I was very troubled at the recent C.E.D.I.A. Expo to find out that one has to be careful about HDMI these days. Why do I say this? Both Audio and Video products currently on the market that utilize HDMI only passes 2.0 digital audio, and not full-blown 5.1 surround sound audio. These products include A/V Receivers, DVD players/recorders, and HDTV's. Of course, to be fair, Silicon Image - the creator of HDMI -- claims that it can do 5.1 audio easily. However, the hard fact is that none of the connections currently on the market today are passing 5.1 audio! In an ideal world, HDMI has the capability to carry all HD video and digital audio signals including Dolby Digital, DTS, DVD-Audio and SACD via one connector plus full-blown HDTV and HD-DVD signals as well. This is a terrific scenario as is anything that will cut down on cabling clutter is a great thing. The back of my home theater looks like hundreds of strands of spaghetti wires.



Link: Designtechnica