Plays well with others but still inconsistent

One night a few weeks ago, I wanted to watch the new Sex and the City movie. I still had last years LG HTIB and decided to hook it up to a new Sony BRAVIA LCD HDTV It took less than a minute to plug in the TV and connect the HDMI cable. When I put the disc into the LG, it started to play. Then I heard the TVs familiar power-up sound and turned to see the movie playing on the TV The LG had turned on the Sony BRAVIA and changed it to the correct input. This was HDMI Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) in action, as it worked with components from two different manufacturers. Just last year, HDMI CEC was functionally a proprietary system that only worked with same-brand components. Had the manufacturers finally decided to play well with others?

HDMI is a digital audio and video all-in-one connection/cable. Along with its ability to send tremendous amounts of information for the best high-definition picture and sound, it can also carry information that your devices need to recognize and control one another. With HDMI CEC, you can control multiple devices with a single remote control. To accomplish this, your gear must be connected with HDMI cables, a source component must be connected to the А/V receiver or TV, and the AVR must be connected to the TV.

Last year, a few manufacturers included HDMI CEC on their home theater components, under various proprietary names. It worked relatively well—as long as all of your gear was from the same brand. You would put in a disc or press Play on your remote (one-touch play), and the TV and A/V receiver would turn on and change to the right inputs. Basically, you just needed to put in a movie and then sit down to watch it.

Also, the rest of your system would power down when you turned off your TV But since it was proprietary, all of your components had to be Sony, LG, or Panasonic. Manufacturers have been promising that their new generation of CEC products would be compatible with gear from other brands. My experience here showed me that the time had come.

But was this true for all brands? Did some brands play better with others? Is it so simple that your mom could just put in a disc and watch a movie? I acquired four TVs, Blu-ray Disc players, and A/V receivers and did extensive testing. I tested proprietary systems of the same brand and multiple combinations of cross-brand home theater setups.

The results were promising but not perfect. Therein lies the problem. To be truly simple, control must be reliable and consistent. If you pick up the remote, press the On button, and it doesn’t react, the required troubleshooting will probably cause the average user to give up on the whole idea. Some manufacturers’ systems are more reliable than others. But most have quirks, and there will be some inconsistencies between what you think a component should be able to do and what it can actually control.

Same-Brand Operability

In last year’s tests of same-brand home theater gear (HT, February 2008), most of the components required you to go into a menu to turn on the HDMI control feature. This year’s models come with the feature already turned on, or they discover one another when you connect a component with HDMI CEC. Many of the ones I tried worked right out of the box. Still, it’s best to go into each device’s menu to completely set it up and make sure the HDMI CEC feature is turned on.

I tested each system for one-touch play, auto power-on and -off, and how it determined other available controls. Also, I explored which components’ remotes most reliably controlled the system and which could access more control functions. Could you use one remote, or did you still need three? Finally, could you aim the TV remote at the screen with the other components out of sight (like in a cabinet) and still have the commands pass through to them? Or would you still need to point the remote at the component to control it?

One-touch play worked on all of the single-brand home theater systems I tested, with one caveat. Often the A/V receiver would not turn on until the disc was fully loaded and started to play. On a Blu-ray Disc player, this could take a couple of minutes. Here, patience is a virtue. It’s best not to press buttons or manually turn on the A/V receiver unless it hasn’t turned on after the disc has started playing. If you press buttons, it could interrupt the HDMI CEC as it’s working, albeit slowly.

Most of the systems I tested didn’t offer one-button control that will let you automatically switch to watch TV programming. Pioneer Home Audio’s David Bales recognizes the problem and expects that solutions are on the horizon. According to Bales, “Over the next two years, we can expect to see huge strides in software and firmware compatibility and improvement via HDMI.”

Here are the systems I tested, listed under each manufacturer’s proprietary names for HDMI CEC.

Pioneer KURO Link

TESTED: KURO PDP-6020FD PLASMA HDTV, ELITE SC-OS A/V RECEIVER, BDP-S1FD BLU-RAY DISC PLAYER

Pioneer’s one-touch play worked consistently. It’s best to connect the HDMI from the Blu-ray player to the BD input. Pioneer’s players may take a while to load the disc, and you may also have to wait until the disc actually starts playing for the A/V receiver to turn on.

HDMI CEC and TV programming with a Pioneer A/V receiver is another matter. Here, the TV remote’s power button turns on the TV and the connected A/V receiver. If a DVD or Blu-ray player is not turned on, the A/V receiver defaults to the T V/SAT input.

However, the TV/SAT input does not have a dedicated HDMI connection. When you watch TV, you have to change the А/V receiver to the HDMI input that you’ve assigned to your HD salelli Le or cable box. This means you have to use the TV remote to power on and the А/V receiver remote to change to the right HDMI input. Two button presses and two remotes. Its not bad, but its not simple enough for your average grandmother, either.

A great benefit of KURO Link is that the TV remote can pass commands from the HDMI connection to the Blu-ray player. When you press the HDMI Control button and choose Disc Navigation, the discs pop-up menu will come up. You can also use the TVs remote to change the volume and the А/V input. The Tools button on the Blu-ray player remote brings up other audio and video settings like Angles, Output Resolution, and more. Since the connection can pass through remote commands, you can even hide your player behind cabinet doors.

Samsung Anynet +

TESTED: LN46A750 LCD HDTV, HT-AS720 HTIB, BD-P1500 BLU-RAY DISC PLAYER

When I pressed Play, the BD-P 1500 s remote turned everything on and changed inputs on the TV and A/V receiver. Like Pioneer, the Samsung gear also performed all HDMI CEC functions with the same lag time. It powered on the receiver only after the disc was finished loading and started playing. During this time, the TV may show a No Signal message. Just wait. You need to give it time and restrain yourself from pushing more buttons, or the system may go out of sync.

Like Pioneer, Samsungs TV remote passes through play and pause commands. When you press the Tools button, you can access menus and other controls, or you can make audio and video adjustments.

However, the Samsung Anynet+ home theater setup only offers full control when you play a DVD or Blu-ray Disc. The receiver does not reliably power on and off along with the TV, and the only way to control the receiver’s functions is through its own remote.

Sony BRAVIA Sync

TESTED: BRAVIA KDL-40V4100 LCD HDTV, STR-DG820 A/V RECEIVER, BDP-S350 BLU-RAY PLAYER

Sony’s first generation of HDMI CEC was called BRAVIA Theatre Sync. Now called BRAVIA Sync, it can still speak with BRAVIA Theatre Sync products. BRAVIA Sync can perform some functions out of the box, but you have to set it up correctly to use all of the features. To perform the setup, turn on the connected components and let the TV scan for them. Once these components show up in the HDMI control setup menu, choose Enable. After the system is set up correctly, Sony’s one-touch play is pretty reliable. But you have to go through the setup process again if you turn a component off using its front-panel button instead of the remote, if you disconnect and reconnect a component, or if a component resets and turns off the HDMI control.

As with the other HDMI CEC systems tested here, the BRAVIA Sync onscreen controls only work with the Blu-ray player. For the most part, it’s an automated process to watch a Blu-ray Disc or DVD. Activities like watching TV through a cable or satellite box can be inconsistent and may require some troubleshooting.

Cross-Brand Operability

We often want to choose each component based on its individual features and quality, not based on matching brands. Because I don’t want to limit my choices, I was excited to test out all of the combinations of home theater components. For the most part, they all worked together. No manufacturer guarantees interoperability with other manufacturers’ gear because there are too many variables.

Generally, the components that performed well within their own brand also worked well with other brands. Sony, Samsung, and Pioneer all played well together. When I pressed Play on the Samsung, Sony, or Pioneer Blu-ray player remotes, I got one-touch play; the TVs and A/V receivers turned on and changed inputs as they should. Both the Samsung and the Pioneer TV remotes passed commands through to other brands’ Blu-ray players, and the Tools button brought up onscreen menus that controlled the other brands. What’s more, the Pioneer Blu-ray player sends model information over HDMI so you can identify it in a list of connected devices. This is particularly handy if you have more than one Blu-ray player connected. [And who doesn’t?—Ed.]

Using the Denon AVR-3808CI

As audio and other TV manufacturers add HDMI CEC to their products, cross-brand control will become even more important. In October, Denon issued an update for its AVR-3808CI and AVR- 4308CI A/V receivers. Part of the update included HDMI control.

Basically, the Denon obediently turns on and off along with the TV, and it changes to the disc player’s input when you press One- Touch Play on the player’s remote. Like other manufacturers, Denon’s receiver has no further control over other components. If you bought one of these models prior to September 2008, you’ll have to pay $100 for the upgrade. Check Denon’s Website for details.

Simple for Watching Movies, Confusing for the Rest

This generation of HDMI CEC is close to perfecting the one-touch play feature, which makes it easy to load a disc, press Play, and expect to see your movie onscreen. Even better, you aren’t locked into buying a single brand to get this convenience. Still, you need a degree of confidence to handle the quirky power-on delays and the occasions when the system fails to change inputs. You can’t leave a technologically challenged spouse alone and expect the system to work. But for now, you can enjoy putting in your movie and sitting down to watch it. Manufacturers have promised that we can look forward to more consistency and simplicity in future generations of HDMI CEC. But you’ll probably want to keep your universal remote around for one-button control of your home theater.

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