
DisplayPort works
As the Bootnote noted, DisplayPort is the better standard anyway..
All the HDMI Forum have done is prove once and for all that HDMI is dead.
AMD says it has improved its FOSS display drivers for Linux, though the organization that controls the HDMI standard won't let it release them. As spotted by Linux benchmarking outfit Phoronix, AMD is having problems releasing certain versions of open-source drivers it's developed for its GPUs – because, according to the Ryzen …
I really wish the world would just standardize on DP. It can do basically everything HDMI can do, and more, because HDMI 2.1 is up to roughly DP 1.4 in terms of bandwidth, with DP 2.0 already out. It'll never happen of course, because Sony is a major vendor and is not shy about pushing its own proprietary tech. For every one that "wins" (BD) there's usually two or three that fail (memory siick duo, UMD, etc).
I just hope the HDMI forum doesn't copy the USB group and start making it next to impossible to tell what version something supports.
There are several USB speeds. Up to USB 3.0, they were:
* "USB 1.0" or "Low-Speed": 1.5 Mbps.
* "USB 1.1" or "Full-Speed": 12 Mbps.
* "USB 2.0" or "Hi-Speed": 480 Mbps.
* "USB 3.0" or "SuperSpeed": 5 Gbps.
Note that "USB 3.0" is ambiguous, since all the above comply with the USB 3.0 specification. So shady marketers would advertise computers with "USB 3.0 Hi-Speed" ports, which is technically correct, but you're only getting USB 2.0 speeds. Even shadier marketers would advertise those ports as "USB 3.0", which is again technically correct but misleading.
Similarly with "USB 2.0 Full Speed" ports that were advertised as such, or as "USB 2.0" ports.
I'm not even going to go into the mess that is USB 3.1 and newer speed naming. But, it is much worse.
HDMI 2.1 is not an open standard the HDMI Forum have not made it's specifications public. https://www.phoronix.com/news/HDMI-Closed-Spec-Hurts-Open
But it seems that was not always the case, the quote below suggests earlier HDMI specifications were made public. This feels like a bait and switch, get hardware makers to adopt HDMI by publicly publishing the HDMI specifications. Then when HDMI becomes the default/dominant* connector close future releases of the standard by not making the specifications public.
"With the HDMI specification no longer being public but only to "HDMI Adopters" is complicating the open-source GPU driver support. "
*HDMI seems to have become the default for GPUs, Monitors and TVs.
@Jon 37 "HDMI has become the default for TVs. But DisplayPort is in the lead in the computers market. Most high end graphics cards and monitors support both."
I agree, I got it wrong in my last line about Monitors and GPUs. :)
While high end graphics cards and monitors support both, with graphics cards it's usually 1 x HDMI and 2 or 3 x DisplayPort and with monitors it's the reverse 1 x DisplayPort and 2 x HDMI.
Yes. I suspect that AMD very much wants to be able to write HDMI on the side of the box.
But I also suspect that if e.g. they made a displayport output which just happened to go through a HDMI-style connector and claimed 'compatibility' they'd probably be fine: isn't this what the Raspberry Pi does?
(I am not an expert at video at those sorts of resolutions - and how that applies to the higher resolutions I don't have the faintest idea.)
As TFA points, out, it's more than just a port a cable plugs into. There's HDCP, for example, which attempts to create an encrypted connection across all devices. If just one of them isn't compliant, compliant devices lock out a lot of functionality. The RPi probably isn't many people's primary computer, so the limitations aren't likely a big deal, but try telling a bunch of people who just paid $400US for a new shiny AMD video card and being told they can't watch Netflix at more than 720p with it, or some games may not work, because there's no HDCP support. Just think of the entitled twattery you've seen exhibited by people in other areas and you've got a good rough idea.
It is a success if there is no better solution, HDMI capture does not work, so people have stopped doing it. It is not a success if HDMI capture works, but other methods are faster, so people use them instead. It kind of sounds like the latter is what is happening. Since I have an HDMI capture system, though I don't use it to pirate things, I'm guessing it's not so hard to use that method if you decide you are going to.
Originally I believed in that as well, ripping source to NAS.
Then I wised up.
Why? Why spend the money to buy the Blu-ray or DVD source and then spend again for the [double] storage space inside your home to store a copy? Why spend the time to rip as if you'll re-watch that movie endlessly, when simply grabbing that source disc will probably be conveniently nearby anyway?
OF COURSE this doesn't apply if you wish to replay on your mobile device. Then you MUST rip.
But I don't do that. So the effort ended up redundant and wasteful, popping in the source disc was an overall time saver.
My fat ass has to climb into the loft, find the correct folder (I'm currently populating folder 8 - they hold ~400 discs), then flip through it to find the DVD I want while crouching on the joists and holding a torch. It would be a right royal pain. I also watch films on iPad when I'm away, so they're going to get ripped anyway.
Absolutely this. Discs don't last forever, even under normal circumstances. Digital copies aren't guaranteed to last either, but can be backed up, even offsite if necessary, moved from device to device and so on. And it has already been established in case law* that backing up of one's own private copy is not infringing
*might differ in other jurisdictions!!
"Discs don't last forever, even under normal circumstances"
But... so what? Neither does anything physical. Books, records, paintings, papyrus scrolls... entropy gets everything in the end. When I'm 80, will I really care that the DVD of "Clerks" I bought 40 years before works or not? I have a feeling I will have other things to care about.
I am with you. I have a fairly large (and still growing) collection of CDs and at home I play them on a fairly good audio setup.
But a modern car no longer has a CD player/changer, so I have no option (no, please do not suggest Spotify as a substitute) but to rip my CDs onto a USB drive to listen in the car. I do believe it is perfectly legal in my jurisdiction since I own the CDs in the first place. IANAL though.
The first time I came to use an HDMI cable was in an AV installation (I was working at an AV company installing systems in crumbling old churches, pubs, clubs, schools etc). I was amazed at how crap HDMI cables are compared with VGA cabling. Fragile connections, thick short runs no more than 10m (and even that was somewhat unreliable) and at a resolution and frame rate less than much cheaper, longer VGA cable runs. It took about 15years after ‘HD ready’ (ffs) was announced before I could get a computer monitor at the same resolution as a SXGA over (HDMI compared with my old (and very heavy) CRT monitor.)
I forgot about those issues... Thanks for bringing that up. I now need a beer to bury my earlier HDMI experiences... (I'm not saying DP is better, just my experience has been better and more reliable, and it is less of an egg-laying-wool-milk-pig - thanks to ze Tschermans and Tom Scott's Lateral Thinking podcast)
I have always wondered why the connectors for HDMI are so crap - always wobbly needing careful attention, frequently bending/breaking or falling out. Seems the Forum has found another foot to shoot itself in.
With USB C monitors available for all that TV/fillum streaming/downloads, who is still going to want an unreliable HDMI-only "home entertainment" dinosaur?
With USB C monitors available for all that TV/fillum streaming/downloads, who is still going to want an unreliable HDM
My laptop is only three years old and I connect to monitors and docks via its USB-C sockets. I'm now finding that two of the USB-C sockets are becoming unreliable as the strain placed on the tiny connectors is too great. I'm not rough with my equipment.
I could understand them not wanting open source HDCP 2.3 code, but why are they blocking HDMI 2.1? Especially over 4Kp120 which is not used by any media (i.e. no one is broadcasting or streaming 4Kp120, 4Kp60 is the most you can get from anyone)
For the most part this affects gamers, and they aren't using HDCP. There has to be more to this story, hopefully someone will be able to uncover it.
Open Source is great, but it is Open Standards that enhance the exchange of information.
The moment these pirates refuse to work with an Open Source group (that uses an OSI open source licence) they should lose both their tax-free status (they are often a non-profit) AND they should lose copyright and any intellectual property they rely on. This is pure discrimination.
I understand if an organisation chooses to work with one person/business. I do not accept they work with “anyone, except you” (in this case the Open Source community).
We have seen that “Security by Obscurity” is a dead concept, so no need to keep protocols secret. If you need to encrypt data, encrypt it before it is communicated.
(Thinking out loud) Must submit a patch to the Emperor Penguin that shows a static image upon detecting equipment that supports the offending standard. “Equipment using this version has been disabled due to restrictions by HDMI forum. Please contact HDMI forum or your device manufacturer for details”.
You forget that the HDMI group is made up of a veritable who's who of asshole companies. There's Fox, which is working to bring about Rupert Murdoch's wet dream of replacing democracy with an authoritarian fascist system built on racism and nativism (especially rich given he's an Aussy). Then there's Sony which not only has its own content production arm, is also always keen to try to force its own proprietary tech on people. Sony's entertainment arm, as you may vaguely remember, was responsible for installing rootkits on people's PCs to try to prevent them from ripping CDs.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/10/autorunning_away/
Moving along, you have Disney also on the list. A company founded by an ardent antisemite, if there were a single company I'd say personifies Evil Inc, it's Disney. They're responsible for most of the ridiculous extensions to copyright durations in the US (and probably elsewhere) to make sure things like Mickey Mouse never wind up in the public domain. It's only just within the last month or two that the original "Steamboat Willy" version of Micky Mouse finally entered the public domain. While it's amusing to watch Disney duke it out with DeSantis down in Florida, it's important to remember that Disney isn't the good guy just because they happen to be doing the right thing in this one instance. Probably 99 times out of 100, Disney is giving money to the fascist assholes of the world to further their business interests, and when they're not doing that, they're probably suing a bunch of people for copyright infringement because they made a doodle with Mickey Mouse on it or something.
HDMI has too many features that it doesn't do well at. There's power, Ethernet, audio, return audio, and remote control. You can assemble a home theater system with mid to high range components and be certain that HDMI interoperability is terrible. Now the HDMI forum is adding video to the list of things it can't do well.
Goodbye, HDMI.
[Author here]
> The 5$ random device is quite interesting, but limited to 4k @30Hz, a little bit far from the 120Hz of HDMI 2.1.
Yup. I was not proposing this as a perfect answer, you understand, merely saying that:
DP -> HDMI = easy
HDMI -> DP = hard
All I wanted was to drive an old HP 1080P monitor as a second display on my old Thinkpad T420, which has no HDMI socket. A DP-HDMI convertor was cheaper than buying a DisplayPort cable, and I have other DP cables anyway. Secondly, in future, that convertor could well be useful again.
For retrocomputing stuff, where you're trying to upsample something like 320x256 to 1080P, then a Pi Pico powered framebuffer-scraper-and-resampler is enough.
Fine if you're connecting one display device to one video source.
Troublesome if you want to switch between devices - it's likely you'll be paying considerably more than an HDMI switcher, and have to use a KVM rather than just a switch. The amount of advice online will be somewhat lower than for HDMI.
A pain if you want to run multiple monitors through one cable using DisplayPort MST. The tools for understanding the limitations of each MST hub in the signal path and what is actually happening to the signal appear generally non existent. Not to mention driver support can be distinctly variable.
I do like the fact I have a working setup using USB-C and DisplayPort hubs to drive three monitors off a small number of cables, but a multi port HDMI switch was mostly an awful lot easier to source and set up.
That's a case of the tail having wagged the dog so much. Everything you describe is down to the HDMI camp having pushed it harder thanks to their vested interests, and I'd imagine having done some shenanigans behind the scenes as well. I don't know if HDCP can be done on DisplayPort, but if it can't then vested interests will have actively blocked many activities users might want to do - like just watching the disk they've just paid good money for. If that's the case, then (for example) DVD players aren't going to have DisplayPorts because they couldn't play most disks - hence HDMI becomes the primary options, TVs have to have HDMI in, so users expect HDMI out on everything (including laptops), and so DisplayPort becomes a low volume market (relative to HDMI). And with volume and ubiquity comes competition and economies of scale - hence why HDMI switches cost less than DisplayPort switches* and so on.
* Actually, from memory when I was looking at options a couple of years ago, from the same manufacturers their DisplayPort switches didn't cost much more than their HDMI switches on a like for like basis. But while there seems to be a gazzilion manufacturers of HDMI switches, only the more "premium" manufacturers seem to make DisplayPort ones.
The project https://github.com/mlorenzati/pico-rgb2hdmi aims to make an on-a-budget RGB2HDMI converter which uses a https://github.com/Wren6991/PicoDVI DVI renderer (not hdmi)
I achieved as a test HDMI on https://github.com/mlorenzati/PicoDVI based on Wren6991 work and the RGB2HDMI is by default DVI to avoid any licensing issue, if you plan to use it on your own as HDMI you should be fine if you dont productize it (the HDMI licensing thingy)
Thanks you shared it and best for you all
Marce