This recent Audioholics article on the HDMI interface I found very interesting. The information hashts references might be older information that applies only to the IEEE 1394 connection because the Audioholics article indicates the HDMI bandwidth is quite huge. Here’s an excerpt from the article.
Audioholics HDMI Interface – A Beginners Guide
“…Interface standards like IEEE 1394 (400/800 Mbps) transfer only compressed audio-video data, thereby potentially compromising the picture quality.
A single HDMI link, on the other hand, is capable of transferring up to 24 bits of user data at 165 Mpixels per second, resulting in a massive bandwidth of nearly 4 Gbps. This is enough to support the 1080p resolutions of today’s newest high-definition displays while still leaving room to transport up to 8 channels of high-resolution audio with 24 bits of resolution and a sampling frequency up to 192 kHz – all across a single HDMI cable. This is well beyond the maximum specifications of even DVD-Audio, which tops out at 6 channels and a sample rate of 96 kHz…”
I agree with the concerns about the possible copy protection issues. I really hope sanity will eventually prevail and a reasonable use can be worked into the systems. I suspect the actual perceived picture quality benefit might depend on your display. I have a fixed pixel LCD panel so it made no sense to convert the digital signal to an analog component signal and then reconvert back to digital. However, I think the bigger reason I see a slight improvement in the HDMI connection is my Denon 2910 does the up-conversion from 480p to the display native format of 720p and it does a better job.
