Can and will HDMI be used in the manner MPEG2 is transmitted on 1394? Technically, if this was done, could HDMI be used to record? If not, why?

HDMI can be thought of as a mere pipe that can send any kind of data (encoded, uncompressed, etc) from device to device. One example is that it sends compressed Dolby & DTS formats along just fine. The ability of using it to record is purely a matter of the content protection assigned to the content itself. I have seen, for example, a PC card that has a HDMI input for performing capture, so it is technically possible for non-protected content. Certainly it would be better to do this with compressed content due to the need to record at a reasonable bitrate to accommodate the storage media.

However, I have seen no indication that HDMI will be used in this manner in any mainstream products in the near future, and it appears that uncompressed video will be the format used for HDMI for a while.

Thanks for the reply, very interesting discussion. So is there currently a way to channel compressed data over HDMI??? It would be great to have a device, especially the coming HD-DVD/Blu-Ray recorders that could take in compressed HD content and record it. Otherwise 1394 will be required.