HDMI Forum Rejects Open-Source HDMI 2.1 Driver Support Sought By AMD (phoronix.com) 114
Michael Larabel, reporting at Phoronix: One of the limitations of AMD's open-source Linux graphics driver has been the inability to implement HDMI 2.1+ functionality on the basis of legal requirements by the HDMI Forum. AMD engineers had been working to come up with a solution in conjunction with the HDMI Forum for being able to provide HDMI 2.1+ capabilities with their open-source Linux kernel driver, but it looks like those efforts for now have concluded and failed. For three years there has been a bug report around 4K@120Hz being unavailable via HDMI 2.1 on the AMD Linux driver. Similarly, there have been bug reports like 5K @ 240Hz not possible either with the AMD graphics driver on Linux.
As covered back in 2021, the HDMI Forum closing public specification access is hurting open-source support. AMD as well as the X.Org Foundation have been engaged with the HDMI Forum to try to come up with a solution to be able to provide open-source implementations of the now-private HDMI specs. AMD Linux engineers have spent months working with their legal team and evaluating all HDMI features to determine if/how they can be exposed in their open-source driver. AMD had code working internally and then the past few months were waiting on approval from the HDMI Forum. Sadly, the HDMI Forum has turned down AMD's request for open-source driver support.
As covered back in 2021, the HDMI Forum closing public specification access is hurting open-source support. AMD as well as the X.Org Foundation have been engaged with the HDMI Forum to try to come up with a solution to be able to provide open-source implementations of the now-private HDMI specs. AMD Linux engineers have spent months working with their legal team and evaluating all HDMI features to determine if/how they can be exposed in their open-source driver. AMD had code working internally and then the past few months were waiting on approval from the HDMI Forum. Sadly, the HDMI Forum has turned down AMD's request for open-source driver support.
DisplayPort (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the HDMI consortium telling everyone they want you to use DisplayPort.
Re:DisplayPort (Score:5, Informative)
From your lips to god's ears, it feels like outside of PC's there is very little Displayport gear out on the market.
Being in the professional AV industry the ratio of available gear is like 8 to 1 in favor of HDMI. Baluns, extenders, switching devices, specialty cables, basically anything have a preference for HDMI, especially 2.0 much less 2.1. Just so so much more available in HDMI than Displayport which can be problem since in my experience Displayport seems to handle things like custom EDIDs with less trouble in my experience.
Re:DisplayPort (Score:4, Informative)
Even in the computer world, DisplayPort availability is nuanced.
I constantly see computers with DisplayPort only on them and all of the low cost monitors have HDMI only. To get a DisplayPort on a monitor, You have to tack on another $25-50 on a monitor's cost with most of those cheaper on that scale being "Gaming" monitors that have obnoxious LED Lighting that's unacceptable in a business environment. This adds up if you're buying 100+ monitors for a company. You would think it would be the other way around since HDMI has royalties, but apparently monitor manufactures want to light money on fire for some reason.
I can't tell you how many DisplayPort to DVI Adapters we had to buy for this reason alone because the adapters are cheaper than buying a dedicated monitor.
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Yeah I've always suspected there is something about the Displayport packet style video protocol that is more of a pain in the ass for the EE people or not as many scaling or image processing chips or something that discourages companies from supporting DP more thoroughly. Or it's just pure HDMI inertia from the beginnings of the residential home theaters/consumer market
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that is more of a pain in the ass for the EE people
Irrelevant. No one is coding this from scratch. 100% of monitor manufacturers or manufacturers of monitor electronics have the code and electronics sorted out in a simple copy-paste fashion. That includes software, firmware, and even down to chip design.
Something complicated is only complicated the first time you do it. ... Unless you're the kind of person who forgets to save your work.
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Yeah I don't have proof of that but like I said, the product selection disparity is striking, especially on the signal handling side. I wonder if there are just way more off the shelf chips for handling HDMI signals than Displayport, maybe because up until recent versions HDMI was still operating effectively like advanced-DVI with LVDS?
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That would be my assumption as well. The TV guys aren't going to pay for DP, no matter how cheap the additional BoM hit is. So every chip and TCON on the market can do HDMI, but DP collects a premium due to the costs of its technical differences being amortized over fewer devices.
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I don't know if they would, but I wonder what would happen if they flexed whatever muscles they have and did something extreme like ditching hdmi entirely across their product lineup.
I suspect it'd hurt. There's probably more than a few that would be going "I'd like to, but I need hdmi for X". But it might generate some attention, at least. Even just having a single "HDMI-free" version might shock some sensibilities.
I know if they put out a Special Edition HDMI-free 7000 series card with a hefty discount it
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It's very nuanced. HDMI is consumer electronics focused - so everything to do with entertainment, production, storage and display.
DisplayPort originated from the PC world.
And only until recently (really, nearly 2 decades ago), the twain shall not mix. TO hook your PC to a display, it needed a video out. Computers did have it - the 8-bits all used the TV as a monitor, but they operated at such a low resolution it didn't matter. Even CGA offered composite out (it is part of the CGA specification), but it's of
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behind the scenes it's a mess.
True words for sure. It's even worse on the emerging video-over-IP world where there are a bunch of competing standards with different support. SMPTE2110, IPMX (which is just refined ST2110), NDI, Dante AV, SDVoE, HDBaseT, AVLC and Extron even has their own NAV protocol. Seems like things are coalescing around IPMX but still, a mess and a half.
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???
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I dunno. Linux has superior real-time, superior clustering, and superior module stacking. On Windows, I get lots of warnings that certain configurations are unreluable/unsafe. Never had that with Linux.
Re: DisplayPort (Score:1)
240Hz is a lie and revealing the source would also reveal that secret. Humans don't have 240Hz eyes so nobody would ever see any improvement...
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Those refresh rates in the hundreds are not about visuals, it's about reduced input lag.
Then again, such differences really only make differences if you are competing in some shooter professionally...
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Yeah that's not relevant for anyone. There's no evidence to show even e-sports pros benefit from having a 2ms input lag vs 4ms input lag, and that's before you consider the overwhelming majority of games don't actually care about input lag either.
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The thing with milliseconds is that they add up. 10 ms for input lag here, 10 ms for game logic, 20 ms for triple buffered rendering there, 10 ms for the display and you're talking some blatantly obvious amounts of lag.
Also I reject the notion that it's only about input lag. It really isn't, it's about motion blur from eye movements. Anybody who has used VR with and without reprojection at the same in-game framerate would be able to tell you that. It's far more obvious in VR but the problem is largely the s
Re: DisplayPort (Score:2)
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Most but not all of the lag components scale with refresh rate. There is a point where increasing refresh rate won't make much of a difference anymore, where that point is depends on how bad the non-scaling components are. Many input devices and some displays have shockingly bad lag and will dominate total lag even at 60Hz.
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I remember dumbfucks used to say this about 60/120.
I've been using 120 so long now, that 60 looks like a fucking slide show to me.
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Re:DisplayPort (Score:4, Interesting)
What? Why would we ever want them to do that? That seems analgous to wanting the EU to rewind time and standardize on USB 2 or something.
Speaking of which, I'd rather they stuck to USB and finished what they started: Clear out all the millions of variations so that there just a single, all-inclusive, USB standard. No more messing about with a million different caveats about type or specifications or ratings. It's absolutely identical in every respect, or it's not allowed to use "USB", "phone cable", or "charger cable" anywhere in the name.
Honestly, I'd much rather see HDMI tossed. DisplayPort seems to handle everything a lot better; and if an HDMI 2.1 connection can't even be made open source... To the garbage bin with it!
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Maybe it is time for the European Parliament to urge the European Commission to do what they did for chargers for video connectors and take DisplayPort out of circulation.
Maybe what the EU needs to do instead is require IT and multimedia products to be based on open specifications.
Re:DisplayPort (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.store.level1techs.... [level1techs.com]
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I'm pretty sure this is a software kvm, which is really just another computer, and it costs 400$.
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it isn't software, it is pure hardware. they've gone to great lengths to make this thing work a hell of a lot better than anything else.
"software" would add latency, not really support VRR, and fail at things like 4k/240Hz, which is all supported on their KVM.
their KVMs cost $$$ because they're the bleeding edge of switching hardware.
how much does a 40gbps ethernet switch cost? because that's about how much bandwidth this thing is passing through it.
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On the cutting edge of unplugging a connection from one pin and plugging it into another.
yay.
Just use a standard that doesn't do stupid crap you have to pay 450$ to fix.
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Not sure where you see 240hz, but the first line of the description says 3840x2160@120hz.
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I personally have a L1Tech KVM and am running at 5120x1440 @ 240Hz right now. That resolution is nearly the same bitrate as 4K. And yes, that's a single monitor through a single DisplayPort cable through the KVM.
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Wow. That's expensive. :(
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I've got two displayport monitors and can switch between a windows and Linux box with a kvm switch. It's not perfect, but it works.
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How is this rate troll? It's an actual issue that doesn't have a *real* fix, and the closest thing that exists is to stick a dummy connector in your video card to fool it.
If you disconnect a DP monitor, the computer treats it as gone, and rearranges your window layout. This happens with every single OS i've tried it with, and none of them have an option to disable this (That actually *works* anyway). This makes using a KVM just... absurd.
If you use an HDMI (or vga, or dvi, or composit video. You know w
Vote with money, don't buy HDMI (Score:3)
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How many TVs do you know which have a display port input? Commercial signage? Video walls? I'd like to vote with my money but at the end of the day my minimum requirement is still to buy something.
Too may devices don't have display port.
Private specs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping specs private is idiotic. The entire point of a specification is to enable interoperability.
I can sort of (but not really) understand copyright, if they want to make money publishing the official document. But to prohibit others publishing compliant code? That's just insane.
Re: Private specs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Private specs? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm betting it is about money. To view the specs, you have to join the club. To join the club, you hafta pay. And the legion of open source contributors haven't found a way to create a group to obtain that license without offending their libertarian streak of independence and freedom. Which I applaud, they know their purpose, and I applaud them for it.
But, if you wanna play with HDMI, sooner or later, you pay. By definition, it's closed source. And they don't care.
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I'm betting it is about money. To view the specs, you have to join the club. To join the club, you hafta pay. And the legion of open source contributors haven't found a way to create a group to obtain that license without offending their libertarian streak of independence and freedom. Which I applaud, they know their purpose, and I applaud them for it.
But, if you wanna play with HDMI, sooner or later, you pay. By definition, it's closed source. And they don't care.
It costs $15,000 per year to join. You must be a member to see the spec. Joining also requires to agree to some addendum which is pulling up a 404. I was curious if the bylaws allowed creating an open source driver.
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To me it seems like a scam.
After all - what's preventing you to get a DP to HDMI cable and solve the issue if it ever arises?
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Forgive me for being naive but they're both legacy connectors.
USB-C was *supposed* to obsolete all of them by carrying multiple protocols including DP and Thunderbolt, no?
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My experience is that DP is limited and Thunderbolt is buggy as a sack of fireants.
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I mean DP over USB-C.
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To me it seems like a scam.
After all - what's preventing you to get a DP to HDMI cable and solve the issue if it ever arises?
I have a cheap old laptop that only has DP, not HDMI. All my monitors (also cheap) are HDMI-only. I got an adapter cable for a few dollars, works fine. However, I am just doing old-fashioned HD video -- text, and maybe occasional YouTube videos. No games or anything, although I think I can get more than 60 FPS of basic games on it.
I imagine this scenario is 90% of computer users.
Reading your email, software development, watch some videos, etc.
The whole HDMI Consortium things sounds like an illegal monopoly
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It costs $15,000 per year to join. You must be a member to see the spec. Joining also requires to agree to some addendum which is pulling up a 404. I was curious if the bylaws allowed creating an open source driver.
The bylaws prevent you from disclosing the specifications, and an open source driver, by its very nature, means all the details (which include the implementations and specifications) are available for all to review. If you violate the HDMI Forum bylaws, you will be thrown out of the group, which also means you lose all access to the patents, and will face additional financial liabilities due to disclosures. In practice, without the agreement of the HDMI Forum, no open source driver can exist. AMD tried,
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Sounds like the kind of legal monopoly the FTC enjoys drumming.
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I wonder what happens if some open source group joins the forum, has a look at the specs, and then, some months later, some unrelated hacker group publishes an open source patch to the AMD driver, enabling it to use HDMI 2.1 features? What will the lizardmen from HDMI forum and MPAA do?
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It's also about DRM. HDMI includes a system where a BluRay disc can blocklist HDMI vendors that it thinks are not restricting what the user can do enough. The player is required to execute software on the disc that includes a blocklist of HDMI keys.
Re: Private specs? (Score:2)
Or, simply, more money.
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I'm betting it is about money. To view the specs, you have to join the club. To join the club, you hafta pay. And the legion of open source contributors haven't found a way to create a group to obtain that license without offending their libertarian streak of independence and freedom.
Nice bait, however even if some open source group joins the HDMI club (note that AMD has open source developers and AMD is a member), this still accomplishes nothing. Publishing open source code is tantamount to making the closed specification (or parts of it) open to the wide public, and a closed specification just can't allow that. Unless someone finds a way to make every user of open source code to pay their own entrance fee to the HDMI club. Good luck with that.
But, if you wanna play with HDMI, sooner or later, you pay.
That's why HDMI needs to be boycotted unti
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"Don't confuse closed specification with closed source."
I don't. Yet, your description seems to point out it is impossible for this version of HDMI to have an open source driver set, that must disclose the proprietary and closed specifications.
I'm not sure this is a difference with a distinction. Closed, restricted specs, must lead to only closed source drivers. Woops. Same effect.
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Write a standard with LC connectors good to 32K / 400 HZ and call it a day.
We are getting there with IPMX starting to pick up traction which fixes some of the paint points with using SMPTE 2110 but it's gonna be slow going getting adoption for it. At least it's an open protocol though.
IPMX [ipmx.io]
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I think it's more about HDMI being all about the security of the data path so that nobody ever again is able to make a copy of video and bypass the DRM. Thus profits from Hollywood, not hardware vendors.
Right to repair bills? (Score:2)
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So as those right to repair bills gain traction will we see and end to this? Publishing open source specs are a key component to a right to repair.
I doubt. Most of what I've seen about right to repair is for hardware and not having software locks preventing repairs; not about making component interoperable across devices.
I thought reverse engineering was OK? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not worth the lawsuit (Score:2)
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AMD has access to the spec. If it provides an OSS implementation, it gets its access revoked, and can't sell anything HDMI.
The only legal way now is clean room reverse engineering the HDMI spec, and publishing that code. And even then expect heavy DMCA notices. In the EU I'd wager you could argue your way out using the "interoperability" clauses in the legal framework.
The other way is to use a DP -> HDMI converter. Either as a dongle or onboard, where the dongle vendor pays the HDMI forum, and it gets in
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AMD has access to the spec. If it provides an OSS implementation, it gets its access revoked, and can't sell anything HDMI.
The ballsy thing to do would be for AMD to publicly announce that they're dropping support for HDMI because it cannot release an open source driver for the standard. Make it clear that they consider DisplayPort to be the only viable standard going forwards for computers, and that in 90 days, they'll remove HDMI for almost a quarter of the computers on the market.
When the members of the HDMI foundation collectively sh*t themselves, AMD can agree to delay the removal, but only if the HDMI foundation allows
Re: I thought reverse engineering was OK? (Score:2)
AMD is already putting both HDMI and DP on their video cards just like everyone else. All they have to do now is nothing. Anyone who wants this functionality can use DP, and AMD gets to continue selling video cards to people who don't care and/or can't afford a new display AND a new display adapter.
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In principle, yes, you can clean-room an implementation. Provided it's AI-compatible with the closed-source module, vendors could then simply "fail to check" what is being used.
In practice, Corp lawyers are very good at launching lawsuits and then simply delaying everything to run the other side out of cash.
There's a way to do it, DeCSS Jon showed that if someone in a reasonably neutral country is prepared to risk all (including unlawful arrest), then such blockades can't last.
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make it open and then Linux will not be able to us (Score:2)
make it open and then Linux will not be able to use HDCP!
Well, time for someone to step up (Score:4, Insightful)
AMD can't do it because they signed up all HDMI Forum agreements to be able to use HDMI. They can't break that agreement.
But... The Linux Kernel has a long history of people reverse engineering closed specs and building a module for it. That module usually sucks for the first couple of years, but they generally achieve their goals.
Who wants to step up?
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The last widely-published time when such a thing happened and Andrew Tridgell reverse-engineered BitKeeper, the Linux kernel toolchain was crippled, its development was stalled, and Linus himself was forced to create Git to save his kernel.
How To Kill Linux (Score:2)
When the hardware is locked down, Linux dies. That's their game plan to force us back into the corporate ecosystem.
Re:How To Kill Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the 90's anymore, every large tech company including Microsoft heavily relies on Linux today.
This is just a spat with a working group who is pretty much an appendage of the MPAA, they have their own ignorant reasons for this.
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This argument is largely irrelevant.
You cannot run Linux on iPhone, you could not run Linux on mac well for many years after release of new chips. You cannot run Linux (well) on i'd bet 50-90% of all laptops currently in use in the world due to driver quirks (wifi, graphics or ACPI). You cannot run Linux on most android phones (dont argue: i know andoid is linux based, you can't boot debian on 99% of them without missing features like 5G modem support due to binary blobs etc). And as we have seen from the a
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Isn't any Intel based laptop going ot be pretty much fully Linux compatible? I know it's not as simple as go to best buy and pick up any POS laptop off the shelf and expect 100% compatibility but again, it's no tht e90's it's pretty trivial to get compatible laptops from Dell, Lenovo, Framework, System76, etc etc?
Also why would we expect Apple to support anything, or expect and Android phone to be able to run Debian? I can't run Windows on those devices either, are they trying to kill Microsoft as well?
Als
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> Isn't any Intel based laptop going ot be pretty much fully Linux compatible?
Not if you want to use the webcam : https://www.phoronix.com/news/... [phoronix.com]
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Interesting, I wasn't aware the humble webcam had gotten so complex
I wonder what Intels reasoning is to keep this out of support? I wonder if MIPI is used on phones and there is a lot of IP companies don't want to expose?
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I'd suggest: cost.
The reasoning may be similar to apple. https://asahilinux.org/2024/01... [asahilinux.org]
Apple... (Score:2)
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It's not the 90's anymore, every large tech company including Microsoft heavily relies on Linux today.
Yeah, Microsoft would never embrace something and extend its features and usage, only to later extinguish it!
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When the hardware is locked down, Linux dies. That's their game plan to force us back into the corporate ecosystem.
I would guess another few years of added DRM and bullshit on the hardware side and we'll have to be buying "unlocked" systems to load Linux on anyway. For our own safety, of course.
windows server is not going to run Bare Metal or t (Score:2)
windows server is not going to run Bare Metal or take over Linux use in the data center.
even more so with the way broadcom is killing vmware.
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HDMI game plan doesn't care about Linux or open source, the HDMI game play is to protect Hollywood assets, which means clamping down hard on piracy. Ie, none of the easy-peasy DVD encryption, this is to protect Blu-Ray so that can't make a copy of the movie you bought by snooping on the wires or RAM. HDMI might seem like it's just a display adapter, but it's really about DRM. Thus the requirements for tamper detection.
Pointless (Score:2)
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Anyone who believes in DRM is engaging in magical thinking. After a moment's thought it vanishes in a puff of logic.
I decided long ago that AMD was the only choice for a user who values freedom.
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Right, but that doesn't change too much. DVD encryption was easily broken but it stop any DMCA enforcement.
Who is paying them off? (Score:2)
I can't see any rational reason behind the HDMI Forum's behaviour unless someone is paying them off, and in that case AMD should start thinking about withdrawing from the agreements - and their contractual obligations - and/or better hardware support for Display Port.
My AMD graphic cards (on two machines) don't support DP, the monitors do.
Non-public specs for mainstream tech are evil (Score:4, Insightful)
There really is no other way to say this. The assholes on the HDMI forum are evil fucks and are harming humanity.
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Wonder what will happen if Linux drops HDMI support and only support DP, DVI, VGA, etc.
Will HDMI bandits be satisfied with that result? If yes, by all means do so.
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Linux should support the hardware, if that is HDMI then Linux needs to support HDMI.
Change has to come from the hardware manufacturers, AMD needs to offer Display Port, either alongside HDMI or in place of it.
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I think the EU should threaten to outlaw HDMI products unless the spec is opened. Now that would have a real effect.
AMD could just leave (Score:2)
The only consequence being they can’t use the fancy HDMI logo anywhere.
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That was my thought: leave the group and do what other manufacturers do and list their products as "HDMI-compatible" without the logo.
Reverting back (Score:2)
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Political effort needed to end regulatory capture (Score:3)
There are MANY instances of this sort of junk in our current system, and they ALL need to be ended, but it requires the public to be aware of the evil, and just how corrupt (and corrupting) it is in order to make it enough of a political "thing" that the politicians are forced to fix it.
What happens is that somebody creates a thing, that thing becomes the standard, then everybody in the marketplace must meet the standard, but... oh, golly, the standard is a trade secret or is patented/copyrighted etc. This is in computing, aviation, autos, radio, television, and much more. Companies with inferior junk get to control a market segment because their junk is the standard and they, in turn, pay off politicians to make sure it remains the standard, thus forcing competitors to pay royalties or even be prevented from entering the market.
The laws of the nation need to be changed so that NOTHING becomes THE STANDARD, recognized by any government agency, without it being open, publicly documented, and freely-implementable. If some company insists that they have the best way to do something and that it should be the standard, then ok... make that standard public domain. If they are unwilling to let it go, then fine, they can use it in their products but it will not be the standard, something else will be the mandated standard, and any attempt they make to force other vendors to adopt their stuff will be considered market manipulation and just as worthy of legal scrutiny as any other anti-competitive business activity. HDMI is the standard television interface...NOTHING about this standard should be proprietary, controlled by a company or a trade association (a cabal of companies) or in any way restricted.
Sorry for the rant [sort of, anyway] but I have run into this sort of garbage too many times over the decades of my career and in more fields than I would have imagined. It's corrupt, and the general public is completely unaware of it and all it's bad side-effects.
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>"The laws of the nation need to be changed so that NOTHING becomes THE STANDARD, recognized by any government agency, without it being open, publicly documented, and freely-implementable."
Agreed
Now, would that apply to operating systems as well? Because, right now, most governments are completely locked to "the desktop standard" of MS-Windows.
Government (Score:2)
This sounds like a conspiracy and a monopoly, and the HDMI Consortium (and perhaps monitor manufacturers) ought to be criminally investigated by both the USA's FTC, and the EU.
If the entire world relies on an electrical standard, and that standard is a secret, that can't be right. Right?
Meh (Score:2)
I'll never need 120Hz anything.
I record @ 24p on my camcorder and anything above 30fps frequently looks unnatural to my eyes. My monitors run at the standard 60-75Hz.
I shock people when I happily dominate playing Planetside 2 @ 20fps and sometimes lower.
Take me down to 15fps and I'll start noticing however. Over 20 fps, cant see any difference apart from on video where 60fps does one of two things to me. It either makes me think something is wrong with the video as it is too smooth and feels slow or it m
It's about keeping the spec private (Score:2)
If AMD were to release an open source driver for HDMI 2.1, it would effectively make parts of that spec visible to the public in the form of source code that implements it. It would make it easier for companies to develop unlicensed hardware. The HDMI consortium is protecting its revenue sources, memberships in the group and royalties on devices.
I'm not saying that they're RIGHT to do that. The status quo amounts to a cabal that locks out potential small competitors that can't afford the annual membership c
We should get Europe to care (Score:2)
Isn't the EU the one that cares about this crap? In a sense, isn't HDMI a gatekeeper under the DMA? (at least in spirit)