Simplifying HDMI with ‘Simplay’

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.twice.com/article/CA6398917.html?q=simplay' target='_blank'>http://www.twice.com/article/CA6398917.html?q=simplay</a><br /><br /></div><i>"A “major national retailer” is notifying suppliers that it will require all HDMI-enabled products to go through Silicon Image’s “Simplay HD” testing program, or some other third-party certification process for compatibility and interoperability in order to qualify for its product mix in 2007, David Naranjo, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America product development director, announced at a press conference for HDMI Licensing. The move comes in reaction to the difficulty some consumers are experiencing in connecting HDMI and DVI products with other noncompliant HDMI or DVI devices. In many cases, non-complaint products are failing to complete a “handshake” — a process whereby products recognize and talk with one another in order to begin sending and receiving signals."</i><br /><br />Didn't even realize this was a problem. Guess I have been blissfully ignorant since my HDTV is old enough that it just uses component. This makes good business sense from both the retailer's and manufacturer's perspective since the customer will just return the product to the retailer. If the customer says the product does not work, the retailer will probably just return it to the manufacturer. This should save a lot of unnecessary returns and prevent a lot of unhappy customers.

[cameron]

Didn't even realize this was a problem.

This is a huge problem. My Motorola cable box doesn't properly recognize my Denon receiver as a switcher - so it won't pass the HDMI signal through. The problem is on Motorola's end - but while they've finally admitted the problem there hasn't been a solution (this problem has existed for at least a year now).

[Felix Torres]

I bought a JVC receiver that was supposed to be fully HDMI+HDCP compliant but never worked with DVI video even though user support swore it should and agreed I had it properly setup. They claimed it was a sample defect so I sent it back for replacement. Second unit failed even worse.
Since every other HDMI source I used worked fine with the DVI port, I gave up on JVC and ended up with an Onkyo reveiver.

Anybody paying attention can hardly visit an HD site without running into PS3 folks reporting all sorts of HDMI abnormalities, some of which won't clear up without unplugging the HDMI cable and plugging it back in. (Not even cycling power seems to help some of them.)

Hard to tell where the blame lies, especially with Son'y track record: back in o4 they shipped HD sets with HDMI minus HDCP, and good luck getting *that* to work with anything... :roll:

Me, I don't expect any certification program to get HDMI working seamlessly untill 2010 and/or HDMI 2.0, whichever comes *last* because the big asian CE companies are all stuck in NIH-land and view compatibility issues as a way to sell their own full lines of product instead of a problem. Cross-brand interoperability is *undesirable* to their engineers so the only way to teach new tricks to those old dogs is to smack'em hard. If CC or BB won't do it, it'll be up to us consumers voting with our wallets and that'll take time to get their attention.

[EscapePod]

My Scientific Atlanta cablebox and Samsung DLP don't play all that well together, and my guess is the Sammy is partly at fault. The Samsung HDMI only accepts 2-channel stereo audio. My S-A cablebox's default output is Dolby 5.1. If I just connect the HDMI, I get no sound. To make it work, I have to change the cablebox setting to stereo. Unfortunately, if I want to watch a show or pay-per-view movie that is in 5.1 sound by turning on my receiver (connected to the cablebox via digital fiber), I have to manually change the setting of the cablebox back to 5.1.

The part of the problem that belongs to Scientific Atlanta, is that the audio setting is for ALL audio outputs. In other words, I cannot have the box's digital output set at 5.1 and the HDMI at 2-channel stereo.

I guess my "next" HD TV will be able to accept 5.1 audio over HDMI. :cry: