Demystifying HDMI's role in delivering hi-def

[admin]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0617avguyjun17,1,840517.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

A good little primer on HDMI

[Dan]

Need to register to read it?? Is the article worth the bother?

[admin]

Strange, I can read the whole thing without registering ...

Fake edit: just tried the link in FireFox, and I get the login page too. What I did was go to this page:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/

Then then clicked on the link to this story, which then allowed me to view the whole thing in FireFox without registering ...

[Chewy]

The biggest problem is the copy protection technology called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, or HDCP. The fear of piracy, or even the possibility that a consumer might want to copy an HDTV program or a hi-def DVD (Blu-ray or HD DVD) he owns for portable use on an iPod-type device, has messed up HDMI.

more madness, and new standards to take effect later messing it up even more

[Dan]

Strange, I can read the whole thing without registering ...

Fake edit: just tried the link in FireFox, and I get the login page too. What I did was go to this page:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/

Then then clicked on the link to this story, which then allowed me to view the whole thing in FireFox without registering ...

Thanks admin, new link works like a charm.

[admin]

more madness, and new standards to take effect later messing it up even more

Tell me about it. I was writing a guide about high def DVD playback, and the only system I could get it to work on was my notebook, because notebooks are exempt from HDCP (due to the internal graphics path). It's only now that graphics cards have HDCP (all HDMI outputs do have HDCP though, it's DVI that is the problem) - and then there are those cards that support DVI HDCP only through single-link (not dual-link), and some GPUs have HDCP as standard (eg. 8600 GTS), while others leave it up to the card manufacturer to put HDCP in (eg. 8600 GT) ... it's a total mess. I mean are they seriously worried that someone is going to use an unprotected DVI cable to rip the digital data from the HD disc bit-by-bit, and then pirate that? Jeeze ... talk about being paranoid.

There is also the ICT component of HDCP, which has yet to be introduced - it's a flag on the high def disc that when turned on, will limit analogue output (eg. component) to 960x540 - that's just barely better than DVD. So far, studios have said they won't introduce ICT (and it would be a very unpopular decision to do so - considering the Xbox 360's HD DVD drive only has analogue output), but you can see their plan to shoe-horn everyone into the DRM infested HDMI format.

Sometimes all of this is like living in a really bad dream ... what ever happened to just putting a disc in and pressing play?