What is HDMI and what does it do?

Answer 1

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is the first and only industry-supported, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface. By delivering crystal-clear, all-digital audio and video via a single cable, HDMI dramatically simplifies cabling and helps provide consumers with the highest-quality home theater experience. HDMI provides an interface between any audio/video source, such as a set-top box, DVD player, or A/V receiver and an audio and/or video monitor, such as a digital television (DTV), over a single cable.
HDMI supports standard, enhanced, or high-definition video, plus multi-channel digital audio on a single cable. It transmits all ATSC HDTV standards and supports 8-channel, 192kHz, uncompressed digital audio and all currently-available compressed formats (such as Dolby Digital and DTS), HDMI 1.3 adds additional support for new lossless digital audio formats Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™ with bandwidth to spare to accommodate future enhancements and requirements.

HDMI is the de facto standard digital interface for HD and the consumer electronics market: More than 500 companies have become adopters, and more than 130 million devices featuring HDMI are expected to ship in 2007, with an installed based of nearly one billion HDMI devices by 2010 (conservative estimates by In-Stat).
Convergence – HDMI is the interface for convergence of PC and consumer electronics devices: HDMI enables PCs to deliver premium media content including high definition movies and multi-channel audio formats. HDMI is the only interface enabling connections to both HDTVs and digital PC monitors implementing the DVI and HDMI standards.
Evolving standard – HDMI is continually evolving to meet the needs of the market: Products implementing new versions of the HDMI specification will continue to be fully backward compatible with earlier HDMI products.
Q. Who supports HDMI?
The HDMI Founders include leading consumer electronics manufacturers Hitachi, Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), Philips, Sony, Thomson (RCA), Toshiba, and Silicon Image. In addition, HDMI has the support of major motion picture producers Fox, Universal, Warner Bros. and Disney, and system operators DirecTV, EchoStar (Dish Network) as well as CableLabs.

Q. What are the advantages of HDMI over existing analog video interfaces such as composite, S-Video and component video?

Quality: Because HDMI is a digital interface, it provides the best quality of the video since there are no lossy analog to digital conversions as are required for all analog connections (such as component or S-video). The difference is especially noticeable at higher resolutions such as 1080p. Digital video will be sharper than component, and eliminates the softness and ghosting found with component. Small, high contrast details such as text bring this difference out the most..

Ease-of-use: HDMI combines video and multi-channel audio into a single cable, eliminating the cost, complexity, and confusion of multiple cables currently used in A/V systems. This is particularly beneficial when equipment is being upgraded or added.

Intelligence: HDMI supports two-way communication between the video source (such as a DVD player) and the DTV, enabling new functionality such as automatic configuration and one-touch play. By using HDMI, devices automatically deliver the most effective format (e.g 480p vs 720p, 16:9 vs 4:3) for the display that it is connected to - eliminating the need for the consumer to scroll through all the format options to guess what looks best.

HD Content-Ready: HDMI devices supporting HDCP have the comfort of knowing they will have access to premium HD content now and in the future. HD-DVD and Blu-ray have delayed the activation of the image constraint token (a.k.a. content protection flag) with today’s HD movies to help minimize potential issues caused by the transition, but are expected to activate this in a few years, meaning future HD movies will then not be viewable at HD resolutions over unprotected interfaces such as analog component.

Answer 2

There is a difference between expensive and budget HDMI cables. It revolves around the quality of the cable build and the materials used. The question is whether this will affect my set up. First you should determine the length between your source and your display. If this is less than 15 feet a "standard" cable will be ok. If it is more than 15 feet you are best to consider a "high speed" cable. Make sure that you buy from a reputable source and that the cable is marked with the HDMI logo and says that it is a version 1.3 (don't worry about a, b or c as these are only testing protocols) If you live in a coastal or high humidity area it is worth considering getting a cable with gold connectors. While this will not improve your signal it will stop corrosion degrading the signal over time. Some people assume that as the signals are digital either the cable works or not. Sometimes however the 1s and 0s aren't all there because of signal degradation due to inferior cable construction. That can be especially true with audio and video sources such as CDs and DVDs. The signal will degrade gracefully, to a point and then it will break up. Music and video is not like data. Digital signal processors can work with a degraded signal and deliver less than perfect sound and pictures. You can never improve a digital signal by using an expensive cable but you can certainly degrade a signal using an inferior cable.

Answer 3

HDMI is a digital interface

Check www.hdmi.org

Answer 4

its an interface tool that allows you to plug in all your electronics via 1 port. Or better yet Google HDMI.