HDMI and What it Will Do for You

CrzyP writes "AnandTech has whipped up a short but informative article on the new HDMI digital audio/video connection standard that is said to be the successor of DVI. Take a look at what this new standard is all about and what we can expect from it in the future!"

Comments

"For Me"

[grub]

HDMI and What it Will Do for You

From what I read in the article, it will help the media companies to prevent fair use of the signal. Other than bundling audio, how will really benefit the consumer?

Hooray

[stratjakt]

I'll save you the time of reading TFA:

It's line-compatible DVI with a pair of lines for digital audio, and a slimmer connector.

It can carry 5gbps over copper, more than enough for 1080p video and 8 192khz audio channels.

Legailty and workarounds

[CompSci101]

I read this article this morning and it really pissed me off (especially how rabidly positive the author was about the connector) -- now PC users will have to contend with all the DRM nonsense that the people who bought new HDTVs recently will soon be exposed to.

It brought to mind some questions though:

1. Is this LEGAL? The only broadcast flag implementation that the providers seem to want to want to endorse is HDCP, an Intel product. Now, the FCC can make all sorts of claims that they have not mandated an encryption/authentication standard, but if the only standard television and broadcasting manufacturers will support is HDCP, they've effectively given Intel a license to print money (just think of all the audio/video equipment manufacturers that must now become HDCP licensees or go out of business). If the FCC has gone so far as to mandate that copy protection must exist, they should mandate that interoperability must also exist.
2. Following on the legality question: is this creating a consumer electronics cartel that bars entry to the market and fair competition? A license for HDCP costs $15,000 and 1,000,000 keys costs an additional $5,000. This, of course, is a pittance to what consumer electronics manufacturers can come up with, but say you're an Open Source developer that wants to bring a software player to market (or Linux) that can play HDCP protected streams. You're SOL as this is clearly the same problem as DVD/CSS.
3. I'm sure this has been already asked, but would it be possible to establish a self-funded Open Source community that would become an HDCP licensee on the condition that it would only distribute the software it develops to members (like a small collective that would make the cost of a license small per developer). Naturally, the cost of a license would go down dramatically once more members signed on, but what's to stop Intel from revoking your license once you released the source to the product?

This is as big a problem as, if not bigger than, CSS.

C

Greed hinders greed?

[swb]

In order to do licensed development of HDMI components (on the sending or receiving end), it runs about 30k... for the licensing alone! After that of course you have the joys of per unit costs, which we don't care about so much.

Is Hollywood greed killing Hollywood greed?

Are they actually greedy enough to want to not only license their DRM technology to people who would actually implement it, thus stifling their ability to completely cripple fair use?

Or is this a subtle way that electronics companies accomplish this -- engage Hollywood in DRM technology, settle on standard, quietly charge big bucks to hardware developers knowing full well they won't adopt your does-nothing-other-technology-can't-but-DRM, continue using cheaper/easier/DRM-less technologies, continue selling tons of copy-enabled (at least somewhat) technology to eager consumers?

Or is this just one of those "barrier to entry" fees that keeps HDMI development kits out of the hands of small players and off eBay so that its secrets stay secret longer?

Re:Where is this headed?

[pe1chl]

I have a new LCD TV with HDMI input and HDCP support.
It also comes with schematics (on CD).

I studied the schematics and was astonished by what I found: the HDMI digital input is terminated at a special purpose chip that deserializes and deframes the data, decrypts the HDCP, and converts the R, G and B to ANALOG!

So on the output of this chip there is a normal RGB (plus sync) signal. This is fed to the switching matrix (where it is combined with all other inputs the TV supports) and then this analog RGB signal is again digitized and fed to the scaler that scales it up or down to drive the LCD panel.

This amazes me for two reasons:

1. I would have expected that the digital DVI or HDMI signal would go directly to the scaler without first being converted to analog and then back to digital. What point is there in using a digital input, this way?

2. It provides an accessible and decrypted version of the HDCP-protected stream. Assuming this special-purpose chip is commercially available, it will be trivial to build a HDCP-circumventing box, just like the anti-Macrovision boxes...