HDMI Matrix Switchers.  There are a wide variety of factors to consider when standardizing on an HDMI Matrix Switcher platform for any kind of distributed video/audio/control ecosystem.  We have seen several clients just pick one out of the blue without really knowing what to look for or what they really need it to do.  This also is critical for the enthusiast market where a good HDMI Matrix Switch could cost more than their entire system.  Hopefully, this podcast is able to take specific aspects of the various HDMI technologies and provide a set of guidelines that can help in defining the purchasing and best practices criteria for an HDMI-based infrastructure.  It is not as simple as it may seem.  I also apologize to our regular listeners for how long it took to get this one out there.  We actually recorded this installment over a month before I am getting this post out there.  I have been off on some pretty cool projects lately that have taken precedence.

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First of all, you always want to look for a vendor that offers a scalable product line for covering your less demanding installations all the way out to devices sprawled throughout a large home or other venue.  I highly recommend sticking with one or maybe two vendors for all implementations.  Otherwise, your installers and programmers will go nuts trying to configure, troubleshoot, and manage the little innuendoes that make HDMI what it is.

One of the initial considerations is the design of the distribution system itself.

• One source to one sink– this should be pretty straight forward with Plug and Play simplicity
• One source to many sinks
• Many sources to a single sink
• Distributed devices located with “pods” of equipment versus centralized switching
• Receivers as HDMI Switchers
• Digital Signage applications
• Full-blown HDMI Matrix Switcher platforms
• “Enthusiast” models

Another architectural consideration takes into account the distances between sources, sinks, and all components in between.

• “Standard” HDMI cables and connections
• Dual CAT-6 HDMI Extenders
• Shielded Dual CAT-6 Extenders
• Fiber for longer distances
• Receiver integration

Once you have evaluated all of that, you need to start diving into the details of the product itself and the flexibility to support your digital ecosystems moving forward.

• Look for Headroom for both the individual runs and the A/V fabric of the switcher itself. Look at the throughput required for handling all of the video streams occurring simultaneously.  Ideally, there is 3.2 Gbps per TMDS line (340 MHz). Many are listed as 2.6 Gbps.  Additionally, the Backplane bandwidth can be confusing. Many list the “backplane” at 6.2 Gbps – what does that mean and how can that possibly support a large matrix of streams?
• Remember the need for E-EDID Management and the associated software for setting all of that up. Vendors approach the implementation of the E-EDID Management and persistent storage in different ways.
• Check to ensure that the HDMI Switcher passes the CEA InfoFrames properly. This will become an important consideration once the 3-D capable ones start to hit the market.
• Understand the control routing and which devices are in charge, especially when it comes to CEC hierarchies.
• Understand the switching and control options – IR, RS-232, IP, CEC, Automation Profiles, etc. You need to design a platform that integrates with the rest of the subsystems within the home.
• Do not forget about audio! With PCM over HDMI and possibly eight channels of discrete audio, the switching architecture can get quite complex pretty easily. You need to understand where the decoding is taking place for all of the possible permutations of sources to sinks.
• Understand how the vendor has implemented the CEC Topology support. This is not documented well and many vendors will not understand the questions when asked. You, as the integrator, probably will need to experiment with this aspect to fully understand how it may impact your larger installations.

“Hidden” Attributes – CEC Switching 

• A CEC Switch allocates a unique child_address for every connection below the switch.  This means that any device connected to the switch will always have a valid physical address (assuming the switch itself has a valid physical address)
• Any device below the switch may take a logical address and can react to CEC messages in a normal way.  The switch is effectively transparent and will enable all standard CEC communications in its connected source devices
• For CEC compliant switches, there is a requirement to react on <Active Source> and <Set Stream Path> messages.  Both of these messages require the switch to change the connected source device according to the physical AV stream path indicated by the CEC message.
• These mechanisms allow a source device to configure the switches between itself and the TV to ensure that its output is displayed, or for the TV to specifically receive the output from a given device.
• A CEC compliant device that is only a switch does not need to take a logical address; it uses the unregistered address for any communications.
• It is possible that a user may change a CEC Switch manually.  In this instance a CEC Switch shall send a <Routing Change> message to inform other devices about the change.

Support for E-EDID Management

There are two types of non-CEC switches, those which have only one E-EDID for all source devices (or simply reflect the sink E-EDID), and those that have a separate E-EDID for all source devices. 

• A non-CEC-compliant switch may have a single child_address, which is always occupied by the currently switched device.  Any other connected devices will have no Hot Plug signal and will therefore have an unallocated physical address (and can use only the unregistered logical address).
• These devices still will see the CEC messages as they will be connected to the CEC line and they may react to some broadcast messages in the normal way (standby).
• When a switch de-selects a device, that device will detect the removal of the ‘hot plug’ signal to indicate that its physical AV connection has been removed.  It should immediately clear its physical and logical addresses.
• Each source device below the switch will detect the removal of the ‘hot plug’ signal to indicate they are no longer on the active AV Path and clear their addresses accordingly.
• When a switch selects a device, that device will detect the ‘hot plug’ signal.  It then can obtain a valid physical address from its sink and subsequently a logical address.
• The device should activate the hot plug signal to its source (child) devices (if any) to indicate that they should now request a physical address.

Switchers with support for multiple E-EDIDs should operate as CEC switches except that they do not send messages on, or monitor, the CEC line.

Advanced E-EDID Management

You then get into Advanced E-EDID Management, which really takes a lot of research to understand.  You first need to know what to evaluate, which encompasses just about everything we have covered in the last several Installments.

• What resolutions?
• How much color depth?
• Which color space?
• Which audio format?
• Full range or limited range audio?
• How many audio channels?

What should an HDMI Switcher’s Advanced E-EDID Management allow you to configure?

• HDMI color spaces
• Short video descriptors
• Supported audio formats
• Available speakers
• HDMI compatibility with deep color
• Additional detailed timing descriptors
• The fifty-nine CEA-defined DTV standard resolutions

SOURCES

• 1080i60 HDMI 24bit RGB
• 1080p60 HDMI 36bit YCbCr
• 1080i60 HDMI 24bit YCbCr
• 1080p60 DVI 24bit RGB

SINKS

• 1080i/p60 HDMI 24bit YCbCr
• 1080i/p60 HDMI 36bit YCbCr
• 1080i/p60 DVI 24bit RGB
• 1080i/p60 HDMI 24bit YCbCr

AUDIO

• 7.1
• 5.1
• PCM
• Bit stream
• Dolby
• DTS

Most of the better vendors currently implement some form of E-EDID Management that uses fifty factory preset memory locations and fifty user programmable memory locations.  There are a lot of other things to look for, especially for a software perspective. 

• Static E-EDID emulation
• Dynamic E-EDID emulation
• E-EDID store and edit functions
• Store E-EDID from any display and edit it via the E-EDID Management Tool
• Transfer E-EDID information into/from the HDMI Switcher
• Transfer of E-EDID files to something like a PC
• Custom E-EDID creation
• E-EDID copy from any attached display to any of the inputs – E-EDID information changes if a display is replaced
• Custom audio format emulation
• Emulate any audio format, channel number, sampling frequency or bit rate

Emulating the proper E-EDID information to all of the sources is an essential part of any system setup.  It takes quite a bit of programming work to ensure all devices will operate to their full potential.  However, it takes even more work to test all possible configurations to be sure you got it right.  Spend the time.

You probably notice that I have not recommended any particular products or vendors.  This area of technology is changing rapidly and any recommendation would be outdated or not applicable as soon as I post it.  One of the real reasons that I have not highlighted a specific product is that there are no HDMI Matrix Switchers on the market right now that support the new features of HDMI 1.4a like 3-D, Reverse Audio Channel, Ethernet, and enhanced Color Spaces.  Until those hit the market, I do not feel I have found the right strategic product to use moving forward.  I guess we will have to do the best we can until then.  Hopefully we have provided some good background material to help you make informed decisions.

  =D-

I had the opportunity to go to the local Panasonic Touch the Future Tour back in March (sorry, a little late on getting this one out).  I thought I would focus on my findings as the theme for Installment 029.  It is a bit of a diversion (once again) from our drill down on HDMI, but it is directly related to what we have been discussing.

 [mp3]http://media.libsyn.com/media/iandixon/TDL_Custom_20100510_029.mp3[/mp3]

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One of the primary themes of the tour is “Full HD 3D.”  Naturally, I was curious what that means as far as the signals on the HDMI cable because I still am confused regarding all of the mixed messages around HDMI 1.3, HDMI 1.4, and 3-D formats.  See the previous Installments for insights on the actual HDMI Licensing, LLC specifications themselves, but I needed to know what is different about Full HD 3D and how that impacts HDMI’s feature sets and requirements – or is it just another marketing ploy.

First of all, let’s take a look at the tour itself.  As I have mentioned previously, I did have the opportunity to experience the Panasonic 3-D demo trailer (literally an 18-wheeler trailer) at CEDIA last fall.  It showed off a Panasonic 103” plasma display with prototype electronics for supporting HDMI 1.4 and 3-D.  A totally awesome experience that really sold me on the technology.  I almost expected the same thing for this, but actually was somewhat disappointed.  I guess their target market was focused more at the consumer and affordable products this time, which probably was appropriate for getting a message across to the mass market.

The concept also was more than just an awesome 3-D demo.  There were many other “3-D related” consumer products like digital cameras, camcorders, some audio gear, and photo frames.  I will focus on the two primary 3-D demonstrations.

                                                  The Entrance

                                            The 3-D Demo “Room”

                                   Nvidia’s PC-based 3-D Gaming Demo

         And what would it be without some trademarked marketing logos……

So, what is this “3D Full HD” thing all about anyhow?

I am a one of those people that booth workers hate to have to meet.  Needless to say, I finally got to someone who actually understood my questions and was knowledgeable.  It turns out that he was one of the people out of Panasonic’s New Jersey headquarters who trains the salespeople for the major CE store chains.  He got a good laugh when I asked him if he were the one who trained Best Buy on how to synch up the glasses for $150.

Let me back up for a minute and cover the most technical information I was able to find on just what “3D Full HD” means.  To quote Panasonic’s Site:

“FULL HD 3D Image Display – Frame Sequential Technology

In order to bring cinema-like realism to 3D movies at home, we insisted on using the Frame Sequential technology for 3D image playback. Separate high-quality images for the left and right eyes are recorded with 1920 X 1080 Full-HD quality and alternately played at the high speed of 60 frames per second (fps), making a total of 120 fps. By watching the screen through special 3D Eyewear that are timed to open and close the right and left lenses in synchronization with the alternating images, the viewer is treated to high-quality FULL HD 3D viewing. This technology solves the problems of image deterioration and blurring that were common to conventional 3D methods, and brings theater-quality images right into your room.

“

First of all, notice the trademark on the 3D Full HD logo.  That is the first clue that what they are delivering is a well thought out marketing plan.  Panasonic has been an early and influential adopter of 3-D technologies.  This “tour” was proof that they have expanded the concept across a wider range of products than just 3-D TVs and Blu-ray players.  If you go to Panasonic’s “Full HD 3D” site at http://www.panasonic.com/3d/?cm_sp=Homepage%20Static%20Ads-_-PNA-_-3D1292010&cm_re=PCEC-_-Product1-3D1292010, you will notice how this logo becomes the focal point for their 3-D message, content, and ecosphere of products.  They are serious.

What I derived from this is that it mostly is a marketing way of saying “we are delivering the best 3-D experience we can based upon currently technologies and specifications.”  It was interesting to me that I only could find one person out of the twenty or so at the “booth” that knew anything about the underlying technologies that made their approach better than the competition’s.  I really had to pry to find out what that means at a technical level.

Before I get into that, I do want to say that their new line of plasma displays (the VT25s) looked awesome.  They were great with 2-D in addition to 3-D.  I highly recommend them for anyone looking at a new display.  Their Blu-ray players also have a lot of nice features like 8-channel analog audio out and two HDMI connectors out.  One is for running HDMI 1.4 to a display and the other is for sending a separate HDMI signal to a “legacy” receiver if required.  I did neglect to ask if they could be bound together for a “dual link” HDMI configuration though.  They also have a full line of features with their Viera Cast suite of web entertainment and home video conferencing services.

First and foremost is that they still are complying with the current HDMI specifications and have not done something “non-standard” like upping the bandwidth of the HDMI link to something like 15 Gb/s to achieve “full” eye to eye resolution and frame rate, which was one of my original potential assumptions.  Panasonic essentially is saying that they are doing Frame Sequential 3-D from a Blu-ray Disc and that their Blu-ray players and their displays use as much bandwidth as is available over HDMI 1.4 (just like anyone serious about competing in this space probably is doing).  In fact, they said that anyone competing in this space probably will deliver the same level of technical features that they are if they really want to compete.

What they are doing, and the big take away that I got out of it, is that they are using their own proprietary video processor for delivering “peak performance.”  I looked into it after I got back and now understand their strategy much better.  They have their own UniPhier (Universal Platform for High-quality Image Enhancing Revolution) video processor technology that they are integrating into their entire consumer electronics line.  That gives them the ability to do some amazing things with the video and audio that other manufacturers may not be able to achieve using commercially available chips sets.

The important thing is that it is not about increasing the speed over the cable.  It still runs at the specified 10.2 Gb/s.  It is about what they are doing with the video from source to sink and the quality with which they can do it.  As you know, the new Blu-ray specifications (as a minimum) define 3-D video formats at 24 frames per second per eye.  What Panasonic is doing at their displays is taking that frame rate and frame doubling it twice to achieve 96 frames per second per eye.  While this seems like a logical thing to do and definitely allows for a much better and flicker-free experience, it does require a lot of processing power to do, especially when dealing with the amount of data coming in over the HDMI port.  That is where their UniPhier technology comes in.  It is more than capable of handling and processing those data rates.

An additional area where the UniPhier helps with delivering the “Full HD 3D” experience is with other sources of 3-D content.  When you start looking at the broadcast-level side-by-side or top-bottom formats, they really are dealing with a form of compression to take a full frame and squeeze it into half a frame (for each eye).  The 3-D specifications we have been discussing for the last several Installments have focused on the format standards, but not the way to deliver them.  As you can imagine, there are better algorithms than others for encoding (compressing) and decoding (decompressing) video images.  The better ones take a lot more processing power to do well, especially at higher data rates.  Once again, that is where Panasonic’s UniPhier technology comes into play.  They can deliver a superior picture with better image quality and less artifacts.  That, once again, helps deliver “peak performance.”

The bottom line is that the “Full HD 3D” moniker is not about doing anything that is outside of the realm of the standards.  It is about delivering a top quality experience leveraging the best “task specific” designs and components available.  It is not to say that other manufacturers cannot achieve comparable quality.  It is to say that Panasonic, as one of the leaders in the 3-D market, is setting the initial bar pretty high – and keeping it affordable at the same time.

Our next Installment FINALLY wraps up HDMI by pulling all of the background we have provided on HDMI and associated technologies together and looks at HDMI Matrix Switchers and what makes some better than others.

Of course, we cover things in a lot more detail and provide a broader perspective on the experience in the Podcast itself , so take a listen.  Thanks.

  =D-

This Installment dives into the Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) data structure, which is the way that a display device “describes” its capabilities to the source.  EDID is defined by a standard published by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA).  It is what allows the source to know what the sink is capable of doing.  EDID structures have been around for quite some time and also are a key component of how VGA-based displays have been identifying themselves to computers for the couple of decades (since about 1994).  Note, also, that there also is the E-EDID (Enhanced EDID) structure, which supports multiple extension blocks and additional data fields, which is actually is used more in the HDMI world than the original EDID structure because of the additional information that can be conveyed.

 [mp3]http://media.libsyn.com/media/iandixon/TDL_Custom_20100421_028.mp3[/mp3]

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If you recall some of our earlier Installments on HDMI (http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/custom/archive/2009/11/04/The-Custom-Integrator-Show-Installment-020.aspx), the exchange of EDID information is a key component to the initial handshaking process for HDMI.  It is the first thing that is exchanged after the Hot Plug Detect is inserted.  Think of it as 128 Bytes of data with each Byte and its position in the data structure providing specific information about the display.  The source interprets that information and uses it as the means to send the highest possible quality video and audio signal that both devices can support.

There is a lot more to it than that, and we do not delve too deeply into the specifics of the data itself in this installment.  However, if you refer to the Pre-Cursor to Installment 028 on the blog site (http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/custom/archive/2010/04/06/Pre_2D00_Cursor-to-Installment-028-_2D00_-EDID-Management.aspx), you can see actual interpretations of the EDID data.  I highly recommend you look that blog post over before listening to this Installment.  It is tough to explain verbally what can be shown a lot more easily in a few pictures.

The Pre-Cursor shows the basics of the EDID structure and how the bytes are interpreted.  With the capabilities of E-EDID, however, the data strings now can be up to 32 KBytes to handle the additional data.  Some of the EDID Extensions assigned by VESA include:

Why is all of this important?  It is the root of how the interoperability between the source and sinks work, although it is a lot more complex than we get into here.  It all fits together because the CEA-861-D InfoFrames we discussed earlier correlate directly to the Vendor Specific Data Block (VSDB) extensions used by E-EDID.  It is not only how the display identifies its capabilities, but how the information concerning the capabilities to render lossless audio and 3-D playback is transmitted.

For a single display, it is not overly critical that you understand the details because it all happens pretty much automagically.  However, it is an essential piece of the complex puzzle that comes into play when you start attaching multiple displays to something like an HDMI Matrix Switcher and you try to play content to several displays simultaneously – especially when each one may have different characteristics that it supports.  That is why some many of the modern HDMI Matrix Switchers now include EDID (and really E-EDID) management tools.  It also becomes the basis for key purchasing decisions when selecting HDMI Matrix Switchers and the associated components.

Making all of this work correctly will require the next generation of Custom Integration Programmers – those that can manage the EDID data correctly.  Without having the correct data exposed to the source side of the chain, it will not know what capabilities the rendering devices have.  Additionally, troubleshooting issues become a huge quagmire if, once again, you do not understand what is being communicated on the wire.  That is why we have spent so much time on the details of EDID, CEA-861, and the 3D_Structures.  The interoperability of these components are extremely essential to a successful distributed audio and video infrastructure.

Spend the time learning as much as you can about EDID management.  Without a good working base of knowledge, you will not be able to deliver reliable and trouble-free installations in the digital audio and video world.  I guess a cannot say it more succinctly than that.  It is the future.

Next time we cover my experience at the Panasonic “Touch the Future” exhibit and what is meant by the elusive marketing term “Full 3-D.”  Thanks for listening.

  =D-

This blog post provides background material on Enhanced Display Identification Data (EDID Management), the topic of Installment 028.  I thought it would be useful to publish the information ahead of time because it is difficult to describe byte-code level data structures verbally and seeing it visually ahead of time makes it easier to grasp the concepts we will be discussing.

EDID handshaking is an integral part of the HDMI initialization process.  It is how the Source understands the capabilities of the Sink(s) to which it is sending both video and audio streams.  As we have discussed several times throughout our different Installments, having the appropriate EDID information presented to a Source when incorporating HDMI Switchers as part of a distributed HDMI infrastructure is key to a successful implementation.

Exposing EDID-based capabilities is easy when there is a single display connected to a single source, but what happens when you start throwing multiple displays with different capabilities into the mix?  How does the Source know what formats it can send out successfully?  That is where EDID management comes into play.  There is a whole new set of skills required to pull off EDID Management when working with complex HDMI topologies and infrastructures and it is imperative that any integration firm have someone on staff who understands the complexities of making it all work properly.  We will be drilling down into that as our main topic for our next Installment, but I thought it would be good to get the information out ahead of time in preparation for it.

I think the following diagrams depict the basics of EDID structures well.  They are taken from an HDMI Overview presentation from LIGHTWARE (http://www.lightware.eu/siteE0.htm), a manufacturer of HDMI Switchers, Extenders, and Diagnostic Tools and Components out of Hungary.  They provide a wide range of EDID (and HDCP) Management tools for their broad set of HDMI Switcher offerings.  I thought it easiest to use their examples because they depict the breakdown of the EDID data blocks visually.

We will dive into the relevance of this information in Installment 028 and hopefully shed some light on how EDID structures fit into a well engineered HDMI infrastructure – and especially its relevance to 3-D capabilities and structures.  Be sure to keep an eye out for when we publish the associated Podcast.

  =D-

We finally are starting to understand the relationship of HDMI 1.4 to the requirements of 3-D as we discuss what the vendors actually are delivering in Installment 027.  Along the way, we also talk about some of the latest news like networking Ceton (or any CableCARD) tuners, how Microsoft is looking to their Azure services as a platform for delivering TV and content from the cloud to all three screens, and finally starting to see products that leverage HDMI’s CEC capabilities across multiple vendors’ product lines.

[mp3]http://media.libsyn.com/media/iandixon/TDL_Custom_20100324_027.mp3[/mp3]

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HDMI 1.4 is not about additional headroom or speed when it comes to 3-D.  It is about understanding the multiple 3-D formats and being able to dynamically change the rendering formats as the source content changes.  Being able to understand the EDID and InfoFrame extensions is critical to the success of designing and implementing distributed HDMI-based 3-D infrastructures.  We discussed the mandatory formats required for 3-D in our last installment (http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/custom/archive/2010/03/08/Analog-is-a-risky-platform_2C00_-More-on-3_2D00_D-Structures-for-HDMI_2C00_-and-CEC-_2D00_-Installment-026.aspx).

So, what are these “InfoFrames?”  To make sense out of how these pieces all play together, we need to step back and look at them at a high level.  InfoFrames are part of the Consumer Electronics Association’s CEA-861 standard for the auxiliary data sent across the TMDS channels in an InfoFrame packet format.  InfoFrames are part of the CEA’s Digital TV Profiles for uncompressed high-speed digital interfaces.  They are not just for HDMI or DVI, but a variety of digital audio and video connections.  The Auxiliary Video Information (AVI) InfoFrames tell the receiver (the Sink side) the capabilities of the transmitter (the Source side).  For example, they include pixel encoding and enhancement support for the video.  There also are audio InfoFrames, which describe the details about the audio data formats and rate so the receiver (the Sink side) can synchronize itself with the incoming audio data format.  This standard defines video timing requirements, discovery structures, and a data transfer structure (InfoPacket) that is used for building uncompressed, baseband, digital interfaces on digital televisions (DTV) or DTV Monitors. A single physical interface is not specified, but any interface that implements InfoPackets must use the VESA Enhanced Extended Display Identification Data Standard (VESA E-EDID) for format discovery.  We will focus on the InfoFrames as they related to HDMI in this blog post, although their scope is much broader.

An InfoFrame packet carries one InfoFrame. The InfoFrame provided by HDMI is limited to 30 bytes plus a checksum byte.

Auxiliary Video information (AVI) InfoFrame

Various aspects of the video stream are identified by the HDMI Source to the Sink using an Auxiliary Video information (AVI) InfoFrame.

A Source shall always transmit an AVI InfoFrame at least once per two video fields if the Source:

– is ever capable of transmitting an AVI InfoFrame or,

– is ever capable of transmitting YCBCR pixel encoding or,

– is ever capable of transmitting any Colorimetry other than the transmitted video format’s default Colorimetry or,

– is ever capable of transmitting any xvYCC or future enhanced Colorimetry or,

– is ever capable of transmitting any Gamut Metadata packet or,

– is ever capable of transmitting any video format with multiple allowed pixel repetitions.

An AVI InfoFrame is transmitted even if the Source is transmitting RGB and non pixel-repeated video.  When a Source is not explicitly required to transmit AVI InfoFrames, it still is recommended that the Source transmit the AVI InfoFrames anyhow.

HDMI Sources are required (at least in most cases) to use the Auxiliary Video information (AVI) InfoFrame and Audio InfoFrame, but only are recommended to transmit it in other cases.  All InfoFrames are described in detail in CEA-861-D (and now in 861-E).  Other InfoFrames specified in CEA-861-D are optional.

HDMI v1.4a references CEA-861-D and selectively reproduces items from CEA-861-E.  Work is on-going within CEA (R4.8 WG7) to create an extension to CEA-861-E for 3-D.  As part of the process, CEA has asked HDMI LLC to make public the 3-D portions of the HDMI v1.4/v1.4a standard.  HDMI Licensing, LLC has agreed.

The CEA also has requested that HDMI Licensing, LLC “Permit 3D-related fields of HDMI VSDB structures (as defined in HDMI Version 1.4 Extraction of 3D Signaling Portion document – what it just released to the public) to be used in new CEA-861 structures, which may be transmitted by other interfaces using non vendor-specific methods.”  This would make the HDMI 3-D signaling standard across all CEA-861 uncompressed digital A/V interfaces, but do it by putting the CEA standard wrappers around extracted HDMI 3-D Vendor Specific Data Block (VSDB) structures.  The interface issues are somewhat out of scope for the 3-D Video Workgroup, although interested parties should join CEA’s R4.8 WG7 and contribute.  The CEA also is concerned about 4K video timings (something we have talked about quite a bit in previous Installments) and is working on solidifying the InfoFrames for that environment, too.

HDMI InfoFrames

An InfoFrame packet carries one InfoFrame. The InfoFrame provided by HDMI is limited to 30 bytes plus a checksum byte.  HDMI Sources are required, in some cases, to use the Auxiliary Video information (AVI) InfoFrame and Audio InfoFrame and recommended in other cases.  Other InfoFrames specified in CEA-861-D are optional.  All InfoFrames are described in detail in the CEA-861 standard (http://www.ce.org/Standards/browseByCommittee_2641.asp).

The real issue, as it relates to our discussion, is that the 3-D video signals may originate from, or be carried exclusively over, other interfaces (WirelessHD, WHDI, DiiVA, HDbaseT, and DisplayPort), which also use CEA-861 for video timing and signaling.  Examples covered in the specs include scenarios like a WirelessHD player (HRTX) directly driving a WirelessHD display (HRRX) or a DiiVA player driving the input of an HDMI display through a DiiVA-to-HDMI converter.  However, the “official” CEA-861 specification currently does not include 3-D definitions.  These currently are defined by HDMI Licensing, LLC and are considered as vendor extensions to the specification.  The CEA is taking these and figuring out how (or if) they should be incorporated into the broader specifications.

One option is to extend the CEA AVI InfoFrame by adding three bytes (note that metadata is not supported)

Another option under consideration is to define new type of 3-D InfoFrame (with metadata supported)

This includes defining a new (EDID) 3-D Data Block (covered in the next Installment)

Some Differences between HDMI and DVI

HDMI follows the CEA-861 standard, which requires all devices to support RGB color space by default.  Note that DVI only supports RGB because there is no reverse (InfoFrame) channel to announce a change in color space (from RGB to YCbCr).  YCbCr is optional (according to CEA-861) and must be negotiated for by a handshaking sequence.  So if YCbCr is not supported by the display, then the HDMI source will automatically default to RGB.  HDMI sources must look at the display’s EDID and, if an HDMI Vendor Specific Data Block is not found, are obliged to provide RGB space.

In Summary

The CEA-861 InfoFrame structures are a key component to being able to play 3-D content effectively.  The Source broadcasts the format within the video stream and the Sink dynamically changes the way it displays the content using that information.  This process currently is specific to HDMI’s implementation (the 3D_Structures covered previously), but the CEA is looking to incorporate the same functionality into other digital audio and video transports.

All of this is dependent upon the capabilities of the display device through communicating the EDID structures between the Sink and the Source during the HDMI initialization process.  We cover those aspects in our next Installment.  Please stay tuned……

=D-

We spend a considerable amount of time in Installment 026 discussing the growth of HDMI and digital interconnects as the only high definition connectivity option available in about a year, especially for Blu-ray players.  Of course, current equipment still should play as it does now (unless it potentially gets a firmware update that changes that), but we, as integrators, need to design and implement for the future.

[mp3]http://media.libsyn.com/media/iandixon/TDL_Custom_20100316_026.mp3[/mp3]

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HDMI 1.4a MANDATORY FORMATS

The HDMI Licensing, LLC recently released the 3-D related parts of the HDMI 1.4a specifications to the public (http://www.hdmi.org/press/press_release.aspx?prid=119).  There are two key areas covered in this release.  One aspect defines the mandatory 3-D formats that a 1.4a sink device MUST support to be compliant:

• For movie content:
  • Frame Packing
    • 1080p @ 23.98/24Hz
• For game content:
  • Frame Packing
    • 720p @ 50 or 59.94/60Hz
• For broadcast content:
  • Side-by-Side Horizontal
    • 1080i @ 50 or 59.94/60Hz
  • Top-and-Bottom
    • 720p @ 50 or 59.94/60Hz
    • 1080p @ 23.97/24Hz

I ran across this chart that I think graphically depicts these fairly well

Note that this focuses on guaranteeing interoperability from the sink (display) side of the chain.  For the source, it must support AT LEAST ONE of these formats.  This ensures the source device will be able to send a 3-D stream to the display and the display will be able to render it.

The last component of the equation defined in the specification relates to HDMI repeaters (receivers and HDMI Matrix Switchers).  They must pass the 3-D stream from the source to the sink and leave the 3-D parameters of the image intact.  Essentially, this means that HDMI 1.4a compliant components will be able to play 3-D content from broadcast, gaming, and physical media sources.  Potentially, HDMI 1.3 devices could be upgraded to provide or render the content too, but there is no guarantee.  Even if these upgrades do allow for 3-D, they may not support all formats.  Most of those announced so far are for source devices.  Very few companies have talked about upgrading their displays at all.  Some of the better HDMI Matrix Switchers may be transparent to the 3-D streams, but it is too early to tell.  Take the time to understand technically what the devices are capable of supporting before setting expectations for your clients.

3-D VIDEO TIMING

What these formats really define at the “video level” are timing diagrams for how the video stream is to be generated and interpreted.  We often talk about bits being sent across the wire, but, from a video perspective, it really is about the timing of those bits in relation to how the video signal is displayed (think of the way that analog CRTs displayed video).

For a Side by Side (half resolution per eye image) 3D_Structure, the timing is defined as

Notice the familiar analog horizontal and vertical blanking intervals that a “normal” 2-D video stream would have.  This matches up to the way that DIRECTV has announced they are providing 3-D for their channels.

One of the other mandatory broadcast formats is Top/Bottom, whose video stream timing is defined as

Formats also are defined for formats like Frame Packing (progressive scan in this case), which changes the video timing considerably

In this figure, there is an area inserted between the two active video regions designated as “Active Space”.  This Active Space area is encoded the same as in the adjoining Active Video Regions.  However, during the Active Space, an HDMI source transmits a constant pixel value.  HDMI sinks ignore all of the data received during the Active Space.  There also is a non-interlaced definition for Frame Packing, but you get the idea by now.

HDMI INFOFRAME 3-D STRUCTURES IN HDMI 1.4

There is another aspect of the HDMI 1.4a specification that is not talked about much.  It relates to the InfoFrames within the video stream itself that identifies the actual type of 3-D format being used for a specific piece of content.  To me, this is the real heart of 3-D interoperability and is key to understanding how the “3-D handshaking process” works.

Imagine that you are watching a show on a channel that uses Side by Side 3-D formatting and you then change to a channel that is encoded using the Top/Bottom format.  How does the sink (display) know how to render the video stream?  That is what InfoFrames provide.  It is a way to identify, within the video stream itself, how the 3-D content is to be rendered.  It is transmitted twice per video frame and potentially is dynamic (it may change when there is a commercial inserted into the stream).

InfoFrame 3D_Structure Values

  Value  Meaning

These values are closely related to the CEA-861-B formats for the Vendor Specific Data Block (VSDB) defined in HDMI, but they actually are a proprietary format that the CEA allows HDMI to use within their specifications.  The inter-relationships of these standards is a little convoluted behind the scenes, but the bottom line is that the HDMI 1.4a specifications allow for true 3-D interoperability and functionality at the video stream level.

The ability to support 3-D formats is included in the EDID sent from the sink during the handshaking initialization process, but we will cover that aspect in Installment 028.  Stay tuned.

All of this is designed to be transparent to the users and should be transparent to the installers as well, but like everything else on this Podcast, we like to shed some light on how things work on the wire so that you can deliver better and more reliable solutions to your clients.

 BACK TO OUR DISCUSSIONS ON HDMI CEC

We do finally get back onto our topic of the Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) features of HDMI and wrap up the series on that.  We discuss the actual “byte code” command set of CEC and how that pertains to the usage scenarios covered previously.

These commands are sent to the specific devices using the CEC addressing scheme we outlined in our previous two Installments.

CEC COMMAND SET (Individual Commands)

As you can see, there is quite a bit of flexibility afforded by the CEC infrastructure for the command and control of a wide variety of devices using a standardized language.  It appears to be so much simpler than what we have to deal with when using IR codes and RS-232 commands.  I really wish vendors would start leveraging CEC’s capabilities more because it is an awesome platform that already exists within the majority of HDMI products currently on the market.

I often wonder why, if these commands are standardized across products, vendors chose to only support CEC functionality on their own products.  Listen to the Podcast for some insights there.  Fortunately, that trend is changing and we should start being able to reap the benefits in the next wave of HDMI (and 3-D) based devices.

Hopefully, the pieces of the CEC puzzle now start to make sense.

  =D-

We continue our discussion of the CEC functionality in HDMI for Installment 025.  Before we dive into CEC though, Ian spends a little time enlightening us to his adventures with MyDevices and a couple of other applications for interacting with devices and services based on UPnP technologies/DLNA from his cell phone.

 [mp3]http://media.libsyn.com/media/iandixon/TDL_Custom_20100222_025.mp3[/mp3]

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There has been a lot of confusion regarding CEC, proprietary implementations (cross-vendor compatibility), and interoperability.  Fortunately, there finally is a trend with many of the newer products to work across different vendors’ implementations.  It still takes some sort of UI to set the CEC relationships up initially and certain vendors do a better job at that than others, but they are improving all of the time.  My view is that we finally are starting to see a workable cross-product CEC solution from several vendors which actually lives up to the original vision conceived by the HDMI founders.

We do get lost a little bit with the internals of how CEC addressing works (and may even confuse many listeners).  Sorry about that – how CEC really functions is a difficult topic to try to summarize.  Fortunately, it is not something that most custom integrators need to worry about, although it is good to understand the concepts behind it because it is a key piece of how CEC and HDMI work in general.  The basics of it are included here for clarification.  The main concept to grasp is that CEC affords the “macro-like” usage (one touch) scenarios we described in the previous Installment (024).  Those scenarios are based on communicating with device types through their physical CEC addresses while using their logical addresses for communicating with the individual devices themselves.

In other words, the CEC usage scenario functionality we discussed previously deals with a hierarchy of HDMI-based device types.  Each device type has a specific physical address assigned to it.  At first, this seems a bit limiting in practice, but the following device type list does encompass all of the major types of A/V devices in a cluster.  It does induce constraints in very large HDMI-based implementations, so it is important to take this into account when looking at large HDMI Matrix Switches and distribution platforms.

CEC DEVICE TYPES

ADDRESS  DEVICE

     0             TV

     1             Recording Device 1

     2             Recording Device 2

     3             STB1

     4             DVD1

     5             Audio System

     6             STB2

     7             STB3

     8             DVD2

     9             Recording Device 3

     10           Reserved

     11           Reserved

     12           Reserved

     13           Reserved

     14           Free Use

     15           Unregistered (as initiator address)

                    Broadcast (as destination address)

CEC ADDRESSING

     • CEC devices have both physical and logical addresses. Normally, upon each hot-plug, each CEC source obtains a physical address by reading the EDID of the sink it is attached to.

     • For CEC to be able to address specific physical devices and control switches, all devices have a physical address. CEC device addressing and connectivity is negotiated whenever a new device is added to an HDMI cluster. The physical address discovery process uses only the DDC/EDID mechanism and must apply to all HDMI Sinks and Repeaters, not just the CEC-capable devices themselves.

     • The CEC line is directly connected to all nodes on the network. After discovering their own physical address, the CEC devices transmit their physical and logical addresses to all other devices, thus allowing any device to create a map of the network.

     • The physical address of each CEC device is expressed as four numbers and indicates where it is relative to the “root” display (TV), whose address is always fixed at 0.0.0.0.  As an example, the first STB in the system is always given the logical address 3 (as seen above).

          – For example, a source attached to input #1 of the “root” display (TV), will have a physical address of 1.0.0.0

     • Each CEC device also obtains a logical address – reflecting its product type – by negotiating with other CEC devices in the system.

 CEC DISCOVERY

     • The physical address of each node is determined through the physical address discovery process. This process is dynamic in that it automatically adjusts physical addresses as required when devices are physically or electrically added or removed from the device tree.

     • All Sinks and Repeaters perform the steps of physical address discovery and propagation, even if those devices are not CEC-capable. Sources are not required to determine their own physical address unless they are CEC-capable.

     • A Sink or a Repeater that is acting as the CEC root device will generate its own physical address: 0.0.0.0. A Source or a Repeater reads its physical address from the EDID of the connected Sink.

     • The CEC line may be connected to only one HDMI output so a device with multiple HDMI outputs will read its physical address from the EDID on the CEC-connected output. Each Sink and Repeater is responsible for generating the physical address of all Source devices connected to that device by appending a port number onto its own physical address and placing that value in the EDID for that port. The Source Address Field of the HDMI Vendor Specific Data Block (VSDB) is used for this purpose.

CEC DISCOVERY SEQUENCE

     • Each device appearing on the control signal line (CEC buss) has a unique logical address. This address defines a device type as well as being a unique identifier.

     • If a physical device contains the functions of more than one logical device, then it should take the logical addresses for each of those logical devices. A device may declare the functionality of another device by using a different logical address.

          –For example a recordable DVD device may take the address 4 or 8 to expose only the functionality of a standard DVD device.

CEC LOGICAL ADDRESS ALLOCATION

     • A logical address only is allocated when a device has a valid physical address (i.e. not F.F.F.F).  At all other times, a device takes the ‘Unregistered’ logical address (15).

     • Only the device at physical address 0.0.0.0 may take the logical address of a TV (0). A TV at any other physical address should take the ‘Free Use’ (14) address. If address 14 already is allocated, it takes the ‘Unregistered’ address (15).

     • Reserved addresses currently are not used and are reserved for future extensions to the specification.

     • Where more than one possible logical address is available for the given device type (i.e. STB1, STB2, etc.), an address allocation procedure is carried out by a newly connected device. The device takes the first allocated address and sends a polling message to the same address (STB1 to STB1). If the polling message is not acknowledged, then the device stops the procedure and retains that address.

     • If the first address is acknowledged, then the device takes the next address and repeats the process (STB2 to STB2). Again, if the message is not acknowledged, the device keeps that address.

     • This procedure continues until all possible ‘type specific’ addresses have been checked. If no ‘type specific’ addresses are available, the device takes the unregistered address (15).

     • A device may lose its logical address when it is disconnected or switched off. However, it may remember its previous logical address so that the next time it is reconnected, it can begin the polling process at its previous logical address.  It then tries each other allowable logical address in sequence before taking the unregistered address.

          – For example if a STB that was previously allocated address STB2 is reconnected, it would poll STB2, STB3, and STB1 before taking the unregistered address.

     • If a device loses its physical address at any time (if it is unplugged), then its logical address shall be set to unregistered (15).

CEC PROTOCOL EXTENSIONS

• To allow for extensions to the protocol in future releases of the specification, the current opcodes and parameters can be extended by adding further parameters onto them. If an older CEC node receives a message with more operands than expected, it should ACK the additional operands and simply ignore unknown ones, thus allowing extensions to already existing commands.

• For entirely new commands, new opcodes can be allocated. For entirely new device types, new standardized addresses may be allocated.

SO, WHAT DOES ALL OF THIS MEAN TO A SYSTEM DESIGN?

     • CEC allows a variety of usage scenarios to take occur automatically if the equipment supports it.

     • There is a limit of ten (10) devices total in a CEC/HDMI hierarchy (which is not discussed much by any of the vendors).

          – This limit partially is dependent upon the time it takes to renew the HDCP keys

          – There also may be an additional limit on the number of HDCP Key Registers in specific devices in the chain

     • HDMI Matrix Switches and CEC addressing are critical factors in your purchasing criteria and should not be overlooked when evaluating specifications.

CEC has a lot of potential.  It seems to have gotten a bad rap early on because most vendors only supported their own products.  That is changing.  We definitely are seeing a trend in the marketplace for devices to leverage the capabilities of a CEC backbone for command and control.  We hope that trend continues, because it is one of those underused features of HDMI that really gives it an edge in system designs and implementations.

  =D-

Installment 024 is live.  It has been a while.  We decided to let the dust settle after CES before picking things up again.  It has been a year since our first installment.  Man, we have covered a lot of territory since then.

I decided to change the way I format the subject for these blog posts so that it is easier to find related topics instead of just having the Installment numbers to go by.  I hope it works out better now that we are getting quite a few posts out here.

We start this year out with Ian’s discussing some of his HDMI findings at CES and, like everyone else lately, we look at the implications of 3-D on the requirements – especially for HDMI 1.4.  We then start our dive into the Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) aspects of HDMI.

[mp3]http://media.libsyn.com/media/iandixon/TDL_Custom_20100129_024.mp3[/mp3]

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Before I write about what we cover, I need to clarify something that I said in the recording that is not entirely accurate (hopefully you know that I strive to provide correct information).  I will discuss this again in the next Installment (025), so keep an ear out for that.  The issue revolves around the need for HDMI 1.4 and 3-D.  Steve Venuti, President of the HDMI  Licensing, LLC organization, had stated that, theoretically, it would take 15 Gb/s to support full resolution per eye when delivering 3-D over HDMI.  I mistakenly interpreted that as a reason that high speed HDMI 1.4 is required.  Things get really confusing, but essentially they are not doing full resolution 3-D, so the bandwidth over the wire stays the same (assuming the Color Depth values are constant).  The format, as it is right now, is to provide only 1080i per eye when doing 3-D.  This is not full resolution per eye as one would get at 1080p/60 per eye, which would require the higher bandwidth.  Additionally, the Blu-ray 3-D specifications only go up to 24 frames per second per eye, or 48 Hz, so it is not 1080p/60 per eye either.  These limitations allow the current 10.2 Gb/s available via HDMI 1.3 to be sufficient for delivering 3-D.  I am sure it is crystal clear now, right?

Also, the way that the Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) aspects of HDMI 1.4 deal with devices exposing if they support the additional capabilities of HDMI 1.4 like the reverse audio channel and Ethernet are part of the extensions to the CEC command (and response) set.  Since we were just getting into these aspects of CEC, we will add those aspects to our discussion in Installment 025.

Following is the background information on CEC we cover.  It is important to note that the Features listed here are more like functional scenarios.  The CEC platform really is designed around tasks that are performed (similar to macros in universal remote controls) rather than just strings of command codes.  Once again, we will dive into this further in the next installment.

CEC

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

• Broadcast Message - This is a message, sent to logical address 15, on which all devices are expected to receive.
• Deck - The part of a recording device or playback device that provides playback functionality – usually from a removable media.
• Destination - The target device for a CEC message.
• Follower - A device that has just received a CEC message and is required to respond to it.
• Initiator - The device that is sending, or has just sent, a CEC message and, if appropriate, is waiting for a follower to respond.
• Logical Address - A unique address assigned to each device
• Menu Providing Device - A non-display device that may render a menu on a TV.
• Playback Device - A device that has the ability to play media, e.g. a DVD Player.
• Recording Device  -A device that has the ability to record a source such as an internal digital tuner or an external connection.
• Source Device – A device that is currently providing an AV stream via HDMI.
• Tuner Device - A device that contains a digital tuner, e.g. a STB or a Recording Device.
• Timer Setting Device - A device that has the ability to set the record timer blocks of a recording device.
• TV - A device with HDMI input that has the ability to display the input HDMI signal. Generally it has no HDMI output.

END-USER FEATURES

• One Touch Play - Allows a device to be played and become the active source with a single button press.
• System Standby - Enables the user to switch all devices to standby with one button press.
• One Touch Record - Offers a What You See Is What You Record (WYSIWYR) facility, meaning that whatever is shown on the TV screen is recorded on a selected recording device.
• Deck Control - Enables a device to control (play, fast forward, etc.) and interrogate a playback device (a deck).
• Tuner Control - Allows a device to control the tuner of another device.
• Device Menu Control - Enables a device to control the menu of another device by passing through user interface commands.
• Remote Control Pass Through - Enables remote control commands to be passed through to other devices within the system.

SUPPORTING FEATURES

• Device OSD Name Transfer - Enables devices to upload their preferred OSD name to the TV. The TV can then use this name in any menus associated with that device.
• Device Power Status – Allows the current power status of a device to be discovered.
• OSD Display - Enables a device to use the on-screen display of the TV to display text strings.
• Routing Control - Allows the control of CEC Switches for streaming of a new source device.
• System Information - Queries the system to determine device addresses and language.
• Vendor Specific Commands - Allows a set of vendor-defined commands to be used between devices of that vendor.

As mentioned, we will dig down deeper into CEC in Installment 025.  CEC is a much overlooked aspect of HDMI that really adds some value to its vision and capabilities and, like most of our topics, it is important to understand how it works on the wire so you can take advantage of it in your installations.

  =D-