Radeon UVD Support Going Through Code Review

[droidhacker]

What do you think the alternative was. Saying "I don't do DRM" and losing three quarters of our market ?

Your 3/4 figure is definitely FAR over the top. Most people who want to consume DRM content buy a BD player for their TV -- its a bigger screen and a FAR better presentation anyway. I don't even know ONE PERSON who has a BD drive on their computer, and streaming video is still a fringe service restricted to those who have sufficiently high speed network connections. In all, I don't think that many, if anyone at all, would lose sleep if AMD didn't support DRM. Except maybe the DRM content providers. I *do* know that there are a lot of people who would be absolutely THRILLED if AMD could support non-DRM video decoding in open source drivers.

Further, recognition that it is an idiotic feature to support would go far in convincing your competitors to follow suit. If NOBODY supported DRM, it would HAVE to be abandoned.... and the world would be a better place. Realistically, we both know that EVERY hardware vendor would like to leave the DRM stuff out, because it doesn't actually do anything to improve their product. If ONE company took the first step and dropped it, the others would follow in short order.

Or at least an inexpensive public campagne against DRM and offer *something* without it. I.e., the "stand up for consumers' rights" edition Radeon.
Take that, and market it, it would sell like crazy! In fact, I would HAPPILY pay **MORE** for virtually the same hardware that lacked DRM. Somehow though, I suspect it would be LESS, since you are, no doubt, paying licensing fees for it.


BTW: Gun control is a personal responsibility of every gun owner. Not the government. Most injuries and deaths realted to registered guns are a result of alcohol and/or incompetence and are not criminal matters. Gun crimes are committed with uncontrolled guns.

[DaemonFC]

Your 3/4 figure is definitely FAR over the top. Most people who want to consume DRM content buy a BD player for their TV -- its a bigger screen and a FAR better presentation anyway. I don't even know ONE PERSON who has a BD drive on their computer, and streaming video is still a fringe service restricted to those who have sufficiently high speed network connections. In all, I don't think that many, if anyone at all, would lose sleep if AMD didn't support DRM. Except maybe the DRM content providers. I *do* know that there are a lot of people who would be absolutely THRILLED if AMD could support non-DRM video decoding in open source drivers.

Further, recognition that it is an idiotic feature to support would go far in convincing your competitors to follow suit. If NOBODY supported DRM, it would HAVE to be abandoned.... and the world would be a better place. Realistically, we both know that EVERY hardware vendor would like to leave the DRM stuff out, because it doesn't actually do anything to improve their product. If ONE company took the first step and dropped it, the others would follow in short order.

Or at least an inexpensive public campagne against DRM and offer *something* without it. I.e., the "stand up for consumers' rights" edition Radeon.
Take that, and market it, it would sell like crazy! In fact, I would HAPPILY pay **MORE** for virtually the same hardware that lacked DRM. Somehow though, I suspect it would be LESS, since you are, no doubt, paying licensing fees for it.

Yeah, the actual dedicated blu ray player hardware doesn't make you pay a fee every month to watch new movies. (Let's hope they don't decide to do that)

The restrictions they put on watching Blu Ray discs on PCs is just more of the same old shit the RIAA has done to online music. They're terrified of general purpose PCs and the user having fair use rights, so they've legislated them all away, and made backalley deals with the hardware vendors like AMD and Nvidia and agreed with Microsoft and Apple to make operating systems that effectively castrate the user. It's to protect their 20th century business model.

[bridgman]

Your 3/4 figure is definitely FAR over the top. Most people who want to consume DRM content buy a BD player for their TV -- its a bigger screen and a FAR better presentation anyway. I don't even know ONE PERSON who has a BD drive on their computer, and streaming video is still a fringe service restricted to those who have sufficiently high speed network connections.

It's the usual problem. I agree that many end customers don't value BluRay playback very much (I don't personally) but that doesn't stop it from being a hard requirement from ever major OEM. I don't know if 3/4 is the right number but basically all our OEM business would go away.

Anyways, this is getting way the heck off topic.

[droidhacker]

[droidhacker]

It's the usual problem. I agree that many end customers don't value BluRay playback very much (I don't personally) but that doesn't stop it from being a hard requirement from ever major OEM. I don't know if 3/4 is the right number but basically all our OEM business would go away.

Anyways, this is getting way the heck off topic.

Alright, then lets get it back on topic....
You said once that at some point, the newer Radeons would be built with some form of separation between the DRM and the video decoder, such that it would hopefully be possible to build a video decoder driver all open without having to worry about giving away the DRM parts. Any update on the timeline for this if its still going to happen?

Edit: can you hire me as a consultant for making hardware that makes sense? I live about 10 minutes from where you work....

[bridgman]

I know that some of the required changes are being implemented, but I'm not sure yet which product generation will contain them. I asked for clarification recently but haven't heard back yet. Part of the internal discussion about support for current UVD is also reviewing whether the in-process changes are sufficient or whether we will need to get more changes into the pipe.

[DanL]

Realistically, we both know that EVERY hardware vendor would like to leave the DRM stuff out, because it doesn't actually do anything to improve their product. If ONE company took the first step and dropped it, the others would follow in short order.

I highly doubt it. It's nice to think that the GPU vendors would hold hands and take a stand against such fascism. Realistically, if AMD shunned DRM, it would find itself at odds with MS (things like DirectX licensing and driver certification) and the MAFIAA. Competitors would not follow suit for the sake of idealism. They would kick AMD while it was down and take as much market share as they could.

[DaemonFC]

I don't think it's reasonable to compare gun control and DRM.

Guns kill people, DRM prevents people from using something they bought in the manner which they want to use it.

DRM applied to a real world example would be far more absurd.

You buy a car, the car has DRM. All cars have DRM because the manufacturer wants to segment and micromanage their market. When you want to drive your car on dirt roads, you need to buy another license. When you want to drive your car above 50 miles per hour you need to buy a new license. When you want to drive your car after 6 PM or on weekends, you need to buy another license. Every time you hit a pot hole, it confuses your car, which freaks out and wants you to buy a new license.

(I just described Microsoft Activation and Anytime Upgrade, silly aren't they?)

Movie an music studios are just as absurd as that. You want to listen to music so you buy a CD. You want to play that CD where other people might listen to it? Now you need a broadcaster's license!

Say you play your CD in a store you own. You need to buy the CD, buy a broadcasting license, then keep track of how many customers come into your shop and how many songs they listened to (even partials) so you know how many listens to pay the RIAA for. After you pay the RIAA, they split up the money and roughly 90% of it goes to them and the rest goes to whoever is currently on the billboard top 10 even if it's not what you played.

(Yes, this is not an exageration.)

Buying licenses to use copyrighted material doesn't actually give you very many rights to use it, and it's designed so that they can make you PAY and PAY and PAY and PAY them.

If you've ever played a CD and someone else heard it, you've committed copyright infringement. You're a pirate. Same exact thing as someone who shares a music file over a peer to peer network.

The RIAA and MPAA are now controlling how software (Windows and OS X) as well as hardware (pretty much anything on a x86 PC that touches audio or video) is designed.

AMD, Nvidia, and Intel, along with many other companies get their hardware and driver designs dictated to them by companies like Fox, Disney, Universal Studios, MGM.... They're basically the indentured servants of the content cartel now.

They're only too happy to do it to you too, so it's not like they should just be forgiven. Everything that costs them money costs you money when you go to buy their hardware, so as long as they all raise their prices, they're still competitive with each other and don't really care whether you're happy about being screwed by them.

The second effect it has is that they can't tell you how the hardware they sold you works. Bridgman basically gave us how AMD sees it. "You're not important to us, Microsoft and Apple and the MPEG-LA and MPAA are"

[allquixotic]

What is it with wailing on Bridgman?

I'm as anti-DRM as the next guy, but there are a few major oversights which invalidate the claim that Bridgman is pro-DRM or that he approves of the situation with UVD:

• He has never come right out and said that he's pro-DRM
• He is too low on the totem pole to have the capability to change things he disagrees with at AMD, for example the DRM licensing schemes
• He's honestly trying to get us some UVD support on r600g

I approve of DaemonFC's post (because it rings true with me), but you have to separate Bridgman and AMD. The opinions of "AMD" as a company come down to what the shareholders and board of directors and CEO want. I guarantee you that Bridgman has little or no clout with the people who make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars at the top of the AMD ladder. He's probably never even met the CEO, or even the chief executive of the graphics division. Most people haven't.

I would agree with the assertion that AMD doesn't care about us ("us" = people who want fully functional open source graphics drivers and no DRM on our chips). I would say, however, that if Bridgman didn't care about us, he wouldn't have nearly as many posts here.

[DanL]

What is it with wailing on Bridgman?
I would agree with the assertion that AMD doesn't care about us ("us" = people who want fully functional open source graphics drivers and no DRM on our chips). I would say, however, that if Bridgman didn't care about us, he wouldn't have nearly as many posts here.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! You're taking away the easy tangible object to hate and shattering peoples' assumptions. These people might actually have to think about why things are the way they are and you certainly don't want these people to think (look at the disastrous consequences within this thread).