What is the point of having HDMI?

Question

I mean do u REALLY need it to play blu-ray movies and other hd stuff like that?

Answer 1

There are at least four good reasons for HDMI, depending on your system.

The first is simply better quality -- HDMI, being a digital connection, is going to deliver a better picture than via analog component cables. This is a fact... whether you notice or not is your business, but it will give you a better picture.

Next comes features... many Blu-Ray players can output a 1080p picture, which can technically deliver a better picture to your TV than 1080i. Most HDTVs limit analog to 1080i, many support 1080p over HDMI. Again, you may or may not notice the difference, and on some material it may not matter, but this is another reason for HDMI.

The third big one is the "Content Constraint Token" and a thing called HDCP. HDCP standard for High Definition Content Protection, or some-such, and it's basically a security thing... an HDCP compliant player, when told to, handshakes with the screen it's hooked to. If the screen doesn't answer correctly, the player will downrez its output.

On Blu-Ray (and it was on HD-DVD too), there's a bit the manufacturer can set that causes this behavior... if you don't have an HDMI cable hooked to an HDCP compatible display, you can't see full high defintion. Most Blu-Ray discs don't have this today, but all Blu-Ray players are required to support this.

And finally, cost. Being a digital interface, HDMI is largely "all or nothing"... either you're getting a perfect copy of the video from your Blu-Ray player to the screen, or you're going to see all kinds of junk. Digital transmission lines are not difficult to do well, and so, these days, you can get a fully functional and digitally perfect HDMI cable cheap... under $20 unless you need a really long one. Maybe not at Best Buy or Circuit City (they overcharge for these to increase profits selling HDTVs), but check out monoprice.com or newegg.com.

Meanwhile, it's actually pretty tricky to get a really good analog signal running 6-12ft between the player and the TV. And, being analog, there's a sense you can always do a little better. So that big old component video cable you spend $100 or $150 on might actually give you a slightly better picture than the $50 version.. but that $20 HDMI cable will be better still.

And in particular, in the modern TV world, because of what happens to your picture. Your Blu-Ray player creates, internally, a digital image, which is then either sent (with some extra sync information) over HDMI, or converted to analog (with some inherent loss) over component cables. Then, at your TV, that same signal comes back in. Every HDTV is a digital TV, so if you take in HDMI, that's a direct transfer... if you have component, you're now re-digitizing that video that you just converted to analog a second ago... and so that's two conversions, the chance for jitter in those conversions, loss of precision, etc. All very small, no doubt, but basically, even if the component connection were perfect, it would still be worse than that $20 HDMI cable, because of the double conversion loss.

Answer 2

If you expect digital 1080p image instead of analog 1080i, then yes you NEED HDMI.

Answer 3

It is suppose to give you the best looking picture if you use HDMI. In order of quality it goes yellow video cable, S-video, composite (blue, green, red), then HDMI. If you want to get 1080p I believe you need HDMI. In answer to your question no you dont really need it, but if you want the best looking picture you will need it.

Answer 4

No, you dont need it now, but you will later.

HDMI is digital, works better on cheaper televisions where they saved money on the analog-to-digital electronics, and is a single-cable solution.

HDMI is really a specification which includes some things for the future that analog systems wont support. This includes:

- Uncompressed audio for movies (Dolby Digital is a 6:1 compressed format)

- More colors per pixel which can translate to even better picture quality while staying at the 720 or 1080 resolution.

So you dont ... need ... HDMI, but it's cheaper, easier and better than analog.

Answer 5

You don't really need it, but if you don't use HDMI you will need to use component cables to get HD quality input for your HDTV.