[geeks] Whee! Lightning strikes, AGAIN!

[Phil Stracchino]

Joshua Boyd wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 11:06:55AM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
>> It's a single cable and connector, sure, but even with 26-gauge
>> conductors the cable is close to a half-inch thick.  And as (I infer)
>> you note, HDMI currently implies HDCP.
> 
> Actually, I think 28 guage is quite common.

Yeah, but for a long cable I consider even 26 marginal.  24 would be
better but I don't have a spare firstborn child.


> Although HDCP is a big issue, it wasn't what I was thinking about.
> Instead I was thinking about the difficulty in doing long HDMI runs,

Yeah, that too.  HDMI cables are absurdly expensive if you want decent
quality.

> as
> well as the connectors that don't lock securely,

True, but honestly, if I have a cable run of something like HDMI and
someone (for example) trips over it, I'd much sooner it just harmlessly
pop out of the socket than damage the socket or the plug, or pull a
piece of equipment down.  No, it doesn't latch, but honestly, for any
realistic purpose I can think of it's secure *enough*.

It's not as though you're going to walk around with a camcorder on the
end of a hundred feet of HDMI.

> and of course the
> licensing issues (which effect even devices that don't support HDCP at
> all) and Silicon Image's near monopoly on the stuff (they own the
> licensing company, they own the validation company, and they are the
> primary supplier of chips).  Dis-satisfaction with the business aspects
> of HDMI was what led to the creation of displayport (although it may be
> too late for display port to kick out HDMI).

Just read up on DisplayPort.  It looks pretty good, and even includes a
standard to run over fiber.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.