The Short Form

$400 (as tested) / ARACCESSORIES.COM

Snapshot

Sets up in minutes and sends video across power lines as promised, but performance varies depending on your home's power

Plus

• Incredibly simple setup • IR repeater system great for remote control • Small enough to mount behind your flat panel

Minus

• Unpredictable results • Doesn't transmit digital audio • Won't transmit interlaced content (480i/1080i) • Adds some noise to image

Key Features

• Transmits high-definition video up to 1080p over existing power lines • Built-in infrared repeater system allows you to remotely control components • Includes 3-foot HDMI cable

Deserved or not, HDMI has gotten a bad rap. The cables can be stratospherically expensive, the signal can be sketchy over about 30-feet and the standard changes every time you turn around. However, if you want 1080p video and the latest lossless audio formats, brother, you've just bought yourself a ticket to HDMI country.

But if you're upgrading to a new 1080p TV and/or a Blu-ray player, enjoying the benefits of HDMI might require a difficult and expensive retrofit to add the cable, especially if you plan on wall mounting your new flat panel. Plus, if your electronics are more than 30-feet from the display, you'd better buy a really good cable to make sure you don't experience fun things like dropouts, sparklies or the dreaded, "No signal."

The consumer electronics industry has been promising us a wireless HDMI solution for a while. At each of the past CES and CEDIA shows, they've tantalized us with the prospect of beaming 1080p signals from one side of our homes to the other. But these systems have yet to materialize, meaning it must require some serious technological juju the industry is still working out.

That's why I was so intrigued when I heard that Acoustic Research was stepping up to the plate and releasing an HDMI transmission system that is available for purchase now. Acoustic Research has taken a "no new wires" approach to this problem with their HDP100 by using HD-PLC (high-definition, power-line communication) to send HD signals over existing electrical wiring within your home. The system supports data rates up to 200 Mbps, full bandwidth 1080p, and requires no more effort than just plugging into the wall. But was the reality as good as the promise?

SETUP

Installing wireless systems generally falls into two categories: stupid simple or insanely difficult. Fortunately, the HDP100 falls squarely into the first category.

The system consists of just two components: a transmitter and a receiver. One 3-foot HDMI cable is included, so you'll need at least one other HDMI cable to complete the installation which involves simply connecting your source (Blu-ray, cable box) to the transmitter via HDMI and plugging the transmitter into a wall power outlet, then connecting the receiver to your display via HDMI and plugging it into a wall outlet. Both components are the same size, and small enough that the receiver should fit behind a standard wall-mounted flat panel. (It wouldn't fit behind the new ultra-thin sets and sub one-inch mounts.)

Because the system uses power-lines to transmit signals, Acoustic Research recommends not using any kind of surge protection or strip outlets on either component as these can filter out necessary signals.

While the system is compatible with resolutions all the way to 1080p, it only handles progressive signals - 480p, 720p, and 1080p. This means no 480i or 1080i, which could prove problematic or produce less than ideal results for some users. It also doesn't pass any forms of digital audio, so the ideal installation would be to run all of your components to your HDMI equipped receiver and then connect the receiver's monitor output to the transmitter.

After completing all of the connections, I had three blue lights across the board on each unit: Power, Link and Data, indicating that all was well. Except, there was no picture, which, to my reviewer's eye, meant something was amiss. A quick unplug and replug solved the problem and the picture from my Blu-ray player appeared. Success!

A slick and thoughtful touch is that the system includes an infrared repeater system that allows you to remotely control your source component. The receiver features an IR receiver, but also comes with a remote "eye" that would be perfect if the receiver were installed in an area where it isn't visibly, say behind your TV. The transmitter has a mini-jack output where the included IR flasher connects and this worked exactly as it should, allowing me to control my Blu-ray player even though it was located out of sight.

PERFORMANCE

Before watching anything through the HDP100, I wanted to establish a reference point for my evaluation, in this case a direct HDMI connection to my Pioneer Elite Plasma. I watched a variety of test patterns and Blu-ray content and took note of specific scenes that could cause problems.

The first thing I noticed after switching over to the HDP100 was a lot of noise and "crawlies" around the text in my Blu-ray player's menu. Where this screen was razor sharp and noise free when directly connected, it was noticeably less so when running through the HDP100 system. Undaunted, I threw in was Pixar's Cars Blu-ray. This film has great color, gobs of detail and is fun to watch so it seemed like a good starting point. Where the animation was smooth and lifelike when directly connected, something didn't look right when running through the HDP100. On horizontal pans, the image got choppy like it was running at 7/8 speed or something. And while the picture never completely dropped out, it had a stuttery look reminiscent of a bad case of motion-blur on an LCD set or like it was dropping a large number of frames.

I pulled Cars and tossed in several test discs to look at patterns that I'd viewed earlier. Sure enough, almost anything that had horizontal pans exhibited this weird motion artifact like film judder on steroids. Fine detail was also destroyed during movement. One test clip showed pages of a book, and the words smeared into an unreadable blob once the camera started moving. Again, having just watched these scenes moments before using the same player, TV and cables, the blame could only point to the HDP100.

I continued playing around with connections and settings and just couldn't get an image that was even watchable. I called Acoustic Research and described what I was seeing, and they deduced that I was having a bandwidth issue created by noise on my power lines. Counter to the written instructions, they recommended plugging the components into a surge protector. Sure enough, that cleared up the images considerably, taking the video quality from totally unwatchable to just irritating.

When I described my rather elaborate system, which includes two fairly significant power conditioners, they felt that these might be back feeding noise to the power lines, and that I should connect the system to an electrical circuit in another room. So, armed with a 100-foot extension cord, I connected the devices to an outlet on the other side of my house. While this didn't completely eliminate the motion artifacts, it greatly reduced them. They were only really noticeable on slow pans, where the image occasionally had a single stutter. The only place where it was noticeably distracting was on scrolling text where it had a herky-jerky motion. In fact, most casual viewers might not have noticed the glitching.

However, the noise in the image wasn't totally eliminated. Again, it didn't detract from viewing and probably wouldn't be apparent to many viewers, but it was there, and most noticeable around text. The edges of objects had halos containing crawlies and other small bits of distortion that was non-existent on the direct connection. There were also some banding issues when solid blocks of colors transitioned to different shades.

BOTTOM LINE

Even with the issues that I experienced, I have to applaud Acoustic Research for bringing the HDP100 to market. HDMI is a moving target that is capable of carrying a staggering amount of data, and trying to send it over power lines is no easy feat.

Based on my experience, this is a difficult system to recommend. You probably don't know how your electrical system is wired and you'll have no idea how the system will react to the power lines in your home until it is installed. And the ultimate solution in my home - using a 100-foot extension cord - is clearly impractical in the real world.

At the end of the day, you're definitely better off running an HDMI cable between your components if that is an option. If not, the HDP100 offers a workable solution, provided you can return it if your results are disappointing. S&V