Strange things in the land of AV

In the land of HD-TV two things I recently discovered that I thought were worth a mention.

One is that 8 years ago or so, Samsung made a HD CRT TV with a HDMI input.

The other is that you can buy a HDMI to RCA RGB component cable which won't work, ever.

HDMI to RCA RGB Cable on Amazon

The problem is, that HDMI is digital, as in, ones and zeros, but component RGB is a continuously varying analogue signal. The two are fundamentally incompatible without a "Box of Tricks" in-between. This "box" would need to decode HDMI and output it using a Digital to Analogue Converter, one per channel.

Since the cable has no box of tricks then it is unable to do the job. Quite why anyone would make a cable that does not do anything is puzzling but moreover, who is buying them and why have the retailers not been done for Trades Description violations or environmental pollution.

RaspberryPi

An interesting thing is happening.

A UK based Foundation (Charity) has caused quite a stir in the run up to launching their new microcomputer; the Raspberry Pi.

Geeks, Techies and the generally interested have been building up a voracious appetite for what is in essence, probably the most affordable development computing platform made. It is a small device with a lot of capability. For more info go to their website. http://www.raspberrypi.org/

But what I find most interesting is the shear level of interest. It is understandable as the device is amazing and unique; but what is most impressive is this level of interest. It is part viral, part clever use of the press, part genius advertising and part facilitating rumours.

What I am wondering is, if a small startup charity can do this then why can't other businesses. As far as I know, only Apple gets people this worked up.

Essentially, this is it.

This device has gathered the momentum to get a strong development community and will be the most interesting and promising development device of the next few years.

People are already fantasising about planning ideas for its use.

If they'd taken pre-orders I am sure they would be huge numbers. I'd be putting my name down for four.

This should be interesting.