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

[duby229]

You claimed that one could avoid patents by reverse engineering.

HDMI is also covered by patents, they are just not public on which patents they have. What you are talking about is the license agreement to be allowed to sell stuff with the HDMI logo, which is something AMD would loose if they made the code public and yes that part is copyright law, AMD is not brining up the patent situation because as long as they are HDMI members they have access to the patents so for them this is not a patent issue at the moment.

Yes, absolutely yes. AMD also has access to this specification and proprietary implementations of it, which is why they can't do it. But a group of people like us definitely could. For sure beyond doubt.

EDIT: Clean room reverse engineering is itself proof beyond doubt that the patented proprietary implementation wasn't touched. I'm saying you don't have to avoid patents at all, it isn't even an issue that affects this scenario. Patent laws don't even apply if you don't violate a patent. Which is the entire reason why clean room reverse engineering is in fact legal. It -is- legal.

[kiffmet]

Fuck the HDMI consortium. Also, consumers should start nagging TV manufacturers about including at least one DisplayPort on their devices.

For the people that do need HDMI 2.1 support on Linux and need it now: There are active(!) DP -> HDMI converters with the latest ones even supporting adaptive sync.

[dwagner]

Windows users could buy just about any peripheral, WiFi card, USB display etc and they will always have a Windows driver in some form, either through Windows Update or a vendor bundled driver. Nobody on Windows ever had to browse compatibility lists to find out if wifi card A or USB monitor B works on Windows or not.

That is the most delusional nonsense I have read in a long while. The by far most frequent complaint I have heard from Windows users over decades is:

"I need my devices X and Y to work, but latest driver for X is compatible only up to Windows version N while a driver for Y is only available for Windows version N+1."

Which is the same situation you find yourself in with any operating system if you have to rely on closed-source drivers.

[erniv2]

This is what DP to HDMI 2.0 dongles cost today.

This is how passive (DP++) adapters work. Active adapters pose to the host as DisplayPort monitors. HDMI 2.0 and all USB-C adapters are generally active. Most adapters that support only HDMI 1.4 are passive, but some (marketed as Eyefinity capable) are active.

I wonder what is better a Passive Cable that sends the data as is or an active one that does dithering, upscaling, frequency scaling and other things.

I bet someone can come up with a small pc that does all that with a nvidia gpu to do vsr, gsync and more ki based filters but thats not the point why should you buy a active filter that costs $$$ when you want a foss soluton that costs zero or at most the price of a passive cable for 20 bucks.

So a DP to HDMI solution is not the answer.

Not to mention that the cabled solution will again fall under patents, so you want to pay more so you can support more foss.

Hey AMD does not implement HDMI 2.1 lets buy HDMI 2.1 Dongels yea cool.

[dwagner]

Fuck the HDMI consortium. Also, consumers should start nagging TV manufacturers about including at least one DisplayPort on their devices.

Realistically, the majority of consumers could not even be bothered to demand Adware/Spyware free TVs from manufacturers, even though (unlike "DP vs. HDMI" issues) they may have experienced the terror of Ad-Injection from their "smart"-TVs first hand.

For the people that do need HDMI 2.1 support on Linux and need it now: There are active(!) DP -> HDMI converters with the latest ones even supporting adaptive sync.

For stationary PCs, that is a good solution. For the packing dimensions/weight of mobile notebook users it isn't great.

[Spacefish]

Displayport is better in almost every regard anyway.

- Almost double the datarate
- locking connectors
- can be daisy chained
- can be routed over USB-C -> smaller cables and connectors
- royality free compared to HDMI

modern AMD GPUs typically have 3 DP connectors and 1 HDMI.

If you want to use for example 4k 120fps on your TV, you have to use DP, as HDMI 2.1 can´t deliver that bandwidth without sacrificing image quality due too display stream compression.

[microcode]

Wow. The harm that this causes is hard to overstate. This means that AMD has to split their display codebases again, at least partially.

[microcode]

In some good news: the HDMI connector is now definitely free of patent...

[F.Ultra]

Since there are no patents on the software implementation of an protocol (at least for the most countries in the world) there is no infringement possible.
Building a GPU with HDMI hardware is another thing but those are already paid for by the manufacturer and whatever software you use on it has no further effect.

Well there are in the US (and a few other places), and that is quite a large market plus all tech companies including distributions have people and locations there.

Yes, absolutely yes. AMD also has access to this specification and proprietary implementations of it, which is why they can't do it. But a group of people like us definitely could. For sure beyond doubt.

EDIT: Clean room reverse engineering is itself proof beyond doubt that the patented proprietary implementation wasn't touched. I'm saying you don't have to avoid patents at all, it isn't even an issue that affects this scenario. Patent laws don't even apply if you don't violate a patent. Which is the entire reason why clean room reverse engineering is in fact legal. It -is- legal.

Clean room implementation was a suggestion from some one in this thread, AMD didn't do a clean room implementation AFAIK, so this leap of logic does not apply.

[citral]

I don't get the article nor the comments, been using a 6700XT and 8700G with a LG C3 tv and I get 4k@120 with a hdmi 2.1 cable. And HDR too with ChimeraOS.