I absolutely love the premise of HDMI. I love that a single cable carries all the information between two digital devices. It simplifies life, it simplifies the complexity behind a home entertainment system. However, if there’s one thing that I don’t love – it’s the insufferable, yet necessary, HDCP authorization process that occurs every time a device connects to an HDTV set. This process inevitably results in lag times whenever you switch between HDMI enabled inputs. How many of you suffer from this problem?  I know I do with my Samsung HDTV set. Switch to a new HDMI input and I get the “searching for a signal” message for 4 to 5 seconds. Utterly annoying!

Enter Silicon Image and their InstaPort Technology. With InstaPort Technology in devices such as HDTV sets, A/V receivers, and HDMI switches, HDMI input switching delays will be a thing of the past. A typical HDTV set will initialize the HDCP authorization process only when the input is selected – resulting in that perceivable delay. An HDTV set with InstaPort Technology will perform the HDCP authorization process when the HDTV connects to the device – not when the input is selected. InstaPort allows a digital television set to “perform simultaneous background HDCP authentication with all connected source devices as soon as they are connected to the DTV”.

Folks .. I WANT this technology in my next HDMI switching component – whether it’s in my HDTV set or in my A/V receiver or in a standalone HDMI switch.

To that end, Silicon Image announced that InstaPort technology will be featured in Samsung’s next generation HDTV sets and is also under evaluation at nine of the top ten HDTV manufacturers for next year’s models. Throw this into a next generation A/V receiver and I’m so there!

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Silicon Image, InstaPort Technology