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HDMI-Enabled Graphics Cards Debut
TrackinYeti writes "HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), is the first industry supported digital-only interface, that requires a single cable to connect an output source to an HD-ready device, such as a television or monitor and deliver HD video, plus multi-channel digital audio, like Dolby Digital and DTS. Recently, Asus Computer released versions of their GeForce 7600 and Radeon X1600 cards with HDMI outputs on them, driven by an on-board Sil1930 controller. These are some of the first graphics cards to hit the market that can output HDMI natively with an integrated HDCP cipher engine and support HD-audio as well. Just the thing for that HTPC?"
Wait, I still use a VGA monitor, with a higher dot pitch than most any HD TV ...
I guess this is good for folks who build home theatres out of their computers, but then why do they need a 3D accelerator to show TV or videos?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Great, now I can watch all the legal stuff I have valid licenses for. What about my HD rips I make from my legally owned collection for viewing among any of the tv's in my house and for safe archiving of original content?
Whenever I read 'high definition' these days I think: great, another product that's broken by design.
Someone wake me up when they've passed that part...
I would rather the studios get cracking on some good content rather than having us watch the same, boring, stale content in OMG U CAN SEE THER POREZORS!1!!one! I get more entertainment value out of my free podcasts than out of my television. The content is stuff I actually care about, and while the production value isn't always the greatest it's almost always worth the price of bandwidth. And I can watch or listen to them at work.
And the worst part is that when the studios make good content, it's canceled or sunk very quickly. Most people have probably never heard of Idiocracy, but everyone I've heard who's seen it says it's awesome, but it only ran for one weekend in 8 theaters because some exec got scared because it made fun of all the idiots of the world. And then there's Firefly, and Dr. Who, and Torchwood, which got shown out of order and canceled, butchered unrecognizably to add commercials, and completely ignored respectively.
To put it another way: I don't see any reason I should upgrade to HD just so I can get the MPAA regulating what I watch or be able to see the blades of grass on the field where millionaires in tights jump on each other.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Is this anything but a sales gimmick really? I mean, you can already get cards with DVI and HDCP which means you just need a DVI to HDMI cable to connect it to a TV anyway. So now they hope to sell more of these because people who have bought a HDTV might already know the HDMI name and think they need that? Well, i guess the one benefit i can see is that you can save the audio cable, but personally i don't want the audio to go to the TV anyway.
Why aren't these cards passively cooled? They're a generation old anyways. If they're marketing it for HTPC, then they missed a big selling feature.
I'm the proud owner of a toddler, and try as i might occasionally the little bugger will without doubt get her hands on a shiny disc, perhaps accidentally left in the DVD player overnight and she chewed on the remote i accidentally left on the sofa and nibbled the eject button. anyway, you can be careful but hey, i'm only human right.
Otherwise she might be ill and not feeling up to her usual daily routine of running around the park/garden/trashing-the-house generally so we stick on a bunch of disney/animal films and play them whilst she's chilling out on the sofa and she slyly grabs one whilst i pop the the kitchen to fetch some kiddy medicine.
wouldnt it be nice if i could play backups of my original copies, and not have to worry if that happens.
of course one day i'd like the ubiqutous server-under-the-stairs but in the mean time i'd rather not have to fork out another £20 quid because the only PHYSICAL COPY of the movie who's CONTENTS i purchased the RIGHTS TO WATCH got used as a teething ring.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
Low budget filmmaking is no more expensive in HD than SD.
HD cameras and equipment are available to most filmmakers currently using SD.
HD Digital cinemas are not just exotic rarities.
Lots of material is currently being gathered in HD and dropped down, particularly sport.
An HDMI enabled video card is *exactly* what some have been waiting for. Now we can preview our work on a TV screen, which has a different colour space to computer monitors.
So, in summary, quit yer bitchin' cos you're talking out yer arse
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Yet another step towards "trusted" (treacherous) computing. A small part of the article:
Who should your computer take its orders from? Most people think their computers should obey them, not obey someone else. With a plan they call "trusted computing", large media corporations (including the movie companies and record companies), together with computer companies such as Microsoft and Intel, are planning to make your computer obey them instead of you. (...)
Proprietary software means, fundamentally, that you don't control what it does;(...) It's not surprising that clever businessmen find ways to use their control to put you at a disadvantage.(...) These malicious features are often secret, but even once you know about them it is hard to remove them, since you don't have the source code.
In the past, these were isolated incidents. "Trusted computing" would make it pervasive. "Treacherous computing" is a more appropriate name, because the plan is designed to make sure your computer will systematically disobey you. In fact, it is designed to stop your computer from functioning as a general-purpose computer. Every operation may require explicit permission.
The technical idea underlying treacherous computing is that the computer includes a digital encryption and signature device, and the keys are kept secret from you. Proprietary programs will use this device to control which other programs you can run, which documents or data you can access, and what programs you can pass them to. These programs will continually download new authorization rules through the Internet, and impose those rules automatically on your work. If you don't allow your computer to obtain the new rules periodically from the Internet, some capabilities will automatically cease to function.
Read the rest in the above linked article. It is an interesting reading, even for the ones familiar with it, as we march slowly and steady to the worst case scenario predicted there.
While others have been waiting for a format that wasn't crippled in the first place.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Man, Looks like all the posts so far are gripes! I for one am really excited about this. I've been waiting for a next-gen video card I can use in my HTPC. Not only will the 7600GT based card be able to handle decoding HD video (see articles regarding new Blu-Ray/HD-DVD backup ability) but it will also be able to transmit 8 channels of full quality digital sound. And all this with only one cable to go from my PC to my receiver. Finally, this opens up the possibility of using Vista's new digital room correction capabilities without having to do a digital-to-analog conversion on the PC just to get the processed sound to your receiver. All good things in my book.
I find laziness to be an excellent motivator.
Dear Consumer,
We appreciate you voicing your concerns on this pressing matter and are glad that you choose us for your entertainment purposes. It's people like you that make mass media what it is and we thank you. Unfortunately, many of the shows and movies you listed were not watched by a lot of people so we had to cancel them. The problem is that we need one billion dollars in ad revenue instead of the mere millions that a company would receive by airing quality entertainment and not pandering to ratings. (I mean, who, these days, can afford to run a company on the millions?). You mentioned an interest in the movie and/or television program "Idiocracy," I'm glad to inform you that on the violence channel, one of our best hits "Ow! My Balls" is entering it's 25th season with no end in sight. Perhaps if you enjoyed some of our other quality entertainment, you will find this enticing.
P.S. Don't you dare use other internet media outlets for your entertainment purposes or we will consider you a pirate and sue you for living. And if you don't buy/see our movies we will consider this profit loss due to the aforementioned piracy.
Yours Truly,
The Mass Media Overlords
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
I have been using el-cheapo Geforce 7600 cards with HDMI on them for making HTPC boxes for 5-6 months now. the cheap MSI card is our current favorite.
Why does the article and summary act like they just hit the market?
They really are only useful for HTPC's connected to HD tv sets.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sigh... All the new features, untested. Do the audio passthrough work? Any audio lag? Do this whole HDCP bullshit actually works and let you play your HD-DVD through PC to your HDMI+HDCP TV? Can it scale anything to 1080P properly?
Instead they go through another boring loop of 3D benchmarks. I hate these two-bit hardware sites that only knows how to overclock and run benchmarks.
This card might be great if you never watch Plain Old Cable Television. But who bothers with a HTPC that can't record TV as well?
We're still waiting for CableLabs to stop fellating the movie industry and license someone to make a PCI-based CableCard reader. I mean, I'd subscribe to digital cable service today, if I could tune it and record it on my PVR PC without needing to tape an IR emitter to the front of a set-top tuner.
Their loss, I suppose.
I would much rather have a DVI connectors on my graphics card than HDMI.
HDMI = single data link with HDCP
DVI = single data link with HDCP + dual data link for very hi res screens + Analogue
With the use of DVI to VGA adaptors and DVI to HDMI cables you get the most flexibility.
My Nvidia 7950GT card has DVI and HDCP for quite a while. A $10 cable gives me HDMI output...
If you really care about stopping DRM, then DO NOT BUY THESE CARDS! HDCP is DRM at its worst and will not let you show certain content on non-HDCP enable devices. So, if you really do care about DRM and stopping it, and all, then DO NOT BUY THESE CARDS! Show them that we, the customer, do not want DRM.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
I don't understand why this comment is moderated insightful. If you don't like the DRM thrown on top of HD content and choose not to use any of it because of that, that is your choice, but do you think they will invent a new DRM free standard when this standard has already caught on? It's here to stay and you will have to go out of your way to avoid it in another couple of years. From what I can tell, it's not broken by design since the cable/satellite companies are making plenty of $$ by delivering HD content and leasing HD/DVRs and the television manufactures are also making $$ selling HDTVs. From a business standpoint, what exactly is broken?
Tell that to my PS3, Harman/Kardon AV receiver and Panasonic Viera TV that get along like a house on fire when dealing with HDMI signals. As in, screaming, flashing, and a lot of smoke but not much worth watching. It's not just Westinghouse that has "blinking screen" issues. The audio drops out on my ExpressVu HD box over HDMI.
Both work flawlessly up to 1080i on component and optical digital; well, as far as I can tell, it's only a 720p native TV.
Frankly, I love the idea of a single-connector interconnect between devices. But the day I see copy protection technology that actually permits unencumbered playback while preventing copying I'll... I'll... I'll switch to Windows.
I remember reading up on the requirements for "HD Ready" tags 2 years ago on the eff homepage.
there were so many drm requirements for that trademark cert it made my head spin.
I decided then and there i would never buy anything marked "HD Ready"
I fully expect linux drivers for these cards to be DMCA'd to death, if the hardware based lockdown even allows the development of linux drivers (you probably have to reverse engineer the handshake.. then get hit with the DMCA bat).
then there's the fact that cablcard cant be read in these cards... making them completely useless for real pvr's.
as for the previous poster mentioning HD-DVD and BLU-RAY backup utility, atm it's in its most primitive states. they are still in development(theyre still reverse engineering the final 40% of the process) and far from layman usable. There is still a distinct possibility that, despite having a system worked out to repeatedly and relatively trivially crack AACS, that the number of updatable points will make it impossible for a dvd-decrypter style 1 click app (i see it requiring as much skill as proper use of avisynth for the next 1 to 1.5 years at the latest.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!