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3D Optimizations and UVD... AMD_hal.so!

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  • #11
    apparently the actually getting to, and perhaps through the investigation/review part will be slow, (at least Months)unless somone? inside AMD/ATI decides to push it through as a "need it now to catch up with the other companies offerings" to 3rd party video devs/apps type thing.

    but the actual UVD ASIC if and when its header/docs/code arrives, if ever.... depends on the internal review after all, will be as fast as the other ASIC offerings ,perhaps faster at HW assisted decoding etc.

    and its been said/implyed the UVD includes a lot more stuff inside than the NV ASIC etc has, but we cant know for sure, as we dont have that documentation/sample code showing it off TODAY and noone inside AMD/ATI has bothered to write it's capability up and released that information....
    Last edited by popper; 05 February 2009, 02:15 PM.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by bridgman View Post
      For UVD, having a small binary module in an otherwise open source driver doesn't really protect the code at all; it's just too easy to reverse-engineer a closed source module if everything around it is open source.
      Does this matter? If someone reverse engineers it, it's not AMD's fault. Publishing reverse engineered specs is illegal. AMD is not the police.

      And I don't really get the "reverse engineering" paranoia. Who needs to actually do it? I can copy BD discs easily anyway. This whole UVD case is useless. It's a PHAIL in big fat letters; it doesn't protect s***t :P You're trying to keep something a secret that no one even gives a flying fsck about how it works because it's circumvented anyway :P

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      • #13
        Yeah, that would be nice... but it doesn't work that way. Whether the information gets published illegally or not, we still get hit by the consequences.

        Besides, pretty much *everything* is legal *somewhere* in the world, which wasn't such a problem back when most IP involved which local weeds to grind up into medicine and the Internet relied on ships for routing between continents

        One of the hardest parts of any open source program is building and maintaining a model of the reverse-engineering activities which are likely to be enabled (or simplified to the point where someone bothers) by the information you release. All of the risk-related decisions have to be made based on the implications of both released and "likely to be reverse-engineered as a result" information.
        Last edited by bridgman; 05 February 2009, 03:44 PM.
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        • #14
          Originally posted by bridgman View Post
          If you want Linux market share to grow, enough to drive native app and game development for example, you're going to need things like legal BD playback with the associated DRM support. That implies a bottom-to-top closed source solution
          Yes, a closed-source player running on a closed-source API framework talking to a closed-source hardware driver running on a closed-source kernel--in other words, Windows Vista (or OS X)

          My understanding is that the "robustness" requirements for the various hi-def DRM standards pretty much categorically exclude anything running on top of a GPLed kernel--and that this was no accident, since Microsoft was heavily involved in crafting these industry standards.

          The future of BD and other hi-def support on Linux is most likely going to be the same as the present state of DVD support: software developed in civilized countries without ridiculous paracopyright laws, and distributed in the US and EU on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis.

          And hey, there's a possibility that when some company in Israel comes out with a killer BD-playing Linux netbook, and it can't be sold in the US or EU because of the DMCA (or, more importantly, no US/EU company can build anything to compete with it) the lawmakers will take a good, hard look at just whom those laws are actually "protecting".

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          • #15
            It's the content creators who want DRM, not Microsoft. Microsoft simply allows that content to be supported in Windows by making up a standard for it. Hollywood creates the stuff, they want DRM, the consumers want the content, Microsoft allows them to have it.

            Not having DRM in FOSS is retarded. Go wait for BlueRay movies to sell in Ogg files.

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            • #16
              Originally posted by RealNC View Post
              Does this matter? If someone reverse engineers it, it's not AMD's fault. Publishing reverse engineered specs is illegal. AMD is not the police.

              And I don't really get the "reverse engineering" paranoia. Who needs to actually do it? I can copy BD discs easily anyway. This whole UVD case is useless. It's a PHAIL in big fat letters; it doesn't protect s***t :P You're trying to keep something a secret that no one even gives a flying fsck about how it works because it's circumvented anyway :P
              if they have the legal obligation they have to keep it secret no matter what you think or hope.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by RealNC View Post
                It's the content creators who want DRM, not Microsoft. Microsoft simply allows that content to be supported in Windows by making up a standard for it. Hollywood creates the stuff, they want DRM, the consumers want the content, Microsoft allows them to have it.

                Not having DRM in FOSS is retarded. Go wait for BlueRay movies to sell in Ogg files.
                DRM is premised on the idea that there is data on a computer that the operating system prevents the user and owner of that computer from accessing, and furthermore that the operating system is hardened against "tampering" by said owner to make that data accessible.

                This is literally antithetical to the GPL--what Microsoft or another proprietary vendor considers "unauthorized tampering" is the very raison d'etre of the GPL.

                As for Microsoft claiming "we never wanted DRM but the big, bad movie studios forced us to implement it"... I bet you believe the tobacco industry's press releases too.

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                • #18
                  I don't see Microsoft making DVD/BD players, the original DRM platform. The content creators would never remove DRM just for the sake of Windows. If Windows wants to offer users to watch those, it has to implement DRM. And Windows can't afford not to offer a legal way to watch protected content.

                  And you're forgetting something: you're not required to accept DRM even if you're a windows user. You simply stop watching movies from BD and DVD. There, problem gone.

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                  • #19
                    Originally posted by Alex W. Jackson View Post
                    DRM is premised on the idea that there is data on a computer that the operating system prevents the user and owner of that computer from accessing, and furthermore that the operating system is hardened against "tampering" by said owner to make that data accessible.

                    This is literally antithetical to the GPL--what Microsoft or another proprietary vendor considers "unauthorized tampering" is the very raison d'etre of the GPL.
                    Yes and no. A lot of BD players run embedded Linux with DRM implemented above the kernel.
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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by bridgman View Post
                      Yes and no. A lot of BD players run embedded Linux with DRM implemented above the kernel.
                      Yes, but that's an embedded system where the GPL is moot because the kernel binary is baked into a ROM. Surely you've heard of the controversy among the kernel developers over "Tivoization".

                      I can't see any way a desktop Linux system where the user is able to install a modified kernel can ever meet the BD DRM "robustness" requirements.

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