Get in Sync with the HDMI 1.3 Technological Upgrades

Serious home theater owners are always on the lookout for upgrades and improvements on existing technologies that will enhance their home theater experiences. One such technology anxiously anticipated has been HDMI 1.3. It has been said that HDMI 1.3 is that upgrade that every home theater enthusiast has been waiting for. As with any technological upgrade, there are some key differences over previous versions, and HDMI 1.3 is no exception.

There are several key items regarding HDMI 1.3 that are worthy of mention. The first key item relating to HDMI 1.3 is an update to the consumer electronic channel or the CEC remote control mechanism. The CEC upgrade for HDMI 1.3 includes additional timer and audio commands. The second key upgrade is 1080p (1080 vertical lines progressive scan), which allows for higher resolution and higher refresh rates on the panels. Next, de-color across the interface has been improved. Although an overall technical concept, ‘de-color’ is a very rich format for colors on the screen. Finally, ‘lip sync’ is available in HDMI 1.3 that was not available in previous releases. What lip sync means in terms of the HDMI 1.3 upgrade, if you look at the Blue-Ray disc player, for example, one thing that the consumer wants to make sure of is that the movements of the lips coincide with the words that are heard. When inspecting video processors within relative panels, there is some intense technology and processing chips. It takes time to process color in 16-32 bit or higher. In previous HDMI versions, there have been delays between the audio heard and the video displayed. The receiver can delay its audio based on guidelines sent over to it from the television. As a result, the key item updates have been made available in HDMI 1.3 versus the earlier releases.

Another particular feature of HDMI 1.3 is its backwards compatibility with HDMI 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2. However, components will not always be universally compatible because the feature was recently defined in the newer release. For those components that are backwards compatible, they will function nicely together since most testing labs have worked to make sure that HDCP plays nicely within each component and they are in most cases compatible with one another.

When searching for HDMI 1.3 components and their compatibility with existing components, the consumer is recommended to locate an HD certified or verified endorsement on the products’ packaging. A certified or verified product gives the consumer the confidence that the product will function correctly, provided the directions are carefully followed for the system setup, resulting in reduced product returns and increased customer satisfaction.