[HN Gopher] Valve: HDMI Forum Continues to Block HDMI 2.1 for Linux
___________________________________________________________________
Valve: HDMI Forum Continues to Block HDMI 2.1 for Linux
Author : OsrsNeedsf2P
Score : 415 points
Date : 2025-12-10 17:20 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.heise.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.heise.de)
| jrepinc wrote:
| Looks like Valve also needs to start making SteamTV, just a TV
| without any "smart" spyware/adware OS. Until then.. this
| blackfriday I ordered a TV that by miracle even has a DisplayPort
| input (Hisense 65U8Q). Unfortunately still "smart" TV but at
| least it does not have US-based OS but European made VIDAA which
| hopefully provides much less spyware than the US-alternatives, if
| it properly respects the EU GDPR laws. Hopefully Hisense
| starts/inspires a bigger movement towards DisplayPort and this
| HDMI mafia dies as soon as possible.
| jsheard wrote:
| They could also potentially sidestep the issue by designing a
| discrete DisplayPort to HDMI chip into the system, so the HDMI
| 2.1+ implementation is firewalled from the open source stack.
| Maybe next time, if the HDMI Forum still hasn't budged by then.
| mizzack wrote:
| Intel did this with the ARC A750/770
|
| https://community.intel.com/t5/Graphics/HDMI-2-1-UHD-144Hz-A.
| ..
| jsheard wrote:
| Yeah, the chip they used isn't ideal though because it
| converts DP1.4 (32Gbit) to HDMI 2.1 (48Gbit), so the
| bandwidth is bottlenecked on the input side. Ideally you'd
| want a chip which takes DP2.1, which I'm not sure exists
| yet, and the upcoming Steam Machine only supports DP1.4 so
| it wouldn't have helped in that case anyway.
| aydyn wrote:
| Does it really matter that much? Get a $20 roku or google tv
| stick or whatever you're comfortable with and don't connect the
| TV OS.
| kotaKat wrote:
| The TV manufacturers still make it highly annoying to avoid
| their integrated bullshit now. The setting to launch an LG
| WebOS TV into its last input on power-on is buried under
| 'advanced settings' several menus deep.
|
| They would rather launch you into their home hub full of
| preinstalled apps even if it's not online...
|
| ... and the thing came with Microsoft Copilot installed, and
| you couldn't uninstall it, either.
|
| The future!
| amarant wrote:
| The trick is to not buy a "TV".
|
| Get a really big computer monitor/screen, and put it where
| you'd normally put your TV.
| forbiddenlake wrote:
| This trick unfortunately falls down above a certain size,
| especially if you want to game at a good fps, and stay in
| the consumer space (price) rather than the commercial
| display space. That gigabyte 45 inch is too small to use
| above your fireplace and view across the living room.
|
| In my case I compromised on needing 4k, and got an lg 65
| inch with only HDMI.
| intrasight wrote:
| Are projectors the alternative?
| zamadatix wrote:
| Projectors can be an option but the price point to get
| anything comparably good in terms of picture quality puts
| you squarely back in commercial TV pricing.
| pete5x5 wrote:
| I have been doing A/V systems professionally for many
| years and the best system I have found recently is a Sony
| TV with an Apple TV. No sign-in needed for the TV for
| basic setup, can be easily set to come on to a particular
| input, works well with the Apple remote, and functions
| well with no internet with just a little corner pop-up
| saying "no internet" when you first turn it on.
|
| You should update the TV when you first unbox it (ideally
| via ethernet) and then disconnect it. If you don't like
| Apple TV then your streaming box of choice.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Apple + Sony sounds like a pretty nice combo, although
| unsurprisingly, right? It is a combination of premium
| brands. (Of course often premium brands are actually
| garbage in a nice shell, so maybe it is surprisingly not
| surprisingly bad, haha).
| toast0 wrote:
| > You should update the TV when you first unbox it
| (ideally via ethernet) and then disconnect it. If you
| don't like Apple TV then your streaming box of choice.
|
| Can you update via USB? I know my (couple years old now)
| Samsung TVs have firmware downloads available so you
| don't even need to connect the TV to anything.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| Yes. I've owned a couple Android-based Sony TVs in the
| past decade and they both support updating firmware via
| USB thumb. They also support installing/removing packages
| with ADB, just like one would with an Android phone, in
| the case that there's some offline app you want to use on
| it. The newer models also do a neat thing where if you
| have external speakers hooked up, its internal speakers
| can be repurposed for center channel audio which is super
| cool.
|
| I'll echo the Apple TV + Sony TV combo. It's very solid.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > You should update the TV when you first unbox it
| (ideally via ethernet) and then disconnect it.
|
| You also need to wipe the storage cache for the launcher
| app after disconnecting to get rid of the junky ads that
| get downloaded.
| trvz wrote:
| I don't own a TV, but would've bought a LG just because of
| webOS if I finally decided to get one. But if it comes with
| uninstallable Microsoft apps, that changes it.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Yeah. I'm actually really mad at that one. They really
| ruined webOS.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/webos/comments/1o886vc/ms_copilo
| t_c...
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/6/24337033/lg-samsung-
| micros...
| jrepinc wrote:
| Yup LG was one of my contenders, but once I found out
| about this MS junk it was immediately off the list.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what was the attraction around webOS?
| Mindwipe wrote:
| You can literally click to boot into "dumb mode" on all
| modern Google TVs such as Sony once and forget about it.
| ninth_ant wrote:
| My recent-model Samsung TV repeatedly opens a pop-up info
| window about their AI features while my AppleTV is playing
| movies and shows.
|
| So I didn't connect the TV OS and it's still thrown in my
| face. It's not the end of the world to have to find the tv
| remote and dismiss a popup every few days, but I sure would
| welcome competition who doesn't try this sort of nonsense.
| drewg123 wrote:
| Thank you. I was shopping for a TV to use as a display
| device for an Apple TV. I was considering a Samsung, but
| now I no longer am.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I've found you have to stay granular, i.e. to the model
| level rather than the brand level, or you end up with
| basically no consumer focused brand to pick from (or,
| even more likely, a misunderstanding that a given brand
| had no such problems because you didn't casually run
| across an example).
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| Imagine a Steam TV with the Steam Box simply built-in. That
| would be incredibly nice. The worst part of my brand new LG G5
| OLED TV is the software itself. I'd pay a good deal more to
| have Valve responsible for the software running on my TV.
| jrepinc wrote:
| And even better make it as open as Steam Deck/Machine and
| allow to install any GNU/Linux distribution onto it maybe
| even something with KDE Plasma Bigscreen or something similar
| if desired.
| undersuit wrote:
| You can get TVs with a "PC slot" like the Sharp M431-2. Just
| need a Steam Slot.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Is this an actual thing people can buy, or only companies?
| undersuit wrote:
| I see one for sale at B&H Photo Video.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| It might be nice for a little while, but the PC component is
| going to age much more poorly than the display will.
|
| I think the better move would be for Valve to make a really
| nice gamer-oriented dumb TV that's essentially a 50"+
| monitor. Kind of like those BFGDs (Big Format Gaming
| Displays) sans the exorbitant prices. The size of a Steam Box
| is in comparison quite diminutive, so finding a place to put
| it shouldn't be too much of an issue and the ability to swap
| it out for a newer model with the same screen 5+ years down
| the road would be nice.
| vel0city wrote:
| There's actually a quasi-standard of TV-compute unit
| interface made for industrial displays. This could be really
| nice for things like steam cards that could just slot into
| TVs with whatever performance you need.
|
| https://youtu.be/q9a3dCd1SQI
| unethical_ban wrote:
| If Steam could find a good OEM to partner with, I would buy it
| in a heartbeat.
|
| I don't know if any of the monitor manufacturers have an
| incentive to help Steam produce an ad-free, open-spec
| monitor/television.
| cxr wrote:
| Dupe: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46153479>
| tclancy wrote:
| Am I understanding correctly that the underlying issue is asking
| exorbitant prices to see the HDMI Forum's specs? Feels like you
| shouldn't be able to define an industry spec if you want to get
| paid for it, but maybe that would suppress smaller-scale, niche
| development.
| jsheard wrote:
| No, the issue here is that the HDMI 2.1 NDA is so strict that
| releasing an open source implementation is forbidden no matter
| how much you pay them. AMD has access to the specs, they've
| implemented it in hardware and in their closed source Windows
| driver, but they're not allowed to add it to their open source
| Linux driver.
|
| Nvidia does support HDMI 2.1 on Linux since their driver is
| closed source (but that causes its own problems). Maybe AMD
| could compromise by releasing a minimal binary blob which only
| exposes the HDMI 2.1 implementation and nothing else.
| cedws wrote:
| Why on earth is a connector standard secret?
| TheChaplain wrote:
| How else will you charge people from implementing support
| for it?
| pipo234 wrote:
| Well, in video land there is _patent pools_. For example,
| you pay nominal fee to download specs from iso /ice
| 14496-12 to learn the details about BMFF and then pay
| mpeg-la a couple of dollars _per device_ of it uses an
| AVC / h264 decoder.
|
| These are _open standards_ , but mpeg-la tries to recoup
| some of the research costs from "freeloaders".
|
| Open source implementations like ffmpeg are a bit of a
| grey area,here
| littlestymaar wrote:
| That's obviously less bad, but let's not pretend this is
| great either.
| pipo234 wrote:
| Yes, not great indeed. This is why we have av1, ogg, etc.
| with most of the hard research re-done _just_ to sidestep
| those pesky patents.
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| Why not? Its not an open standard. This is the rent-seeking
| behavior you get under for-profit capitalist
| implementations. This is why we push so hard for open
| standards.
| 0l wrote:
| Uh, the HDMI forum is non-profit
| zoeysmithe wrote:
| Profit/non-profit isn't a big difference. Many non-
| profits are essentially businesses in practice (money
| spent/managed, the non-profit just a conduit to the for-
| profit companies that defacto own it), but just don't
| issue stock. A non-profit can act like this, and DOES.
| Non-profits exist in a capitalist context and inherit
| those norms. Again, this is why we aim for open
| standards.
|
| Also a non-profit is just that, its not a charity. A
| charity is an entirely other classification and even
| those are regularly used and abused like this.
| bluGill wrote:
| There is more than stock required to be non-profit. I
| suspect technically a non-profit could issue stock,
| though it is probably not something any would ever try.
|
| Non-profit is a business arrangement where making money
| isn't the goal. There are many different versions of one
| though: many local clubs are a non-profit and they exist
| only for the benefit of their members.
| interstice wrote:
| Then why do they have all this?
| crote wrote:
| That's meaningless, because they delegated licensing to
| HDMI(r) Licensing Administrator, Inc. And even if _they_
| are somehow a nonprofit: you are also not making any
| profit when all the money you retrieve via licensing fees
| is used to pay the royalties of the various patent
| holders.
|
| Nobody cares if the mailing list where they discuss the
| upcoming specs is managed by a non-profit, the broader
| HDMI ecosystem is still a _massive_ money grab.
| clhodapp wrote:
| It's not the connector, it's the communication protocol.
|
| It's super lame though. It will be great to watch the
| downfall of HDMI Forum when their artificial dam against
| DisplayPort in the living room finally breaks.
| MBCook wrote:
| Why would display port ever start taking over in the
| living room?
| bluGill wrote:
| Because the manufactures don't have to pay a license fee
| and so once someone start using it everyone will follow
| and then drop hdmi. However so far nobody has cared
| enough to be first.
| clhodapp wrote:
| It's cheaper to implement than HDMI. So if DisplayPort
| ports are common on displays, devices will start using it
| (cheapo devices first). If DisplayPort ports are common
| on devices, displays won't need HDMI anymore. Plus,
| industry-wide, it's wildly inefficient to have one high-
| bandwidth video connector for monitors and a different
| one for TV's when the technical distinction between those
| is pretty much non-existent and we could scale our
| engineering effort across a much wider set of devices.
|
| So, after a transition period, cost-saving will
| eventually lead to DisplayPort taking over.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > when the technical distinction between those is pretty
| much non-existent
|
| I think CEC support is still spotty and ARC (audio return
| channel) isn't supported at all in DP.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Well, CEC is a huge mess and barely works[1]. You're
| right on ARC and eARC. I'd rather DP had a better version
| of both, but that wouldn't happen.
|
| [1]: If you have a stack that works, I'm happy for you,
| but trust you're just lucky to have a working
| combination.
| Clamchop wrote:
| USB C is at least one reason that will apply constant
| pressure.
| deathanatos wrote:
| Well, _if_ this were a free market, b /c there would be
| demand for it? I want a more standardized protocol so I
| need less cabling and connectors, and I want features
| like 4k that HDMI effectively (see TFA) does not support.
|
| I would vote with my wallet ... _if I could_.
|
| Like, why do we need _two_ connectors, for the same
| thing? DP is clearly technically superior.
|
| Of course, there's a wide range of issues: there's a
| number of comments on this article stating how the HDMI
| forum is manipulating the market (e.g., by suppressing
| competitor connectors on the board, offering lower
| royalties for bugs, suppressing specifications), and then
| there's just getting out-competed by the litany of
| consumers who have no idea and do not care to know what
| they are buying, and marketplaces like Amazon that
| promote mystery-meat wares.
| bee_rider wrote:
| What is the dam against DisplayPort anyway? I never see
| it on TVs for whatever reason.
|
| Actually it's a bit odd, in my mind DisplayPort is highly
| associated with quality. But I don't actually know if it
| is the superior connector or if it just seems that way
| because monitors are usually better than TVs in every
| metric other than size and brightness.
| clhodapp wrote:
| HDMI Forum don't like TV SOC boards that have both kinds
| of ports and discourage them from being made.
|
| Also, HDMI Forum don't like converter boards that support
| every advanced feature at once (Variable Refresh Rate,
| HDR, etc.) and won't license them.
|
| DisplayPort and HDMI kind of leapfrog each other in terms
| of technical superiority, so neither is definitively
| technically superior in the long term.
| xattt wrote:
| Apparently, the Hisense U8QG has DP-over-USB-C support.
| This might be the Trojan horse for DP in the living room.
| fullstop wrote:
| DRM, I believe
| jsheard wrote:
| I don't think so, DisplayPort incorporates the same HDCP
| encryption standard that HDMI uses.
| fullstop wrote:
| edit: the source that I found was incorrect, and this
| statement is false.
|
| DRM is optional with DisplayPort but mandatory with HDMI.
| jsheard wrote:
| Did that change in a more recent version? According to
| the (admittedly old) source linked from the Wikipedia
| article, integrators are allowed to skip HDCP but
| incentivized with reduced royalties if they do support
| it.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20081218170701/http://www.hdm
| i.o...
|
| _> For each end-user Licensed Product, fifteen cents
| (US$0.15) per unit sold.
|
| > If the Adopter reasonably uses the HDMI logo on the
| product and promotional materials, then the rate drops to
| five cents (US$0.05) per unit sold.
|
| > If the Adopter implements HDCP content protection as
| set forth in the HDMI Specification, then the royalty
| rate is further reduced by one cent (US$0.01) per unit
| sold, for a lowest rate of four cents (US$0.04) per unit.
| _
| fullstop wrote:
| You're right, the source that I found was incorrect.
| preisschild wrote:
| Many TV manufacturers are part of the HDMI forum...
|
| https://hdmiforum.org/members/
| jasomill wrote:
| Here's a stupid question: per the site, "any entity
| wishing to make an active and material contribution to
| the development of future HDMI Specifications" can join
| the HDMI Forum for $15,000 p.a., and the Board of
| Directors is elected by majority vote by members.
|
| Is there anything other than the money and desire to do
| so stopping 100 well-heeled Linux users from joining up
| and packing the board with open source-friendly directors
| who would as their first official act grant AMD
| permission to release its driver?
| bombcar wrote:
| You'd want to submarine it because the forum could change
| its rules in "defense".
|
| But yes, it wouldn't be much to do.
| danudey wrote:
| Mass-market compatibility.
|
| It's already difficult to find TVs with four fully-
| compliant HDMI ports; often you'll get a TV with one HDMI
| 2.1 port and three HDMI 2.0 ports, and sometimes the 2.1
| port will also be the only eARC port so you have to
| choose between high framerates/resolutions and using a
| sound bar. In other words, even with just HDMI getting a
| decent set of ports is difficult.
|
| The idea of TV manufacturers _also_ adding DisplayPort
| ports seems ludicrous to me - not because it 's a bad
| idea, but because I can't imagine them going to the
| trouble if there's no tangible demand. At best I could
| see them replacing HDMI ports with DP ports because
| there's limited space on the motherboard, but that would
| still require the board to have both HDMI and DP
| circuitry/chipsets and HDMI/DP certification/testing.
|
| Then you have a TV with, say, two HDMI ports and two DP
| ports - which, for most users, means "two ports" since
| 99% of people don't have any hardware they want to
| connect to their TV that supports DP anyway.
|
| So basically unless we start seeing game consoles,
| AppleTVs, and Rokus supporting DisplayPort we won't see
| TVs supporting DisplayPort, and we won't see any of those
| devices supporting DP because they don't need to - HDMI
| works fine for them and it's sufficiently universal.
|
| Maybe China's new HDMI replacement will take off over
| there and make its way into devices over here, but I'm
| not holding out hope.
| jsheard wrote:
| > It's not the connector, it's the communication protocol
|
| In particular the link training procedures needed to
| reliably push 48 Gbit/s over copper are probably very
| non-trivial, and could be considered "secret sauce".
| mschuster91 wrote:
| That's done by the PHY layer, there's no need to
| implement that in software.
| throawayonthe wrote:
| tbh it'll probably be GPMI, not DisplayPort
| clhodapp wrote:
| GPMI isn't an open standard and it doesn't support HDCP.
| It might end up being very popular in China but it will
| be a hard sell in markets that aren't primarily consuming
| Chinese media.
| 0x457 wrote:
| We also have a secret json schema for Dolby Vision, idk why
| are you surprised. This talk is about protocol, but the
| connector.
| ronsor wrote:
| What if a third-party reverse engineers the specifications
| and releases an open driver, regardless of what the HDMI
| Forum wishes?
| asadm wrote:
| yeah I am curious too. Could I legally just reverse
| engineer that binary and re-implement it?
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The typical "clean room" process would be to have one
| group reverse-engineer the original and document it, then
| have another group of "un-tainted" people implement the
| spec.
|
| This methodology has been shown to be an effective shield
| against copyright infringement, but it does not protect
| you from patent infringement. Presumably the spec is
| patent-encumbered specifically to prevent this type of
| "attack".
|
| You also wouldn't have any rights to use any HDMI-related
| trademarks.
| nradov wrote:
| In general to avoid IP legal problems in the USA you
| can't do all of that yourself. Generally one party has to
| do all of the reverse engineering and write a
| specification based on that. Then another party can take
| that specification and write a "clean room"
| implementation.
|
| https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/how-compaqs-clone-
| comp...
| ctoth wrote:
| I've been thinking about this recently. What if one of
| the parties is an LLM?
| jsheard wrote:
| Who knows, someone will have to get dragged into court to
| set that precedent one way or the other.
| drdaeman wrote:
| I think we're waiting for the courts to deem LLMs able to
| sidestep any copyright and contract laws. If they do,
| artists and writers may be pissed, but engineers are
| gonna be lit (as long as they hate current status quo of
| nothing being interoperable)
| charcircuit wrote:
| Are there examples where a single person doing it gets
| successfully sued? It could just be that those companies
| were extra risk adverse so they came up with monetarily
| inefficient ways to defend themselves.
| Teever wrote:
| Everything old is new again.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS
|
| It worked out pretty okay for DVD Jon but I imagine it
| was a little scary for his dad and brother at the time.
| calgoo wrote:
| Sounds like a good job for all that AI power that is being
| used for BS. I wonder if we could all crowd source a
| driver, 100s of claude and google gemini subscriptions
| working towards breaking the standard and releasing 100s of
| different implementations that does the same.
| therein wrote:
| Yeah right, 100s of Claude and Gemini subscriptions
| towards breaking the standard... That's how things are
| done. Not just one guy with a good reverse engineering
| skillset.
|
| What if you crowd sourced not 100s but 1000s of Claude
| subscriptions. That's where the power is. You just give
| them a task and they just finish it for you. That's how
| things are done now.
|
| Hard problem? Throw 50000s Claude subscriptions and it
| will kneel in front of you. Unstoppable. 50000s Claude
| subscriptions not enough, throw 10000000 subscriptions at
| it and problem solved. That's how it all works, we know
| this is the way to do things. Everybody knows you take a
| problem and throw more Claudes at it and that's it.
|
| For example, we can do anything we want, we just need
| more Claude subscriptions. I couldn't do something the
| other day, the problem is I didn't have enough Claudes.
|
| We just need an order of magnitude more Claude
| subscriptions to figure out cold fusion and unify general
| relativity with quantum interpretation of the world. Can
| you imagine what 10E10 Claude subscriptions would do with
| that problem? Problem stands no chance.
|
| It is so annoying people think this is future, that this
| is analysis. Despicable.
| anthk wrote:
| What would you expect from z'ers growing up under closed
| magical shells doing everything for themselves
| (smartphone and tablet OSes) and later being utterly lost
| with the basics of IT.
| cubefox wrote:
| Great, now my face hurts from laughing.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I think you misread the comment. Each person's AI agent
| breaks the standard once. He was not claiming they would
| work together. And even if he the act of translating and
| understanding large sums of text (binary data) seems
| easier to divide and concor than open ended problems like
| cold fusion or unifying quantum physics and general
| relativity.
| conartist6 wrote:
| Wow, full on delusional about how engineering work
| scales. Can't save everyone from themselves...
| pipo234 wrote:
| I suppose you could do a clean room reimplantation, but I
| doubt you could advertise it as HDMI 2.1 compliant without
| legal repercussions.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| On what basis? Trademark infringement?
| pipo234 wrote:
| Yes, that. I think you're only allowed to claim
| support/compliance if you're certified. And that,
| allegedly, means they run a couple of closed source tests
| and involves paperwork and NDAs.
| pdimitar wrote:
| What would the legal repercussions be against an
| anonymous coder who donated the code to multiple code
| forges? Action against the code forges themselves? I
| mean, not like they would be able to find the guy.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| That's why you advertise it as HDMI 2.1 _compatible_
| instead. I believe there 's precedence that allows that.
| pipo234 wrote:
| Yes, that might work. Strictly, HDMI is a registered
| trademark that might have strings but you could always
| say something like EIA/CEA-861... compatible instead
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| trademark doesn't cover descriptive language. saying it
| is an HDMI port is trademarked. Saying it is compatible
| with HDMI cables and displays is a purely descriptive
| statement.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| it's compliant with Valve Digital Media Interface. The
| fact signalling is same as for 2.1 HDMI is pure accident
| jorvi wrote:
| It most likely would prevent you from playing anything
| HDCP. HDCP is illegal (?) to reverse engineer, and there
| are special versions of HDCP2 specifically for HDMI. You
| need a license and a verified device for HDCP.
|
| That might not matter much for an ordinary PC, but this
| Steam Machine will be competing for the living room with
| the PS5 and Xbox which have Netflix, Disney, HBO, etc;
| Not sure if things like Spotify are HDCP-protected.
|
| It will be interesting to see how Valve works out the
| kinks for that. Honestly in general it'll be interesting,
| because putting those things on Steam Store basically
| turns Steam Store into a general software store instead
| of a game store. And the only cross-platform store at
| that.
|
| With iOS and Android being broken open, you could have
| games be completely cross-licensed. I'd say other
| software too, but sadly with everything going the
| subscription model, you usually already have cross-
| licensing, in the form of an account.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Part of what you're paying for is the right to use the
| trademarked tern HDMI, just like how the USB Consortium
| charges you stupid money to use the USB logo.
|
| The suit over usage of "HDMI" in a reverse engineered
| version would wind up arguing whether or not HDMI is a
| genericised term and the HDMI Forum would lose their
| trademark. They will throw every cent they have into
| preventing such a decision and it'll get ugly
| tadfisher wrote:
| HDMI is patent-encumbered. The original specification has
| lost patent protection, but VRR and the other bits which
| form HDMI 2.1 and 2.2 are still protected as part of the
| Forum's patent pool. You could certainly try and upstream
| an infringing implementation into the kernel, but no one
| would be able to distribute it in their products without
| a license.
| ronsor wrote:
| > no one would be able to distribute it in their products
| without a license.
|
| In some jurisdictions, yes; however, some would probably
| still distribute it anyway, on purpose or not. I doubt
| all of them would get sued either, since lawsuits are
| expensive and difficult.
|
| From my perspective, the objective is to make enforcement
| impractical.
| u8080 wrote:
| I saw chinese hw companies use "HDTV" or "HD" to avoid
| HDMI trademark usage.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I've seen a few devices not advertising HDMI at all. Just
| calling it a generic "Digital Video" output.
| MBCook wrote:
| It wouldn't be HDMI 2.1 because it couldn't be certified.
| And if you claimed it was 2.1 I imagine they would sue you.
|
| Could it actually be made? I kind of wonder that. Like if
| one of the things you have to do is claim to the other
| device that you're 2.1 would that get you in trouble? Or if
| you just advertise all the features and they each work is
| that good enough?
| bluGill wrote:
| generally if something is needed for interoperability the
| courts only accept patents as a way to protected it
| (patents have a limited lifespan). However the law gets
| really complex and you need a lawyer for legal advice.
| baby_souffle wrote:
| I think in this case you still couldn't claim it was
| certified. It would be on users to discover that if they
| plug an HDMI capable screen into that HDMI shaped port on
| your widget device, things just work and video shows up
| as expected
| bluGill wrote:
| Note that if the protocol itself only works if the device
| claims certification you may be able to claim
| certification in the protocol. However you couldn't claim
| certification in marketing or any other context except
| where things wouldn't work if you were not certified.
| tedivm wrote:
| They could just say "we believe we're compliant with HDMI
| 2.1 but are not officially certified". No lies, no claims
| they can't make, and nothing I can see that would
| introduce legal risk to folks unless there's some patent
| encumbered garbage in the spec.
| MBCook wrote:
| Right. I would just advertise the features not the
| version number.
|
| My only concern there is the protocol stuff I mentioned.
| hidroto wrote:
| > Like if one of the things you have to do is claim to
| the other device that you're 2.1 would that get you in
| trouble?
|
| nintendo tried that with the gameboy. games had to have a
| copy of the nintendo logo in them. i dont think it was
| ever tested in court though.
| robhlt wrote:
| Nvidia's kernel driver is open source now [1], they just do
| the important HDMI bits in their closed source GSP firmware.
| Basically they moved the proprietary stuff to firmware and
| open sourced the rest. AMD could do something similar, but it
| would require a hardware change on their side (the GSP was a
| new bit of hardware added in Turing Nvidia GPUs).
|
| 1. https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules
| progbits wrote:
| Can't we just leak the spec?
|
| Anyone can then implement opensource driver based on that and
| distribute it freely, since NDA won't apply to them.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Just because something is accessible publicly doesn't mean
| it's suddenly legal to copy it, same as it isn't OK to go
| into someone's house just because the door was open. Unless
| you're police for some weird reasons.
| teamonkey wrote:
| The problem isn't that people don't know how to do it.
| progbits wrote:
| So what, just the trademark issue for "hdmi 2.1"?
|
| Call it a imdh driver then, nobody cares as long as it
| works.
| foxrider wrote:
| No, for the resulting open drivers to not be legally
| dubious the spec can only be obtained by doing a clean-room
| reverse engineering.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Legally dubious in what sense? Leaking it might break
| trade secret protection, but afaik once it's public, it
| loses that protection, and the only one liable is the
| leaker. As far as I know, software _per se_ is still not
| patentable even in the US since the actual source code is
| abstract mathematics, so it should be fine to publish the
| source (source code is fundamentally a detailed
| _description_ of an algorithm, not a system implementing
| it), and there 's effectively no way to stop an end-user
| from compiling and loading that source themselves. You
| could also distribute it from a more reasonable country
| like e.g. VLC does.
| thway15269037 wrote:
| And what if they just do it anyway? What are they going to
| do, sue them? Make them scrub every git repository on the
| planet?
| bpavuk wrote:
| it will be easy to prove that it is not technically
| possible since Git is decentralized. but fines... oh, those
| fines could be enormous. possibly, AMD could get barred
| from implementing HDMI _at all_ - all HDMI has to do is to
| stop selling the spec to AMD specifically.
| blensor wrote:
| Would someone doing a clean room reverse engineering be
| permissible to then share would they built?
| rf15 wrote:
| Depends on the country; US, probably not. Many european
| countries, probably yes. Asia? Your gov will ask you why
| you would bother them with a stupid and meaningless
| question like that in the first place.
| gavinsyancey wrote:
| And IIRC Intel has handled this by making their cards
| internally use DisplayPort then putting DisplayPort -> HDMI
| converters on the board.
| xvilka wrote:
| Just promote DisplayPort and boycott HDMI.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| That would be easier if both GPU and display manufacturers
| weren't eschewing newer DisplayPort versions for older versions
| with DSC (which is _not_ lossless despite its subjective claims
| of being "visually lossless"), while building in newer HDMI
| versions with greater performance.
| jsheard wrote:
| To be fair, the DisplayPort 2.0/2.1 standardisation process
| was riddled with delays and they ended up landing years after
| HDMI 2.1 did. It stands to reason that hardware manufacturers
| picked up the earlier spec first.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| what resolution is it that you can drive with "newer HDMI
| versions" but you cannot drive with DisplayPort 1.4 w/o DSC?
| The bandwidth difference is not really that much in practice,
| and "newer HDMI versions" also rely on DSC, or worse, chroma
| subsampling (objectively and subjectively worse).
|
| I mean, one has been able to drive 5K, 4K@120Hz, etc. for
| almost over a decade with DP1.4, for the same res you need
| literally the latest version of HDMI (the "non" TDMS one).
| It's no wonder that display screens _have_ to use the latest
| version of HDMI, because otherwise they cannot be driven from
| a single HDMI port at all.
|
| Having monitors that supported its native resolution through
| DP but not HDMI used to be a thing until very recently.
| korhojoa wrote:
| I understand that this is not a common case, but
| 7680x2160@240 (not to mention using hdr and to be fair, DP
| 2.1 also requires DSC then).
|
| You can use this to check:
| https://trychen.com/feature/video-bandwidth
| devmor wrote:
| "Just don't support the majority of consumer displays" isn't
| really an acceptable solution for an organization attempting to
| be a player in the home entertainment industry.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Aren't DP-HDMI adapters good enough for the majority of
| consumers? On my ancient (2017) PC with integrated graphics I
| can't tell a difference between the DP out vs the HDMI out.
| onli wrote:
| The article mentions that the Club3D adapters don't exist
| anymore (=the popular ones), only off-brand alternatives.
| VRR is not officially supported via adapters, a big problem
| for a gaming device.
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| err, that's what Valve is doing?
| eqvinox wrote:
| Well, only for the extremes where you'd need HDMI 2.1. 99%
| of HDMI displays will work without issue...
| devmor wrote:
| From the context I have, this complaint arose via
| development of the new (2025) Steam Machine.
| dathinab wrote:
| the problem only affect a subset of HDMI 2.1 features, not
| HDMI 2.0
|
| but the steam machine isn't really super powerful (fast
| enough for a lot of games, faster then what a lot of steam
| customers have, sure. But still no that fast.)
|
| So most of the HDMI 2.1 features it can't use aren't that
| relevant. Like sure you don't get >60fps@4K but you already
| need a good amount of FSR to get to 60fps@4k.
| bpye wrote:
| Not supporting VRR is a pretty significant issue.
| jasomill wrote:
| Just because the Steam Machine isn't powerful enough to
| support high framerates in modern AAA games doesn't mean it
| can't do so with older or less graphically-intensive games.
|
| VRR and HDR are presumably the biggest issues, because HDMI
| 2.0 should already have enough bandwith to support 8-bit
| 2160p120 with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling, which should work
| fine for most SDR games, and 144 Hz vs 120 Hz is, in my
| experience at least, not noticeably different enough to be
| worth fussing over.
|
| Some people will want to use their Steam Machine as a
| general-purpose desktop, of course, where RGB or 4:2:2 is
| nonnegotiable. Though in this case 120 Hz -- or
| 120,000/1001 Hz, thanks NTSC -- is, again in my experience,
| superior to 144 Hz as it avoids frame pacing issues with
| 30/60 Hz video.
| crapple8430 wrote:
| There are a lot of PC boards where the iGPU only has an HDMI
| 2.1 output, or with a DP1.4. But DP1.4 doesn't support some of
| the resolution/refresh combinations that HDMI 2.1 does.
| Normally this doesn't matter, but it could if you have, for
| example, the Samsung 57 inch dual 4K ultrawide.
| Albatross9237 wrote:
| I think you'd have bigger issues trying to drive that monitor
| with an iGPU
| crapple8430 wrote:
| I don't have one, but I suppose it would be just fine if
| you only use it for running a desktop environment.
| bpye wrote:
| The iGPU on my 9950X is perfectly capable of driving my
| Dell U4025QW 5k2k ultrawide. Yeah it would suck for any
| modern 3D games, but for productivity or light gaming it's
| fine.
|
| It requires I use the DisplayPort out on Linux because I
| can't use HDMI 2.1. Because the motherboard has only 1 each
| of DisplayPort and HDMI this limits my second screen.
| korhojoa wrote:
| It works fine with intel and amd igpu's. They won't run
| many games at the native resolution though. Doesn't really
| matter to me, as the igpu's are in work laptops for me, so
| 60hz or better passes for "adequate".
|
| Even a raspberry pi 4 or newer has dual 4k outputs, that
| can fill the entire screen at native resolution. Macs have
| been the worst to use with it so far.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I frequently see comments that say the TV companies are the
| ones getting the royalties, so I looked it up.
|
| According to Gemini, the royalties go to the _original_ HDMI
| founders. That includes Sony, Panasonic, Philips, and Toshiba.
| It does not include Samsung, or LG.
| shmerl wrote:
| So why can't Samsung and LG do more do improve this mess and
| put USB 4 / DisplayPort in all their TVs?
| barbazoo wrote:
| Because the number of people that care about this is so low
| that it doesn't affect their sales.
| d3Xt3r wrote:
| There's no financial incentive. No other mass consumer
| device besides PCs use DisplayPort, heck, even PCs
| generally have an HDMI port. So the percentage of TV buyers
| who actually _need_ to use DisplayPort (basically Linux
| users) would be a very very very small minority.
| lpcvoid wrote:
| Is there a non-LLM source for that?
| lobf wrote:
| We're really just relying on LLMs to tell us things with no
| verification now?
| Etheryte wrote:
| Please don't post random LLM slop on HN, there's more than
| enough of it on the internet as is. The value of HN is the
| human discussion. Everyone here is capable of using an LLM if
| they so desire.
| oompydoompy74 wrote:
| I've been looking for a DisplayPort to HDMI cable to get around
| this on our household couch gaming computer. I have been unable
| to find one sketchy or otherwise that can handle high refresh
| rate and 4:4:4 color.
| bsimpson wrote:
| FWIW, most USB docks are effectively this. DP goes in via USB-C
| and HDMI comes out the other end.
|
| I bought one from UGREEN on Amazon. I think it's called the 9
| in 1. It does 4k@60 with HDR, coming out of SteamOS.
| oompydoompy74 wrote:
| I've never thought about trying a dock. Thanks!
| usrusr wrote:
| But are there any that don't overheat when you try to funnel
| dual screens through the USB-C/TB4?
|
| The only setup I have that doesn't is a super minimal one
| that has a single DP out that feeds a daisy-chain (and a
| single USB out that feeds a simple hub for low bandwidth
| peripherals, and a PD in). Unfortunately, most of the screen
| pairs that I run don't do daisy-chain.
|
| Every other hub I tried eventually got me to give up and
| connect one of the screens through direct HDMI.
| d3Xt3r wrote:
| But does it support VRR?
| eqvinox wrote:
| https://www.club-3d.com/shop/cac-1088-1223
| (https://geizhals.eu/club-3d-aktiver-adapter-
| cac-1088-a331004...)
|
| https://www.club-3d.com/shop/cac-1087-1128 (3m cable version)
|
| DP 1.4 - HDMI 2.1. Apparently they're no longer being
| manufactured (?? - not sure that's correct), so get one while
| it's still possible...
|
| [Ed.: accidentally linked another adapter that is the other
| direction. Added 3m & direct manufacturer links.]
| oompydoompy74 wrote:
| Ty for the links! I'll look into this.
| BonoboIO wrote:
| What a road down the memory lane... Club 3D GPUs in the early
| 2000s
| mizzack wrote:
| VMM7100 based devices like the Cable Matters 102101 work. Also
| allegedly CH7218 based adapters.
| https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/4773
| klipklop wrote:
| Going to be watching this ticket for sure.
| cubefox wrote:
| According to the article, these adapters generally don't
| support VRR.
| klipklop wrote:
| Why does everybody seem to overlook this?
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I think the article is honestly a little outdated on this
| point. The last couple of years the adapter market has caught
| up pretty well.
|
| The UGREEN 8K@60Hz Display Port to HDMI Adapter I have
| sitting here supports g-sync (and claims support for
| freesync).
| cubefox wrote:
| I mean the article is two days old, so perhaps not _that_
| outdated. There also seems to be a difference between
| G-sync, Freesync, and HDMI VRR.
| Anonyneko wrote:
| I usually go for Cable Matters cables, they tend to be of a
| decent quality and follow the specs well. UGREEN is supposedly
| a reliable option too, though I cannot personally vouch as I
| haven't used their cables in particular.
| TechSquidTV wrote:
| No one wants HDMI. No one.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Other than the TV, although its opinion carries a lot of weight
| in this discussion unfortunately.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| I think that's more forced to by inertia, and the HDMI push
| for mandatory DRM
| ethin wrote:
| We really need to just force all standards organizations to
| release their standards for free. No making you pay $300 or
| whatever for a standard. (The PCI SIG makes you pay like $5000
| for access to the PCIe standard...)
| mahkoh wrote:
| VESA makes you pay $5000 to get legal access to the DisplayPort
| standard. That is not the issue here.
| ethin wrote:
| It is part of the issue here. This specific post is about the
| HDMI forum having an insanely restrictive NDA, but the
| broader problem of SDOs charging obscene amounts of money for
| what amounts to trivially reproduceable digital documents (or
| taking other measures to do everything they can to seal the
| standards from the public unless your willing to pay the
| obscene fees or <insert other absurd measure here>) is
| relevant to this post, and this comment, since the HDMI forum
| is doing exactly this kind of gatekeeping; it only differs in
| form, but not function.
| jrepinc wrote:
| Yeah HDMI Forum shameful behavior in a way reminds me of
| those evil greedy scientific publishing houses. Standards
| and science should be open and free as in freedom to access
| AND implement and not gated behind some obscene monetary or
| other forms of restrictions, like patents. In this day and
| age these restrictions have no place and should be
| abolished.
| TheAmazingRace wrote:
| Indeed. I'm pretty sure the issue is that the HDMI Consortium
| wants some kind of royalty for each device sold with a proper
| HDMI designation, whereas VESA doesn't care if you sell one
| device or a million devices with DisplayPort. You owe them
| nothing extra beyond the initial legal access fee.
|
| Oh yeah, and the burdensome NDA that the HDMI Consortium
| requires its partners to agree to is another serious problem
| for the Linux driver.
| williamDafoe wrote:
| Then you wouldn't have 3G cellular. Or 4G. Or 5G cellular. It
| costs tens of millions of dollars to drive around san diego in
| those vans taking traces of a new cellular system design and
| discovering improvements so that the standard works everywhere
| else on earth (San Diego is a worst case that's comparable to
| Hong Kong.). We wouldn't have CDMA cellular. Or LTE cellular.
| Recall that CDMA cellular was 3x more efficient in
| bits/second/Hz than 2G/GSM, so that cell phone providers could
| literally give you a free phone or PAY YOU to throw away your
| phone and they would still come out ahead, financially.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > Then you wouldn't have 3G cellular.
|
| What does a specification being paywalled vs open have to do
| 3G cellular existing or not?
| jeffjeffbear wrote:
| I don't think the fee to get access to the standard is
| generating much income for anyone. Most of what your talking
| about seems to be money made from licensing of the
| technology, right?
| adrian_b wrote:
| Your claim is weird.
|
| No standard has ever been developed using money obtained by
| selling copies of the standard.
|
| The kind of work described by you, which is indeed needed for
| developing a new communication standard cannot be made
| profitable by selling copies of a text describing its
| results.
|
| If such work provides valuable techniques that are necessary
| for the implementation of the standard, they are patented and
| those who want to implement the standard for commercial
| purposes must license the patents.
|
| Any owner of a device that implements a standard has the
| right to know what the standard does, so all standards should
| be distributed if not for free only for a small price
| covering the distribution expenses and not for the prices
| with many digits that are in use now.
|
| The big prices that are requested for certain standards have
| a single purpose, to protect the incumbent companies from new
| competitors, or sometimes to prevent the owners of some
| devices to do whatever they want with what they own.
|
| The very high prices that are demanded for many standards
| nowadays are a recent phenomenon, of the same kind with the
| fact that nowadays most sellers of electronic devices no
| longer provide schematics and maintenance manuals for them as
| it was the rule until a few decades ago, in order to force
| the owners to either never repair their devices or to repair
| them at a few authorized repair shops, which do not have
| competitors. These kinds of harmful behavior of the
| corporations have been made possible by the lack of adequate
| legislation for consumer protection, as the legislators in
| most countries are much less interested in making laws for
| the benefit of their voters than they are interested in
| things like facilitating the surveillance of the voters by
| the government, to prevent any opposition against unpopular
| measures.
|
| In the more distant past, there was no way to download
| standards over the Internet for a negligible cost, but you
| could still avoid to pay for a printed standard by consulting
| it in a public library and making a copy. There were no
| secret standards that you could not access without paying a
| yearly subscription of thousands of $, like today.
| semessier wrote:
| > No standard has ever been developed using money obtained
| by selling copies of the standard.
|
| unfortunately there are examples in the Telecom world
| JAlexoid wrote:
| Most of the development costs are recouped through
| licenses on the base-stations and somewhat on the very
| low patent licenses per chip/device, not the price of
| access to the standard.
|
| Back to the the HDMI standard, the licensing fee has
| already been paid by the hardware manufacturer.
| Restricting software is unnecessary, as the patent
| license fees have already been collected on the device.
| troupo wrote:
| It also becomes an issue when governmental/public standards
| start referencing these.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| That sounds wonderful. A world without widespread high
| bandwidth wireless connectivity would be a better world.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Then you wouldn't have 3G cellular. Or 4G. Or 5G cellular.
|
| I don't get it. Why would making a standard freely accessible
| impede its adoption?
| ethin wrote:
| Yeah, I'm curious about this too. I would think that making
| a standard freely available (and at most doing what NVMe
| does where you pay membership dues) would make the standard
| be adopted far more universally than putting up weird
| barriers to even access the standard.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| He's claiming they wouldn't be developed because why
| develop a standard you can't cash in on.
| all2 wrote:
| The people developing standards are in the business of
| developing standards. It makes sense to want to make
| money on the thing you work on.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| In the telecom world, that would be a pretty terrible
| business model, as the list of entities who would need a
| copy of the standard is relatively short.
| pennomi wrote:
| Which is silly, specifically for telecoms, because get
| don't make their money on the _standard_ , they make it
| on providing the _service_.
| crest wrote:
| This fails even at the FRAND level because you're not "allowed"
| to implement it in open source software.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > _At this time an open source HDMI 2.1 implementation is not
| possible without running afoul of the HDMI Forum
| requirements._
|
| I wonder on what basis. Perhaps an obligation to ensure the
| software resists reverse-engineering?
| all2 wrote:
| These are standard business practices. They own IP. People want
| to use that IP. They say "pay us X to use our IP". People throw
| a tantrum because money. Instead, people want to capitalize on
| someone else's hard work for free.
|
| I understand the ideas behind open source, and I think they are
| excellent. But I also understand that people and the businesses
| they operate want to make money.
| softfalcon wrote:
| When I'm in these situations, I try and put myself into the
| IP holder's shoes.
|
| "if I spent the time, risk, effort, and money to develop the
| pre-eminent protocol and hardware used by most TV's in the
| world... would I want to give that work away for free?"
|
| I think the answer is probably no for most people.
|
| Because most of us are not the IP holder, they think this
| technology should just be free (as you stated earlier).
|
| This lack of empathy and care for others (even IP holders) is
| largely why these draconian IP rules and contracts exist.
| It's why there are whole crazy NDAs around the HDMI spec.
| It's because every time someone is given even a slight look
| under the covers, they try and steal it, because it's worth a
| lot of money.
|
| This is a nuanced variant of "this is why we can't have nice
| things" all over again.
| archagon wrote:
| The idea that you can "steal" knowledge and ideas is
| farcical. One reason why China is so good at iterating
| rapidly on technology is that this notion of intellectual
| "property" doesn't really exist there. Any cool new
| invention is immediately iterated on by a hundred different
| makers.
|
| And the reason to release a standard is to make your own
| products _better_. TVs would be awful if every manufacturer
| brought their own proprietary video connector to the table,
| and those manufacturers who grouped together to create a
| standard would accordingly dominate the market.
| reactordev wrote:
| It's the same entitlement that determined one could just
| download all the content available online to train your
| models against.
| archagon wrote:
| Weird to call it entitlement when the natural state of
| information is to be free. What's entitled is asking the
| government to enforce arbitrary restrictions on other
| people making use of some information that you somehow
| intangibly "own."
|
| (Of course, it's fucked up that corporations can siphon
| up all this content and then try to twist the law to
| carve out an exception for their extra special use case.
| Information still isn't free unless you're an AI company,
| I guess.)
| shkkmo wrote:
| The HDMI Forum isn't "most people", it's a non-profit run
| by some of the largest companies in the space that self
| describes this way.[1]
|
| I think it is reasonable to complain when "someone" is
| being so hypocritical and arguably engaging in anti-
| competitive practices. How do the crazy NDAs in any way
| server the self stated mission of the forum?
|
| > [1] https://hdmiforum.org/about/
|
| Chartered as a nonprofit, mutual benefit corporation, the
| mission of the HDMI Forum is to: Create
| and develop new versions of the HDMI Specification and the
| Compliance Test Specification, incorporating new and
| improved functionality Encourage and promote the
| adoption and widespread use of its Specifications worldwide
| Support an ecosystem of fully interoperable HDMI-enabled
| products Provide an open and non-discriminatory
| licensing program with respect to its Specifications
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > They own IP. People want to use that IP. They say "pay us X
| to use our IP".
|
| The general premise of patents and copyrights is that you're
| going to do some development work and then you get an
| exclusive right that yields a competitive advantage.
|
| Standards are different. The purpose of the standard is that
| Alice wants her output device to be compatible with everyone
| else's input device and Bob wants his input device to be
| compatible with everyone else's output device.
|
| There is no competitive advantage to be had because the
| entire premise is that everyone possible is going to
| implement it to maximize the network effect. And the entire
| industry has the incentive to want the standard to be good
| and put whatever good ideas they have into it because they're
| all stuck with it if it isn't. Meanwhile _because_ of the
| network effect, everyone has to implement the standard
| because if they come up with their own thing -- even if it 's
| better -- it wouldn't be _compatible_.
|
| So all of the normal incentives from copyrights and patents
| are wrong. You can't gain a competitive advantage from it,
| companies have a preexisting incentive to make it good even
| without an exclusive right, and someone who doesn't want to
| pay doesn't have the option to try to do better on their own
| because of the network effect. And the network effect makes
| it an antitrust concern.
|
| The result is that NDAs and royalties on standards are just a
| shakedown and the law shouldn't allow them.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Is the a USB-C/Thunderbolt to HDMI 2.1 dongle? Send Displayport
| and audio over USB-C and then let that hardware handle the HDMI
| handshaking.
| klipklop wrote:
| There isn't one that supports VRR/Gsync/Freesync well. What
| gamers want is chroma/RGB 4:4:4 + HDR + VRR/Freesync + 4k,120hz
| for their Linux PC on a TV. This is not possible with any DP
| --> HDMI 2.1 dongle on the market. They need support at the
| driver level to make this work. This is what the idiots at the
| HDMI forum are blocking. The only way to have high quality
| visuals on a PC/TV setup is to run Windows. That really sucks.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| This is terrible.
|
| Aren't there on the market big "pc monitors" instead of tvs?
| raggi wrote:
| Not with good measured performance no. There are some which
| advertise good numbers (such as high refresh rates) but are
| unable to drive the panels to visibly change pixels at
| anywhere near the refresh rate.
| modeless wrote:
| This is fundamentally about DRM, isn't it? There is a working
| open source implementation already, but the HDMI cartel won't
| allow an open source implementation to have the encryption keys
| required to interface with the DRM in existing devices?
| jsheard wrote:
| Source devices aren't required to output a DRM'ed signal
| though, are they? I think the DRM is only required on the
| receiver side. In that case a compliant source wouldn't need
| any keys, and besides, that wasn't a blocker for the previous
| HDMI versions which supported DRM too.
| modeless wrote:
| IIUC they're required to do a handshake involving encryption.
| Which is a form of DRM to enforce centralized control over
| the device ecosystem even if the subsequent video signals are
| not encrypted.
| klipklop wrote:
| It's about time somebody does some reverse engineering and just
| uploads the needed stuff online to make HDMI 2.1 work in Linux.
| It's getting absurd at this point. TV's need to start including
| Displayport, HDMI is a giant pain in the ass for gamers.
| sounds wrote:
| I'm switching to DisplayPort
| TheAmazingRace wrote:
| Not to mention, DisplayPort is the superior standard over HDMI
| in both technological terms as well as it being royalty free.
| metadat wrote:
| As long as you are okay with a 1-3m long cable.
|
| Unfortunately, for longer runs, DisplayPort is kind of a
| nightmare. HDMI tends to "just work" as long as you use fiber
| optic construction.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| nothing stops cable makers from making the same for DP
| brirec wrote:
| In fact I've used a 100 foot fiber optic DisplayPort
| cable that I "just bought" on Amazon, admittedly for a
| LOT of money (like, I think it was about $100 USD, 3
| years ago or so).
| metadat wrote:
| That's not actually such a bad price. I didn't know they
| even made these - cool!
| jorvi wrote:
| Yes and no. HDMI CEC works pretty decent these days, all the
| kinks have been worked out over the years and the only time
| it bugs out is if you use Chinese brands (looking at you,
| TCL) that write horrid firmware and never fix any bugs found
| after release.
|
| Displayport has DDC/CI, which allows you to adjust things
| like brightness, volume, etc. remotely. This has existed
| since the DVI era (!) which means Displayport had a huge
| headstart. But they never formalized and enforced the DDC/CI
| spec, which means every monitor has extremely weird quirks.
| Some will allow you to send and read data. Some will only
| allow you to send data and crash when you try to read. Some
| will update only once every few seconds.
|
| Although in this specific case, one wonders why Valve didn't
| just use two Displayport 1.4 ports and and stuck an onboard
| HDMI converter in front of one of them, sourced from a
| company that would be amenable to having Valve work on the
| firmware of said converter. Make the entire firmware of the
| converter open source except for the binary blob that handles
| the Displayport 1.4 -> HDMI 2.1 bits.
|
| Hopefully Valve does this but sells it as a external, high
| quality converter. It would be a nice little plus even for
| non-Steam Machine owners, same way like Apple's USB-C to
| 3.5mm convertor is the highest quality mini DAC on the market
| for the low price of EUR10.
| Rohansi wrote:
| > _HDMI CEC works pretty decent these days, all the kinks
| have been worked out over the years and the only time it
| bugs out is if you use Chinese brands_
|
| I don't know. I have an LG TV and it does not support
| turning the display on/off with HDMI CEC. Everything else
| seems to work but it intentionally ignores those commands.
| xd1936 wrote:
| https://hackaday.com/2023/07/11/displayport-a-better-
| video-i...
| nubinetwork wrote:
| TFA says that AMD has a working 2.1 driver, but the hdmi forum
| goons rejected it.
| summermusic wrote:
| Maybe one day I can pirate an HDMI driver
| machomaster wrote:
| You wouldn't pirate a car, why would you pirate a driver!
| bootsmann wrote:
| Isn't HDMI held by TV manufacturers who are looking to make
| some extra bucks on the side getting a utility from
| cables/monitors/GPUs? I don't think they would intentionally
| nuke this revenue stream.
| blastersyndrome wrote:
| Legally speaking, what is stopping someone from just reverse-
| engineering the specification and publishing it online somewhere?
| superxpro12 wrote:
| Probably a lawyer with little legal standing that is however
| funded by a very large checkbook.
| Avamander wrote:
| I suspect there isn't anything really stopping them (especially
| in the EU) except threats.
| shmerl wrote:
| HDMI forum is a frontend for the cartel that profits from HDMI
| patents. Everyone should use USB 4 / DisplayPort instead and HDMI
| should go into the dustbin of history, but TV industry is slowing
| things down due this cartel.
| Trung0246 wrote:
| Standard link to download: https://dokumen.pub/download/hdmi-
| specification-21-high-defi...
|
| Alternative: https://annas-
| archive.org/md5/4dd395c749519a36cb755e6ebbe488...
|
| Alternative (incomplete, only couple first page):
| https://device.report/m/91235972e8cbf6d6ce84f7cf84ca0ac12623...
|
| Other HDMI stuff:
| https://pdfhost.io/v/YidEvBDkS_EP92A7E_EP91A7E_DS_V04
|
| Older available here: https://glenwing.github.io/docs/
| jsheard wrote:
| AIUI the spec being leaked ironically makes things worse,
| because for an unofficial implementation to be legally kosher
| it would have to be clean-room reverse engineered anyway, and
| since the official spec is out there the integrity of such an
| effort would be called into doubt. You'd somehow have to prove
| you didn't look at it, ever, or at least be trusted enough for
| people to take your word for it.
|
| (I'm not a lawyer, please correct me if I'm wrong)
| brokenmachine wrote:
| Reading a standards spec to understand what the device you
| paid for does?
|
| Straight to jail!
|
| Pirating the entire internet to train your AI?
|
| That's fair use.
| xg15 wrote:
| Can we just train an AI with the spec and then vibe code an
| implementation?
| J_Shelby_J wrote:
| Depends on if you can fund a defense all the way to the
| Supreme Court.
| agoodusername63 wrote:
| I just use a DisplayPort to hdmi cable. Works well on my 4k@120
| TV
| evolve2k wrote:
| Here's their social media presence if anyone is feeling like
| they'd like to drop them a message:
|
| https://www.facebook.com/HDMIForum/
|
| https://twitter.com/HDMIForum/
|
| https://www.instagram.com/hdmiforum/
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8553802
| anonymars wrote:
| I assume I'm not the only one with a true WT _F_ reaction to
| "HDMI has a _facebook_ and an _instagram_? "
|
| (I was quite a bit less surprised that there was no real
| content in them)
| jasomill wrote:
| No, but now that you mention it, I'm curious about the five
| posts to the official US Federal Bureau of Prisons
| Instagram[1], which, unlike their Facebook and Twitter
| accounts, is private.
|
| (No relation, just the first thing that came to mind when I
| tried to think of an organization that I wouldn't expect to
| have much of a social media presence.)
|
| [1] https://www.instagram.com/bureauofprisons/
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Need VDMI that is suspiciously similar and compatible with HDMI
| standard.
| seemaze wrote:
| more like HDM-Bye!
| Asmod4n wrote:
| Couldn't AMD just release that as firmware/binary blob and call
| that from the open source driver to circumvent the issue?
| pseudosavant wrote:
| The funny thing of course is that the Steam Machine has
| DisplayPort, and you can easily get a DisplayPort to HDMI 2.1
| dongle for $20 retail. But they are targeting this being a
| console, and those are hooked to TVs over HDMI so it seems lame
| to not have a built-in HDMI port.
|
| This is mostly an academic exercise though. HDMI 2.0 does 4K @
| 60hz, and Valve have 4K @ 120hz (with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling)
| working over it too. Given the CPU/GPU in this machine, it won't
| be able to push higher than those limits anyway.
| jsheard wrote:
| The more pertinent issue is that many TVs will only do VRR over
| HDMI 2.1, and most active DP to HDMI 2.1 adapters won't pass
| VRR through either.
| TitaRusell wrote:
| I have my high end PC connected to a TV so it ruins my chances
| of ever switching to Linux. But yes for the Steam box this
| doesn't matter.
| chazeon wrote:
| Nvidia's private driver seems to deliver 4k@120Hz just fine.
| tart-lemonade wrote:
| Only if the adapter is active; passive ones just tell the GPU
| to switch protocols to HDMI or whatever, so those are still
| kneecapped by driver limitations.
|
| Edit: I just checked Amazon and active adapters are a lot
| cheaper (and less niche) than they used to be, though there are
| still some annoying results like a passive adapter which has an
| LED to indicate the connection is "active" being the first
| result for "DP to HDMI 2.1 active".
| molave wrote:
| I'm tired, boss.
|
| The winning move is not to play. The HDMI Forum (and other orgs
| that behave similarly) prey on our desire for the
| most/best/(insert superlative here). I get that there's no free
| lunch. It is also true you see a lot of initiatives and projects
| do a lot of collective good while demanding much less.
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