Slashdot Mirror
New HDMI 2.1 Spec Includes Support For Dynamic HDR, 8K Resolution (techhive.com)
The HDMI Licensing Group has unveiled the HDMI 2.1 spec, adding support for dynamic HDR, 8K60, and 4K120. From a report on TechHive: To take full advantage of the new HDMI spec, you'll need a new 48-gigabit-per-second cable. That cable will also work with older HDMI 1.3 (10.2Gbps) and HDMI 2.0a (16Gbps) ports, but those ports don't support the new HDMI 2.1 features. [...] HDMI 2.1 adds support for the new object-oriented audio codecs -- such as Dolby Atmos and DTS X -- which can position audio events from movie soundtracks in 3D space.
1080p Blu-ray was encrypted by HDCP. Intel somehow lost the master key, allowing anyone to decode any past and future content encoded with HDCP 2.1 or earlier. The studios' response was to create an entirely new, not backwards-compatible HDCP 2.2 around the time the HDMI 4k video standard (HDMI 2.0) was released. Unfortunately they did it late, so there was about a 1-year gap when 4k equipment was sold with HDMI 2.0 capability, but not HDCP 2.2. This meant that these 4k TVs and Blu-ray players could not play commercial 4k Blu-rays. If you burned your own 4k movies to Blu-ray they would play, but not the stuff Hollywood released. I spent a lot of time warning people not to buy 4k equipment that first year, and warning them to be careful to check for "HDCP 2.2" in the specs that second year. Hollywood doesn't care if your TV/Blu-ray player doesn't work. They just want their crap protected.
HDCP 2.2 was broken in late 2015. Not sure if it was cracked or someone just made a device using a legit HDCP 2.2 decryption key. But if it was cracked, we're probably going to go through all this again. Hollywood will insist a new not backwards-compatible HDCP 2.3, and it will be used to encode all future Blu-rays starting with 8k releases.
They also enjoy double- or triple-dipping: charging you full price for a license to the same movie in different formats. Same with the record studios, who had no qualms about charging your for the same song on vinyl, tape, and CD. The software industry gets this right - they let you upgrade at a discounted price if you own a previous version. This reflects the reality that you already purchased a license for the previous versions, and thus the new version is only giving you some new functionality instead of entirely new functionality. But Hollywood has self-deluded themselves into thinking that their product is a license when it's convenient for them if it's a license, and a product when it's convenient for them if it's a product. So will charge you full price even if you've already purchased licenses for the movie three times at 360i (VHS), 525i (DVD), and 1080p.
People need to stop putting up with this crap and demand lower-price upgrade licenses for content they've already paid for. IMHO a lot of piracy would disappear if the studios simply adopted pricing which better reflected reality. Most people want to pay content creators for their work, but not if they judge that the content creators are trying to rip them off. The whole fiasco with Windows XP support contracts is a great example. Microsoft pushed support contracts for XP hard and lots of companies signed up. Instead of buying XP, they were buying 3 years of Windows support, which would include XP and an upgrade to the next version of Windows (new versions normally come out about every 3 years). Unfortunately Vista got delayed and wasn't released until 5.5 years after XP - outside the support contract period these companies had paid for. There was hell to pay, with many companies believing Microsoft deliberately delayed Vista so they wouldn't have to fulfil that portion of the contract. Even though Microsoft eventually relented and gave these companies Vista, many of them will never buy a support contract or subscription software from Microsoft again. Because they judge it to be unfairly skewed in favor of the supplier.