DVI is a mistake
 

I don't want DVI. We've already got a good standard for moving around
digital video from one device to another: IEEE 1394, a.k.a. Firewire,
a.k.a. i.Link.

Firewire is better than DVI. Firewire devices can be daisy-chained,
and a single Firewire cable can provide a two-way link carrying both
video and audio. That means we could finally start to reduce the
rat's nest of cables that it takes to piece together an A/V system,
instead of adding more. It means you can switch signals around
digitally, instead of relying on kludgy switch boxes. Most camcorders
already come with Firewire video outputs, and many computers already
have Firewire ports and can accept video input from them.

So who wants DVI? Who made the decision to push DVI? It's not
something that people are clamoring for, and I think the ones who are
promoting it don't really care about giving us a superior product.
They have a different agenda.

So, my suggestion is. . . Don't buy a HDTV without a Firewire port,
don't buy a tuner or DBS receiver without Firewire ports. Don't
settle for DVI, it's a technological mistake. Nobody asked consumers
about this technology, but we can still vote with our wallets.

For *recording* and exchanging pre-recorded (TV-shows, movies,
home video) TV-content, I agree that 1394 is better-suited. But
for the actual 'display device' (the display endpoint), DVI makes
more sense because it is an uncompressed (bitmap) format.

A DVI-display can benefit from improvements in compression technology
(MPEG-2 - MPEG-4, WM9, H.264, etc.), because the display doesn't
actually do any decoding...it's just a "dumb framebuffer" for the
real decoding device to dump decoded pixels into.

The problem I have with 1394, is that it *assumes* all devices on
the chain (for now and forever) will always use MPEG-2 compression.

Nothing prevents the electronics companies from adopting an
incremental new codec over 1394, but doing so risks a whole lot of
interoperability problems with older (MPEG-2 only) 1394 equipment.

Looking at the industry's record, simply making the older 1394-
equipment *ignore* the newer (MPEG-4/WM9/etc) bitstreams already
challenges them...

A future HD-DVD player, which isn't MPEG-2 video based, will
probably NOT have a 1394-output. It's a lot harder to do real-time
MPEG-2 encoding (@ HD-resolution) than it is to do MPEG-2
decoding at the same resolution. And while people will correctly
point out the rapidly evoloving set-top DVD-recorders/HD-recorders
(which have standard-definition MPEG-2 realtime encoders), their
current cost is almost equivalent to DVD-players (playback only)
of 5 years ago.

Tony Belding wrote:
I don't want DVI. We've already got a good standard for moving around
digital video from one device to another: IEEE 1394, a.k.a. Firewire,
a.k.a. i.Link.

Firewire is better than DVI. Firewire devices can be daisy-chained,
and a single Firewire cable can provide a two-way link carrying both
video and audio. That means we could finally start to reduce the
rat's nest of cables that it takes to piece together an A/V system,
instead of adding more. It means you can switch signals around
digitally, instead of relying on kludgy switch boxes. Most camcorders
already come with Firewire video outputs, and many computers already
have Firewire ports and can accept video input from them.

So who wants DVI? Who made the decision to push DVI? It's not
something that people are clamoring for, and I think the ones who are
promoting it don't really care about giving us a superior product.
They have a different agenda.

So, my suggestion is. . . Don't buy a HDTV without a Firewire port,
don't buy a tuner or DBS receiver without Firewire ports. Don't
settle for DVI, it's a technological mistake. Nobody asked consumers
about this technology, but we can still vote with our wallets.

"Tony Belding" wrote in message
m...
I don't want DVI. We've already got a good standard for moving around
digital video from one device to another: IEEE 1394, a.k.a. Firewire,
a.k.a. i.Link.

Firewire is better than DVI. Firewire devices can be daisy-chained,
and a single Firewire cable can provide a two-way link carrying both
video and audio. That means we could finally start to reduce the
rat's nest of cables that it takes to piece together an A/V system,
instead of adding more. It means you can switch signals around
digitally, instead of relying on kludgy switch boxes. Most camcorders
already come with Firewire video outputs, and many computers already
have Firewire ports and can accept video input from them.

So who wants DVI? Who made the decision to push DVI? It's not
something that people are clamoring for, and I think the ones who are
promoting it don't really care about giving us a superior product.
They have a different agenda.

So, my suggestion is. . . Don't buy a HDTV without a Firewire port,
don't buy a tuner or DBS receiver without Firewire ports. Don't
settle for DVI, it's a technological mistake. Nobody asked consumers
about this technology, but we can still vote with our wallets.

This is in transition. The FCC has mandated that DTV tuner boxes have either
FireWire or DVI at first and then later mandates the inclusion of DVI.
Problem is that it ignores the fact that we also want sound. HDMI is not
mandated but is a derivative of DVI that carries multi-channel digital
audio, including DVD-A and SACD, and signal control data.

So you really want an integrated set with both HDMI and FireWire inputs and
outputs, and external tuners with both HDMI and FireWire inputs and outputs.
This will sort itself out in about 3 years.

Richard.

I do not like DVI either. While it does just make the display into a frame
buffer and the display does not have to have much intelligence, there are
problems.

1. The cables - firewire means very few cables and no switching required.
DVI means a cable for every video source and a cable for every audio input
plus appropriate swithcing. HDMI only cuts the number of cables in half.,
the other problems are still there.

2. Almost every hdtv display unit converts the raw dvi input to something
else because the display units native scan does not match the source. Thus
480p/720p/1080i may be converted to say 1024 X 768 progressive. Only a few
monitors today actually match exactly one of the hdtv standards natively and
even then they can match only one if they are lcd, dlp etc. The conversion
defeats the purpose of dvi since the output is not an exact representation
of the input. DVI was really intended for computer displays where the
display card could easily match the native modes of the display device not
the oppposite. You might as well go back to analog.since you do not gain
much.

3. DVI means each source must have a decoder for its video source which adds
expense. For firewire each different source type mpeg2/4 etc requires a
decoder but the display unit can optimize the conversion to match its native
display and thus give superior results to dvi input. This would require
pluggable modules in the display, but it would probably be cheaper in the
long run, when you consider no switching and no seperate decoder for each
source and less cabling.

Richard R.

Suggest you check out Sound and Vision this month. Wi-Fi is the future of
AV interconnect. The cables will be disappearing alltogether over the next
5 years. Already a fact of life in Japan.


"Tony Belding" wrote in message
m...
I don't want DVI. We've already got a good standard for moving around
digital video from one device to another: IEEE 1394, a.k.a. Firewire,
a.k.a. i.Link.

Firewire is better than DVI. Firewire devices can be daisy-chained,
and a single Firewire cable can provide a two-way link carrying both
video and audio. That means we could finally start to reduce the
rat's nest of cables that it takes to piece together an A/V system,
instead of adding more. It means you can switch signals around
digitally, instead of relying on kludgy switch boxes. Most camcorders
already come with Firewire video outputs, and many computers already
have Firewire ports and can accept video input from them.

So who wants DVI? Who made the decision to push DVI? It's not
something that people are clamoring for, and I think the ones who are
promoting it don't really care about giving us a superior product.
They have a different agenda.

So, my suggestion is. . . Don't buy a HDTV without a Firewire port,
don't buy a tuner or DBS receiver without Firewire ports. Don't
settle for DVI, it's a technological mistake. Nobody asked consumers
about this technology, but we can still vote with our wallets.

Actually there are some av units that use wi-fi in the USA. For instance,
gateway makes an internet connected dvd player. It plays mpeg2 and mp3
files from your pc via wi-fi much like it plays cd and dvds. However, wi-fi
struggles occasionally because of noisy environments at video data rates.
In addition, I am not sure such a system would be allowed for hdtv and
broadcast flag since it would probably be easy to copy off the air wi-fi.
This was in fact the reason for introducing dvi/hdcp in the first place for
hdtv display. They wanted to prevent any possibility of copying say a movie
(protected content) from d-vhs etc.

Richard R.


"Curmudgeon" wrote in message
...
Suggest you check out Sound and Vision this month. Wi-Fi is the future of
AV interconnect. The cables will be disappearing alltogether over the
next
5 years. Already a fact of life in Japan.

Various standards groups are working on securing the wireless link,
improving bit rate, and ensuring quality of service. Many manufacturers are
looking at 802.11a to further reduce interference.


"Richard R" wrote in message
...
Actually there are some av units that use wi-fi in the USA. For instance,
gateway makes an internet connected dvd player. It plays mpeg2 and mp3
files from your pc via wi-fi much like it plays cd and dvds. However,
wi-fi
struggles occasionally because of noisy environments at video data rates.
In addition, I am not sure such a system would be allowed for hdtv and
broadcast flag since it would probably be easy to copy off the air wi-fi.
This was in fact the reason for introducing dvi/hdcp in the first place
for
hdtv display. They wanted to prevent any possibility of copying say a
movie
(protected content) from d-vhs etc.

Richard R.


"Curmudgeon" wrote in message
...
Suggest you check out Sound and Vision this month. Wi-Fi is the future
of
AV interconnect. The cables will be disappearing alltogether over the
next
5 years. Already a fact of life in Japan.

Think of DVI as being the VGA cable that connects your computer to your
display. Your computer is connected to a network, a half-dozen devices, the
internet, etc., yet you still have only one VGA cable.

"Tony Belding" wrote in message
m...

Firewire is better than DVI. Firewire devices can be daisy-chained,
and a single Firewire cable can provide a two-way link carrying both
video and audio. That means we could finally start to reduce the
rat's nest of cables that it takes to piece together an A/V system,
instead of adding more. It means you can switch signals around
digitally, instead of relying on kludgy switch boxes. Most camcorders
already come with Firewire video outputs, and many computers already
have Firewire ports and can accept video input from them.