Steve Venuti, president of HDMI Licensing said when announcing the new HDMI Cable spec.

Our goal is to address 5 key industry trends

• Networking
o Consolidation of HD video, HD audio and now high speed data with the addition of Ethernet in the HDMI cable.
• Audio Return Channel
o Elimination of a S/PDIF cable by allowing a TV to send audio streams upstream to an A/V receiver for processing and playback over the HDMI cable

• Performance
o 4kx2k and 3D are high performance features to be met by increasing the upper limit of the HDMI link
• HD in your Car
o New connector specification for the auto industry as worlds’ largest auto makers move to digital HD video and audio for 21st century cars with HDMI

• Smaller connector
o New smaller 19-pin connector

The main advantage as we see it is the ability to do a way with the S/PDIF cable to link the HDTV to the home cinema amplifier which will reduce cable clutter. The area where HDMI have failed in defining the HDMI 1.4 spec  our opinion is that the inclusion of Ethernet to interconnect devices has been handled poorly as it is an optional feature and the standard also allows for a high and low data rate with the high rate being a whopping 100MBS – so the low data rate version of HDMI 1.4 is going to be useless.

Mr Venuti should know all new Ethernet networks use Gigabit Ethernet which is 10 times faster and he might want to check out the 10GBASE-T standard which is 100GBS and has a maximum cable length of 90M.

Some people have commented that the new HDMI connector for cars which has a physical latch to hold the HDMI cable in place is something that should have been in the HDMI spec from day one.