What about HDMI?

So when you talk about the top of the line High Definition TV systems one subject seems to come up again and again. What about HDMI cables?Should I use them?Well this is a hard subject.There are really two answers.If you have a simple system(TV,cable box) then I will say yes. You don't see most of the issues that we have with HDMI when you have a simple system.The cool part about HDMI is that its video and audio all in one cable .Plus you can push 1080p signal through it.The bad part is that there are so many versions of HDMI software that issues of compatibility come up really often.When a system is 3 or more parts I have had a 90% failure rate of the system caused by the software. When I am designing a system for a client I cant take that kind of chance. We recently did three systems in one of my clients house.All three had HDMI failures. So we switched back to component video and coaxial audio.  and the systems all work fine. So we limit our video to 1080 i.Only hard core video guys will see it. And using the coaxial audio is actually better. The chances of your processor getting the best audio mode is way better .Using HDMI limits you to the systems lowest common software version.If the DVD player is lower than the receiver then you use the DVD version. Some DVD players cant be updated. I hope that someday we can use all HDMI or something similar,but I don't see it happening soon.I think you will be totally happy using the other cables.They just work better.