Valve tells Ars its “trying to unblock” limits caused by open source driver issues.

    • Billegh@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Yes, as the standard is more or less open source. There are no barriers to entry.

      • fum@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        That’s what I suspected. So rather than fighting HDMI, we need to buy display port instead.

          • fum@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            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.

  • who@feddit.org
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    18 hours ago

    the HDMI Forum (which manages the official specifications for HDMI standards) has officially blocked any open source implementation of HDMI 2.1.

          • shani66@ani.social
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            4 hours ago

            Hey now, organized crime usually has an element of giving back to the community, it’s much more ethical than this!

          • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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            5 hours ago

            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.

        • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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          16 hours ago

          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.

    • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      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.

      • azuth@sh.itjust.works
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        9 hours ago

        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.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        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.

        • Decq@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          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…

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    Valve tells Ars its “trying to unblock” limits caused by open source driver closed source corporate megalomania issues.

    FTFthem. Open Source is not the problem here. The problem is the HDMI Forum being evil.

    • ch00f@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Surprised they didn’t take the opportunity to push DisplayPort a little more.

      • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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        17 hours ago

        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.

        • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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          14 hours ago

          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.

          • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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            13 hours ago

            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.

            • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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              13 hours ago

              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.

              • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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                12 hours ago

                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.

            • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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              14 hours ago

              They can just bundle them? It still be cheaper than paying for the licensing. What is the issue here?

              • ramble81@lemmy.zip
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                8 hours ago

                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.

              • dogs0n@sh.itjust.works
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                13 hours ago

                I don’t think it’s the best user experience when you get a new product neither do I think they are foolproof.

                • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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                  13 hours ago

                  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.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        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.

    • sawdustprophet@midwest.social
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      14 hours ago

      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.

  • BootLoop@sh.itjust.works
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    14 hours ago

    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.