HDMI interface challenges for the professional AV installer

A recent technical white paper from Kramer Electronics notes how the High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), ubiquitous on everything from consumer televisions and Blu-ray and DVD players to set-top boxes, game consoles, and digital cameras and camcorders, now has become just as commonplace in the world of professional video production and display equipment.

"At first glance, using HDMI as a professional AV display interface would appear to be ill-advised, as its copy protection overlay was never designed with multi-point video and audio signal distribution in mind," states the brief's executive summary. "Yet, these are different times: the world of consumer electronics drives most of the new product innovation and demand for the pro AV channel, so customers routinely expect to use HDMI-equipped products in commercial installations and applications."

The paper explains how HDMI can create major problems when switched among multiple displays, particularly if the displays have different native pixel resolutions. However, according to Kramer Electronics, several approaches have been engineered to overcome these issues, while preserving the essential characteristics of HDMI (i.e. secure copy protection and automatic display clock detection and optimization) and allowing it to be ported reliably to more than one monitor, TV or projector.

View/Download the white paper.