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

What WILL it do for you?

[TopSpin]

From the article:

The first question that should pop into your head right now is why we would need HDMI on the PC when it physically does the job of DVI particularly considering how few people actually use DVI instead of analog connections! The answer is, again, copy protection.

Four years ago Cox wrote something in LKML that has stuck in my head since:

So you cant tap the data anywhere.

Think

encrypted music fed to an encrypted audio controller to speakers which
decrypt and add watermarks

encrypted video decrypted and macrovision + watermarked only in buffers
the CPU cant access

audio input that has legally mandated watermark checks and wont record
watermarked data.

That is the dream these people have. They'd also like the OS to scan for
"illicit" material and phone the law if you do, and to have a mandatory
remote shutdown of your box

(and if you read the MS media player license anyone who agrees to it signed
up to that)

Alan

Re:What WILL it do for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

HDMI
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
HDMI
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
HDMI is something that I despise
For it means destruction of fair use rights
For it means tears in thousands of users' eyes
When they try to record a show, but it's called a crime...

"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.

HDMI is too complicated.

[jd]

LaTeX generates DVI files just fine for me. What would I need all this multimedia stuff for?

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

Technical note on 1080P over HDMI

[doormat]

While the HDMI interface has the bandwidth to carry 1080P signals (1080P is considered the best HD video standard), the chipsets used in TVs nowadays are not capable of handling the bitrate 1080P would use. This has been discussed on the AVS Forum, in one thread in particular, in the context of the new 1080P Samsung TVs unveiled at CES 2005.

So it adds a dubious advance in return for...

[samdu]

...a massive drawback. Audio support over the connection in exchange for DRM? No thanks. My TOSlink cables work just fine for digital audio. I can see no compelling reason to switch to a connector that potentially takes rights away from me in exchange for one less cable per component in my home theatre rack. I'm sure the content creators are creaming themselves over it, though.

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...