Open-Source HDCP Support Gets Extended To More Platforms

With the Linux 4.17 kernel (not the upcoming 4.16 cycle) there is likely to be added initial HDCP support to Intel's Direct Rendering Manager driver. Ahead of that this High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection support continues getting improved upon.

While Google developers working on Chrome/Chromium OS were the ones originally working on the patches and proposing this HDCP functionality be upstreamed into the mainline i915 DRM Linux driver, coming out today are patches from an Intel developer for extending the HDCP content protection coverage.

With these patches, Haswell, Broadwell, and Broxton generations of Intel graphics can now have HDCP compatibility on Linux. There are also a few fixes to the code for better matching the HDCP 1.4 specification.

If you aren't interested in playing back HDCP-protected content from the Linux desktop (assuming some desktop Linux players wire up the support), fear not, as the HDCP DRM patches do not restrict your rights by itself or interfere with any existing functionality but is just one piece of the puzzle for those wishing to assemble a content protected multimedia stack.