HDMI Forum Rejects Open-Source HDMI 2.1 Driver Support Sought By AMD

[kruger]

So AMD has an HDMI 2.1 implementation that they cannot publish. Intel has it working since they have it in the firmware? What about the new Nvidia open kernel drivers? Won't they also be affected?

[DRanged]

That's what the ppl are saying in that github thread about whether an hdmi to displayport adapter works (i.e. you can get VRR, chroma 4:4:4, etc.).

Actually it should be DP to HDMI adapter.

[Serafean]

avis Follow up from the vvenc thread: This is what non-free specs get you...

I just upgraded my media box/everything box to AMD's Phoenix. This is a complication to my long term plans with it :/ Now I have to investigate convertor dongles too.
Anyone else tired of all this crap?

[avis]

I am very sad to see people so quick to ask for closed binary blobs as a solution. It would be much better to have a 3rd party patch not made by AMD that enables it anyway, this is Linux, this is meant to be the whole point of having an open OS.

No distro will ever include such a patch unless it's 100% anonymous and the distribution itself is not using any first-world country infrastructure as otherwise HDMI will sue the hell out of you.

IOW this proposal is preposterous.

[edwaleni]

Which companies are shareholders in this organization?
Ah...MS. Apple, Nvidia, Broadcom etc...
Hummmm !!!

https://hdmiforum.org/members/

[Ikaris]

Dunno about Intel, but Sony PS4 is known to use a discrete DP to HDMI encoder, presumably for HDR and/or CEC support. As console manufacturers are known to pinch every penny, it is probably an economically viable strategy.

The PS4 also includes a HDMI output in the GPU hardware, which is turned off in favor of the DP output to the HDMI converter. According to the source below, Sony, being a Japanese company, may have gone with this scheme in order to maintain a good relationship with the provider of the DP-to-HDMI converter chip. While the converter doesn't seem to make sense at first glance due to its redundant nature, it would make sense from a continued mutually-beneficial relationship between companies, outweighing the cost of the additional hardware.

It is also unknown to me whether the in-GPU HDMI hardware is HDR- or CEC-capable which would in turn make the converter mandatory.

Source: Fail0verflow's presentation at 33c3 on running Linux on the PS4.

[Anux]

No distro will ever include such a patch

Distros already ship open source nvidia drivers (also tons of other reverse engineered, closed down hardware), what would be the difference here?

otherwise HDMI will sue the hell out of you.

Highly unlikely, they only have something against companies that use their license, because no one wants to loose that license and be closed off from new HDMI standards. If you just reverse engineer it, no one can do anything against it, you will just always lack behind.

[Artim]

The current issue about HDMI 2.1 is [...]

Well the biggest Problem of HDMI 2.1 is HDMI 2.1 itself. It's an unholy mess, supporting a vast number of features, yet many features are optional - hello USB - and the communication between devices wasn't designed to communicate all that stuff. So even with devices without any Open Source drivers it has been causing issues galore.

[Artim]

If someone reverse engineered the HDMI code in a clean room scenario, like Wine, that would potentially be okay I think as long as AMD and no other forum customers are contributing that work since they are privy to the code/spec and therefore not clean room. I don't quite know how feasible it is to reverse engineer.

If the code were leaked, it still would have to come from someone else, and that may cause other problems down the road, like if the spec changes in some way

Like I said, there can't be any proof. Also, everything can be reverse engineered if the interest is big enough.

[avis]

avis Follow up from the vvenc thread: This is what non-free specs get you...

I just upgraded my media box/everything box to AMD's Phoenix. This is a complication to my long term plans with it :/ Now I have to investigate convertor dongles too.
Anyone else tired of all this crap?

I'm all for open specs but someone has to pay for that one way or another.

Perhaps the law must be changed to make this happen.

And then you must realize some things are ridiculously expensive to develop, so it all becomes quite murky.

How would you go around patents when eg certain medications cost tens of millions of dollars to develop and test?

I just can't imagine the world without patents unless we change the way economy works.