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AMD Intentionally Added Artificial Limitations To Their HDMI Adapters
An anonymous reader writes "NVIDIA was caught removing features from their Linux driver and days later Linux developers have caught and confirmed AMD imposing artificial limitations on their graphics cards in the DVI-to-HDMI adapters that their driver will support. Over years AMD has quietly been adding an extra EEPROM chip to their DVI-to-HDMI adapters that are bundled with Radeon HD graphics cards. Only when these identified adapters are detected via checks in their Windows and Linux Catalyst driver is HDMI audio enabled. If using a third-party DVI-to-HDMI adapter, HDMI audio support is disabled by the Catalyst driver. Open-source Linux developers have found this to be a self-imposed limitation and that the open-source AMD Linux driver will work fine with any DVI-to-HDMI adapter."
If companies would dedicate only 1/10th of their let's-screw-with-our-customer-resources to actual improvement of their products, *gasp*, I would be so happy.
It's crazy that companies go through all this trouble to protect a revenue stream from something as inexpensive and generic as a DVI to HDMI adapter.
Really, if they want to make a little more money, why not charge an extra dollar for the card itself and be done with it?
DVI/HDMI don't even carry power, so you can't use the "it might fry the device" excuse that Apple uses with their lightning plugs.
Because scumbags.
I'm also struggling to see a reason for this.
The only thing I can think / guess is that some patent, licence and/or DRM limitation was identified by AMD that restricts (in legal terms) audio over DVI, but allows it over HDMI. Again, my best guess at this time.
It was practically designed by the copyright industry so that they can control everything. I mean they have just about ruined the spec preventing it from being useful. Why does it need an encrypted signal? It kind of ticks me off. I recall troubleshooting and actually putting my amp system into the shop TWICE at the manufacturer's suggestion because they didn't recognize (or admit) that the problem I was experiencing was all about HDMI. (And to think all I wanted to do was play a video game through my amp and to the TV... what copyright interest is there in that?!)
So that they can choose when their hardware becomes obsolete.
One of the biggest unspoken threats of Linux is the added longevity hardware picks up. People can use much older hardware because Linux has a much more broad range of support for hardware than any one version of Windows. Why is that? You could argue that supporting device X under all versions of Windows is expensive or some crap like that. But at the end of the day, Linux does this because it's just there... in the kernel source somewhere. But when hardware makers want to push new high-end devices, they sometimes encourage upgrades by disabling features, decreasing performance and all manner of dirty tricks.
If people were wondering why AMD and NVidia have been holding back so hard on their Linux support, I think this is a much more plausible reason than "we outsourced development of the drivers and they patented and/or copyrighted stuff."
this is a normal part of a functional modern consumer capitalism. planned obsolescence, crippled interoperability and limited features are all things corporations adopt in order to drive profit and increase sales yearly. its why your cellphone doesnt have expandable RAM anymore and your game consoles and processors routinely change size, shape, and pin count. The problem is not AMD, its the notion that any economic system constructed on a finite level of resources can questionlessly and consistently achieve percentages of growth regardless of demand. well built, creative and useful products serve no purpose, but are sometimes accidents of fortune in the creation of a product. once its established, each iteration becomes a steady descent into nothing more than a means to achieve what you had, and define yourself based on unrealistic expectations set by advertising and product research teams.
this problem cannot be fixed, because we would have to stop purchasing the product. we cant stop, because the product is the standard by which we esablish our likes and dislikes, as well as our perception of everything from uniqueness to wealth and success. Put your TV on the curb, download a copy of adblock plus, and in six months this entire article will seem the very definition of the hedonistic treadmill.
Good people go to bed earlier.
With the rise of tablets and consoles for gaming, I'm thinking those Linux/Steam installs are starting to look a little more profitable.
Same reason as the newer RealTek sound drivers have disabled/removed the Stereo Mix recording device: DRM.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Stallman, is that you?
I think you're right, and I also think sending audio through DVI is a ugly non-standard proprietary hack, so it's logical it only works with their adapters.
Because DVI isn't supposed to carry audio.
I suspect there's a licensing agreement somewhere saying they must conform to the DVI spec, including its lack of audio support, but if they count the HDMI adapter as a part of the whole system, they're just using a DVI-like connector in the middle of an HDMI system.
Another cause could be avoiding liability. If they send out audio by default and it breaks some other device, they're at fault. If the other device asked for it (by the presence of the special chip), it should be able to handle it just fine.
As yet another possible reason, the audio-over-DVI system could have been designed as a feature, that AMD simply abandoned. Since they've done the work implementing it in their chips and adapters, it costs almost nothing more for them to keep using it, probably even costing less than it would to support separate product lines with and without the capability. However, they may not want to run the extra expense of publishing and supporting yet another standard, when HDMI is already showing wide adoption as the next standard for everything.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Why do you assume that AMD did this voluntarily? Much more likely that this is caused by some idiotic DRM requirement for for HDCP 'protected audio path' or working around some idiotic patent. Likely reason - a DRM requirement to stop people from plugging in devices that strip HDCP.
My guess is because the DVI standard doesn't actually have an audio transport channel, so they only switch it on when a DVI connection that they recognize as a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor is attached. They can only do that when one of their adapters is attached. Otherwise, they see a DVI device so they output a proper DVI signal. It's sticking to the DVI specifications very precisely (perhaps a bit too precisely).
Of course, I don't know enough about the specs to say for sure if that is why, or if there would be a better way (I strongly suspect there is, but am not sure).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
It can't. The complaint is that a non-standard feature is only enabled for known non-standard adapters. The story is flamebait.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
So, just the tip then? Promise?
This is exactly what's happening. Reading the summary, my first thought was that it was incorrect and my second thought was that the writer was clueless. After all, DVI doesn't support audio so how can DVI out provide audio to a DVI - HDMI adapter? The answer is; only by breaking the standard.
So, if you break the DVI standard and send audio out what happens? There are no adverse effects, at all, ever, even when the connection is DVI - DVI? It seems to me that they are simply adding a safety feature to their non-standard implementation. 'If we don;t know for absolute certain that the end point is HDMI, don't send audio out the DVI interface.'
It shouldn't, since it's ridiculously easy to work around.
Don't install the Realtek drivers.
Remember, Microsoft provides the Stereo Mix utility of the audio subsystem, and in order to pass WHQL certification, the drivers have to meet the minimum spec defined by Microsoft. So Realtek may have agreements with whoever-it-is (and it's not Microsoft) to remove the Stereo Mix from their drivers, but the WHQL certification process requires that it be enabled.
So don't install the drivers that have Stereo Mix disabled, and let Windows Update install the WHQL certified ones instead. I have Realtek audio in my system, and the Stereo Mix path works fine. It can take a bit of work to find how to activate it in Windows 7, but it's there, and it works.
If AMD put HDMI ports on their video card, they'd have to pay licensing/royalty fees to HDMI Licensing, LLC. By only putting DVI connectors on their video cards, ATI doesn't have to pay the fee. But for the small percentage of customers who *want* HDMI, they sell the adapter and pay for the licensing costs with that instead. Since they sell far fewer adapters than cards obviously, the overall license fees paid become much less.
Presumably the EEPROM is in there because the HDMI Licensing lawyers aren't complete idiots, and required the card to make sure the adapter is licensed. Tossing a 10-cent 24LC01 or something in there with a magic byte on it probably didn't break the bank.