HDMI has always been a shitshow. I spent years of my life playing whack-a-mole for a major set top box manufacturer because of incomplete or braindead implementations. CEC added a whole 'nother layer of shit to go wrong. There is a reason CE mfgs go to "plug fests"(https://www.cta.tech/Events/CTA-861-PlugFest) instead of being able to trust their implementation will work with other devices as long as they follow the rules.
I'm still living this dream today. It's amazing how terrible brand spankin' new "hospitality" (hotel) TVs are when it comes to poor implementations. It is still whack-a-mole and often has to be compensated for on the set-top side because the TV manufacturers are even worse at firmware.
Whoa I had never heard of a plug fest before, the concept seems pretty interesting. Silly of me to assume the mega corps just buy their competitor’s products internally.
Buying each other's products only gives you what's actually made it to market. Plug-fests are full of unreleased stuff. (Buying each other's stuff, to tear it down for competitive analysis, is exceedingly common. But you don't do that at a plugfest.)
