Radeon Evergreen HDMI Audio Code Is Still M.I.A.

[DaemonFC]

The real problem with AMD, and specifically PR people like Bridgman is they want to have their cake and eat it to when it comes to denying responsibility for their share of problems like this.

Willfully sign a contract with Microsoft, Apple, and Hollywood to shut out operating systems that respect the user.

Act like it is not their fault that the habitually unnamed "meanies" that we all know are Microsoft, Apple, and Hollywood "won't let AMD" document their own cards. They tied their own hands and want to frame the situation as being simply "our hands are tied".

[Zajec]

Unfortunately I've bought netbook with AMD E-450, and so with integrated HD6320

Fortunately expect patches ~tomorrow

[allquixotic]

The legal reviews would probably be a lot less painful if the only thing to avoid would be giving out hardware-specific information about AMD proprietary IP. As it stands, DRM and IP and patents owned by other companies are littered all throughout AMD's ASICs. So it's like a legal minefield, and AMD's lawyers have to navigate through it.

I wish a company could make a competitive 3d chipset that isn't patent-encumbered; doesn't contain IP licensed from other companies; and contains no DRM. And on top of that the company is open-source friendly. They would probably release enough information to make a fully functional driver for all components of the hardware in these circumstances, and just hide enough information so their competitors couldn't (easily) use information in the driver to create better hardware that outpaces the company that released the driver (as that would be counterproductive).

And yes, that does mean I'd be willing to live without hardware video encoding/decoding by the chipset, in particular all the MPEG crap standards. I do want WebM and Theora in hardware, but the CPU in my box is plenty powerful for decoding 1080p in virtually any format, proprietary or no. I just don't see what value video encoding/decoding brings, when you can easily do so in hardware using shaders, or entirely in software (and in both those cases, people who do want to use proprietary codecs can purchase legally licensed software implementations of them, or hardware-based implementations that run as a shader, which is still software).

I also think that said company should refuse to implement any display/audio standards that require DRM, and refuse to implement the DRM component if it's optional. This will send a strong message to the media cartels that their encumbered technology is not wanted.

Since AMD is the underdog (they only control ~27% of the desktop graphics market from the recent Steam hardware survey, and even less of the CPU market), you'd think they'd be the company to take on this kind of liberal strategy, to differentiate themselves from Big Green and Big Blue who tend to out-pace them at every turn, both in terms of sales and top-end performance. But AMD only has one foot in the freedom pool; the other foot is standing on proprietary quicksand, which is quickly pulling the entire company down.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Radeon Evergreen HDMI Audio Code Is Still M.I.A.

For those that haven't noticed, the open-source Radeon Linux graphics driver still lacks HDMI audio support for the Radeon HD 5000 "Evergreen" series and newer graphics processors. This has been sought after for many months, but even with the Linux 3.2 kernel, AMD still doesn't have to go-ahead with the open-source audio support...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTAyMjc