CEDIA Standards Update

November 18, 2019

David Meyer

For years, CEDIA has worked with the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) — the organization that puts on CES every year in Vegas — on a joint residential systems standards body called R10, accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). R10 relies on working groups of subject matter expert volunteers, with their efforts currently reviewing or developing several recommended practices. There are three key documents that affect the majority of technology integrators and, as such, should be regarded as important reference tools. They pertain to Audio Design, Video Design, and Verifying HDMI Systems. Let’s take a look at each in turn:

CTA/CEDIA-CEB22 Home Theater Recommended Practice: Audio Design

First developed in 2009, CEB22 was specific to dedicated home theater rooms — and high end at that. In fact, it’s regarded as highly aspirational and applicable to less than 1% of installations, meaning it wasn’t directly applicable to most integrators and/or projects. 

The review currently underway addresses this by proposing four performance levels and changing the focus from specifically home theater to Home Entertainment Spaces. The entry level allows some flexibility and will be quite achievable, while still providing great performance. Then moving through the tiers culminates at the reference audio system with characteristics including controlled noise floor, acoustics, bass management, baffle wall, and tiered seating. Importantly, the recommended practice also adds immersive audio speaker layouts, such as for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. 

CEB22 is well underway, so watch out for its release early in 2020.

CTA/CEDIA-CEB23 Home Theater Recommended Practice: Video Design

CEB23 was first published in 2010, as the video companion to CEB22. It was reviewed in 2012 as CEB23-A, and again in 2017, as CEB23-B. However, a lot has changed in video in just these last two years, including the introduction of wide color gamut, HDR, and 8K, amongst other things. This warrants another important review. CEB23 has also historically been focused on home theater, but as with CEB22, the scope may broaden to cater for the diversity of video installations. 

CTA/CEDIA-CEB28 Verification Methods for HDMI Systems Interoperability

Anyone who works with HDMI will acknowledge the challenge it often presents, and new AV features such as HDR only exacerbate this. In fact, Joel Silver, founder of ISF and chair of the working group developing CEB28, at the start of this project, said to me that, “The greatest challenge with HDR is getting it to turn on!” He was, of course, referring to what can go wrong in the HDMI system, and this is just one of many things.

CEB28 is a new recommended practice that will present verification and troubleshooting methods for ensuring the HDMI system is doing what it’s supposed to do. It will also serve as an informative reference for features and protocols that operate through HDMI, with a supplement for system design considerations, making it an all-round highly valuable document for all integrators. 

The effort is well advanced but still ongoing. We’re targeting late 2019 for comment and early 2020 for formal release. 

It’s not too late to get involved! If you’re a CEDIA or CTA member and interested in contributing to any of these volunteer working groups, I invite you to contact the CEDIA Technology and Standards team at standards@cedia.org. 

David Meyer is CEDIA's Director of Technical Research.