HDMI and audio

[TIPS List]

----- HDTV Magazine Tips List -----

I received the following email from the President of HDMI Licensing.
It's clear to me now that the author of the article was incorrect. He
should have said that early players had a limitation of 2.0 channel
*PCM* audio such as dvd-audio, not compressed audio streams such as
DD5.1.

Jason,

I am president of HDMI Licensing, LLC. We have been in contact with the
author of this article to try and correct some of the mis-impressions
that he gave. As with any new technologies (and especially where
multiple new technologies are converging - as in HDTV and home
entertainment) there is a learning curve for all involved, and we
appreciate your patience.

Rather than pointing out the limitations of a few HDMI products, I think
the article leaves the reader with the impression that no current HDMI
products are capable of supporting 5.1 audio. The article mentions that
none of the connections currently on the market today are passing 5.1
audio, but this is not the case.

HDMI was defined from the start to carry 8-channels, 192kHz, 24-bit
uncompressed audio, in addition to any flavor of compressed format.
Given that the vast majority of HDMI products shipped are 2-channel TVs,
as you might expect, they don't actually support more than 2-channel
audio. This is not a limitation of HDMI.
As noted in the article, there are several A/V receivers that switch and
pass-through HDMI without processing the audio at all. However, this is
changing as well. The new breed of Panasonic, Denon and other HDMI amps
can all handle multi-channel PCM on HDMI.
Finally, while several of the first generation HDMI DVD players didn't
support more than 2-channel PCM (though of course they can send out
AC-3, DTS, etc.), this is no longer the case. The article seems to
imply that none of the DVD players can drive a Dolby Digital 5.1 signal
out, but we haven't seen any DVD players with that restriction.
Basically, if it can come out S/PDIF, it can definitely come out HDMI.
I hope that this helps.
Best regards,
Leslie Chard
President
HDMI Licensing, LLC



JASON BURROUGHS

[donshan]

I read elsewhere that there is some sort of requirement in the HDMI specification, that any product with HDMI digital audio input has restrictions put on the manufacturer that any analog audio output plugs passing the decoded digital audio are limited to CD audio quality output ( rather the full 192kHz, 24 bit quality audio that the HDMI is capable of carrying as input).

I am wondering if this is true, or not? IF there is some sort of restriction on analog output sound quality, does this also limit speaker analog output quality of a HDMI switching amplifier on the attached analog speakers or any speakers on a HDMI equipped TV?

Perhaps Mr. Chard could provide factual info, or put this rumor to rest too.