- cross-posted to:
- steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
- hardware@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
- hardware@lemmy.world
Valve tells Ars its “trying to unblock” limits caused by open source driver issues.
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Is display port better in this regard?
Yes, as the standard is more or less open source. There are no barriers to entry.
Except it’s not on any TVs.
I thought you can connect DP to HDMI with a simple cable, no adapters needed?
With VRR?
I don’t know, can you? Do many TVs support VRR through HDMI <-> HDMI connections, but not DP <-> HDMI?
I’ve not got one for testing right now. But some googling does seem to indicate this is a sticking point for gaming, and why GPU makers put the latest HDMI ports on their cards and ponied up the licensing fees.
Ah, that’s a bummer. Thanks for checking!
Not entirely true, but the enough yes.
That’s what I suspected. So rather than fighting HDMI, we need to buy display port instead.
Have you looked at the HDMI Forum member list and board of directors?
It includes pretty much every manufacturer who makes decisions which ports to include on their devices. They have no interest in DisplayPort adoption.
I had a little scroll through yeah. They may not be interested in display port, but they’re sure interested in money. That’s why I suggested people by stuff with display port, rather that try to fight to have HDMI more open.
I appreciate AMD trying to improve HDMI openness, they’ve always been more open. That’s why I’ve bought AMD oven Intel and nvidia for the last 10 years or so.
All we can do as consumers is vote with our wallets. That’s all these companies care about.
the HDMI Forum (which manages the official specifications for HDMI standards) has officially blocked any open source implementation of HDMI 2.1.
And here are those companies making that decision
so pretty much all important companies ☹️
You only need to get down the list to broadcom before it becomes obvious this isn’t going to change.
Assholes.
They want to make money
Sure, so does organized crime. What’s your point?
Hey now, organized crime usually has an element of giving back to the community, it’s much more ethical than this!
The HDMI Forum blocks open source implementations of their spec. They want to keep it closed source so they can charge whatever they want to use their standards.
Big content creators (Disney, Netflix, etc) want TV manufacturers to keep using HDMI because the standard includes a DRM protocol.
And they’re allowed to. But this is not that.
…the HDMI Forum (which manages the official specifications for HDMI standards) has officially blocked any open source implementation of HDMI 2.1. That means the open source AMD drivers used by SteamOS can’t fully implement certain features that are specific to the updated output standard.
I can think of a money reason to block open source implementations…
I’m glad more people are hearing how it’s this group of standards assholes who are causing it.
Laughs in displayport
I really wish displayport on TVs would take off.
I really wish I could buy big ass dumb monitor at the cost of a similar size smart tv.
Hollywood hates that idea.
That’s the idea
How, though? I’m not terribly knowledgeable about the law, but I know interoperability is one of the major sources of exceptions to copyright protection, and the whole Google vs Oracle saga would imply there’s nothing illegal about making your own implementation of a standard without permission.
AMD is a member of the HDMI consortium and is probably bound by private agreements to not make open source drivers without permission from the consortium. They did try to get them to budge but they didn’t.
Copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret laws are all entirely different and have almost nothing to do with each other (don’t be fooled by the property-rights-hating shysters who try to gaslight you into lumping them all as “intellectual property[sic]”).
Trademarks and patents don’t have the same kinds of interoperability exceptions that copyright does, and you can’t claim to “support HDMI™” without licensing rights to those in addition to whatever copyrighted code you might need for the software side of the implementation.
So what stops them from supporting HDMI™ 2.1 but just not call it that? As long as they create the code in a clean room scenario I don’t see how they could be liable for damages? Although I assume it has something to with DRM… And then you get into the weeds of the terrible cyber security laws…
Valve tells Ars its “trying to unblock” limits caused by
open source driverclosed source corporate megalomania issues.FTFthem. Open Source is not the problem here. The problem is the HDMI Forum being evil.
Surprised they didn’t take the opportunity to push DisplayPort a little more.
the problem is although its a pc, valve wants it to sort of appeal to console users. and the problem is that the HDMI forum members are also TV manufacturers. they are very unlikely to ever support displayport.
as long as TVs are more popular than monitors, that trend of HDMI holding control will never cease.
Except there is no reason to ever put hdmi on the hardware. Displayport is superior to hdmi in every way, and when you need to step down to peasant land… a simple passive DP to hdmi cable/adapter will do the job. To even drive the point how shit hdmi is, you cant use a passive adapter from hdmi to dp, you’ll need a very expensive active adapter to do it.
there is, HDMI Arc, which is why all the home theater companies do not want to weaken its hold.
Its a collaboration of tv manufacturers, home audio and the movie productions who want to keep HDMI propietary as fuck, to prevent piracy and to make their theater setup locked to themselves.
There is no technical reason DP doesnt have ARC. Its more of the industry is strangled by the HDMI forum. So you’ll never find an AV receiver with DP… thus no reasons for vesa to waste bandwidth for a feature that the industry will never adopt.
hence, nothing will happen, unless monitors get more popular than TVs. because tvs are the majority bought display device period. The reason is because more people are willing to both spend more on tvs, and often are more willing to replace them, while people who use monitors hold onto them for extended periods of time. Thats why monitor tech is always a step behind both mobile and TV when it comes to the screen quality (e.g Monitors didn’t get OLED till LG released its gen 2 WOLED, and Samsung decided to drop QDOLED gen 1, while phones of course had oled/amoled for a long time, and OLED tvs have existed for years before it touched hte monitor space)
Yes, theres no technial reason why display port CANT do it, but the problem is HDMI forum has the market. the market doesnt suddenly shift unless you give it a good reason to, which would basically require the VESA foundation producing a featureset so significantly better than HDMI, that it invalidates TVs to the consumer mind.
If I could buy a 48" monitor I would.
I think the reason you mention is a pretty good one… who wants to solely rely on adapters?
They can just bundle them? It still be cheaper than paying for the licensing. What is the issue here?
It still be cheaper than paying for the licensing.
Except it’s not. HDMI licensing (for high volume) is a $10,000 flat fee, plus $0.04 per unit if you use HDCP. So if you were to sell 100,000 units that would be $14,000 ($10K base plus $0.04 x 100K).
Based on those numbers you would have to find a way to include a physical adapter for $0.14/unit. I don’t think you’re gonna find anything that cheap with any amount of quality.
I don’t think it’s the best user experience when you get a new product neither do I think they are foolproof.
I mean… if someone can’t figure out which end goes where. Theres gonna struggle with a standard hdmi cable. I guess they could custom print big text on the cable ends to make it clear which end goes where. They’ll certainly have the volume to make such customization.
I’m a little disappointed, but not surprised. This thing is designed to be used in the living room hooked up to the TV, after all.
The fact of A/V consumer electronics standardizing on HDMI instead of DisplayPort is kinda not Valve’s problem to solve, as much as I’d like it to try.
DisplayPort4eva
Greed.
Is it licensing fees? I bet it is.
Is it licensing fees? I bet it is.
From the article:
the HDMI Forum (which manages the official specifications for HDMI standards) has officially blocked any open source implementation of HDMI 2.1. That means the open source AMD drivers used by SteamOS can’t fully implement certain features that are specific to the updated output standard.
And that’s why HDMI can fuck right off. Display Port is new bae.
Man, I fucking hate HDMI.
Wonder if they can ship a proprietary HDMI part of the driver or if there’s going to be an unofficial 2.1 driver patch that can be installed down the line.
