Are low-end FPGAs fast enough to deal with HDMI's data rate?
Most low-end FPGAs don't have integrated phys. You need something like a Xilinx Spartan-6 with at least 6 phys (3 HDMI ins and 3 HDMI outs). Their "Spartan-6 FPGA Broadcast Connectivity Kit" would do the trick, but it lists for US$1,995.
If you were to contract an ASIC designer to code it up and test it, that would probably add at least another $20K. If you're able to do it yourself, you still need the board for $2K.
What this means is that only people with a significant financial interest in cracking HDCP would undertake the task. So, ironically, cracking HDCP is only practical for those with nefarious financial interests in doing so... not practical for those who have typical "fair use" interests at heart.
They (Intel) are not so naive as to believe that building a hardware decrypter from an off-the-shelf FPGA development board with integrated high speed serial phys (HDMI tops out around 5 gig, I think) would not be relatively straightforward for those skilled in the art.
They are simply trying to ease the fears of their Hollywood partners... who are not skilled in the art.
At some point these medical manufacturers need to organize themselves into standards bodies or else the government will do it for them. Perhaps the problem is that the medical equipment manufacturers don't have the same cultural view that their counterparts in the computer industry have (Apple excluded, of course) that standards are beneficial to their business. I'm not exactly sure why this is, perhaps others closer to the medical equipment industry have better insight. But I suspect that it isn't as easy to fix as many of us slashdotters (read computer geeks) dismissively suggest because it is more dependent on culture and politics, not technology.
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I love how they think implementing it in silicon is hard.
No, they are not that naive. They just said that to try to calm down their Hollywood HDCP partners who are presently going apeshit.
Are low-end FPGAs fast enough to deal with HDMI's data rate?
Most low-end FPGAs don't have integrated phys. You need something like a Xilinx Spartan-6 with at least 6 phys (3 HDMI ins and 3 HDMI outs). Their "Spartan-6 FPGA Broadcast Connectivity Kit" would do the trick, but it lists for US$1,995. If you were to contract an ASIC designer to code it up and test it, that would probably add at least another $20K. If you're able to do it yourself, you still need the board for $2K. What this means is that only people with a significant financial interest in cracking HDCP would undertake the task. So, ironically, cracking HDCP is only practical for those with nefarious financial interests in doing so... not practical for those who have typical "fair use" interests at heart.
They (Intel) are not so naive as to believe that building a hardware decrypter from an off-the-shelf FPGA development board with integrated high speed serial phys (HDMI tops out around 5 gig, I think) would not be relatively straightforward for those skilled in the art. They are simply trying to ease the fears of their Hollywood partners... who are not skilled in the art.
At some point these medical manufacturers need to organize themselves into standards bodies or else the government will do it for them. Perhaps the problem is that the medical equipment manufacturers don't have the same cultural view that their counterparts in the computer industry have (Apple excluded, of course) that standards are beneficial to their business. I'm not exactly sure why this is, perhaps others closer to the medical equipment industry have better insight. But I suspect that it isn't as easy to fix as many of us slashdotters (read computer geeks) dismissively suggest because it is more dependent on culture and politics, not technology.