The big names in Electronics, Hitachi, Sony, Philips, Silicon Image, Toshiba, Matsushita Electric Industrial and RCA are the founders of High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI). In 2002 HDMI was developed and since then every TV and PC monitor today is HD compatible.

The intention was to develop an AV connector which would be compatible with DVI. They needed to improve on this as the CEA-891-B video standard was in use for HD Televisions at the time. The goal was a smaller connector, which would advance audio and also the consumer electronics control functions, with the use of one remote control.

HDMI, consists of an audio/video interface, used for sending digital data in its uncompressed form. HDMI is the digital means of transmitting data as an alternative to consumer analog standards like composite video, radio frequency, S-Video, coaxial cable, component video, or VGA.

Digital Audio and Digital Video interfaced by HDMI are connected to compatible digital audio and video devices such as digital Monitors and digital Televisions.

Digital and audio sources that can be connected to a monitor or TV are: DVD players, AVCHD camcorders, Video game consoles ie Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and AV receivers and set top boxes

Any television or personal computer format can be supported by HDMI on a single cable and a standard HD video that has been enhanced. Because up to eight channels of digital audio can be received, the user can operate all of these different devices by means of one remote control. A user could have a TV, computer, stereo amp, a playstation, a DVD machine and a video machine all operating through one hand held remote control. HDMI is compatible with DVI, so there is no loss of picture quality when a HDMI to DVI adapter is in use.

HDMI sends video and audio streams through as uncompressed streams. HDMI is not reliant on the television standards in use by the device, which are ATSC and DVG, who use compressed MPEG video streams. These MPEG compressed streams are decoded and output as uncompressed streams by HDMI.

In 2003 HDMI products started arriving on the market, and since then PC companies and more than 850 Consumer Electronics companies are using the HDMI specification. In Europe labels specify whether Televisions are HD ready.

In 2008 In-Stat estimated that almost 400 million sales of HDMI devices would take place in 2009, when LLC for HDMI proclaimed that all TVs that were digital would come out with at least one input that was HDMI by the end of 2009.

Awards received are: The Technology and Engineering Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television and Arts Sciences. The award went to the development of HDMI by ten companies. The year of the award was 2008.

PC Magazine, in 2008 awarded a Technical Excellence Award in the Home Theater category for an innovation that has changed the world to the CEC portion of the HDMI specification. The development of HDMI also received an award given to 10 companies, the Technology and Engineering Emmy Award. This was given by the National Academy of Television and Arts Sciences.  If you enjoyed reading this posting then take a look at additional articles by Corie Miritiska like hdmi pci card.