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Valve Responds To Steam Machine's HDMI 2.1 Display Support Controversy [HW support is there, but "The HDMI forum" doesn’t allow with OpenSource drivers] (hothardware.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[+] 211 points 11 months ago (51 children)
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  • [–] 114 points 11 months ago (50 children)

    HDMI requires a license cost, DisplayPort is free.

    What advantage does HDMI hold over DisplayPort?

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  • [–] 148 points 11 months ago (24 children)

    No real technical advantage; it's just owned by the same shitbags that dominate the TV market, so it's the only way to connect to a lot of consumer living-room displays

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  • [–] 51 points 11 months ago (15 children)

    This is the problem. I would switch to DP instantly but my TV only has HDMI ports.

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  • [+] 29 points 11 months ago (14 children)
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  • [–] 37 points 11 months ago (12 children)

    Pretty sure DRMed content refuses to play on those.

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  • [+] 38 points 11 months ago (5 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    🏴‍☠️ Well 🏴‍☠️ I 🏴‍☠️ don’t 🏴‍☠️ care 🏴‍☠️

    Random clips on the web are DRMed these days, like news articles with an embedded video. Many CMSes just DRM all clips. Totally BS but I've seen the video frame staying black on a bunch of sites now.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Then I won't watch those, simple as. Plus, I've been running LibreWolf for like a year, whick blocks all DRM by default, and never in my life did I have issues playing a video. Even live videos from TV channels work 50% of the time.

    Plex tv is the only one that seemingly requires DRM from when I looked into it. Didn't decide to use it specifically for that reason.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    How many embedded DRM-controlled news article videos are you watching on your living room tv though? PC monitors usually have native display port nowadays, no converters or HDMI necessary.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    How many embedded DRM-controlled news article videos are you watching on your living room tv though?

    Obviously it's only a fraction of the overall DRMed content out there but it exists, most notably for live sports that TV stations stream for free on their website but require paid subscriptions when using streaming apps.

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  • [+] -11 points 11 months ago* (5 children)

    TBH you should be playing DRM content though smart TV/TV box apps anyway. Desktop Windows playback is more technically limited (for instance, no auto resolution/refresh rate switching) and aside from that you usually get a worse bitrate stream on a stuttery player.

    I don’t even know about DRM playback on Linux.

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  • [–] 17 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    People who connect TVs to the Internet only invite malware. They usually don't receive big fixes after a few years and tend to spy on all watched content.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    Then watch on a plug-in Android TV box. Or take to the high seas.

    I’m just saying, if you're going to stream from an internet service anyway, video/audio on every HTPC streaming app I’ve tried looks bad. Netflix is the best, and it’s still heavily compromised. And (at least on my Sony), the local Android apps tend to have the best system integration for rescaling, HDR, setting the correct refresh rate, per app IQ settings and so on.

    But that obviously doesn’t apply if you’re hosting it locally though Kodi, Jellyfin, Plex or whatever.

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    You should literally never use the apps built in to your TV. Unless you just really like letting the TV manufacturer know exactly what you are watching and when.

    On Linux you check the box in Firefox that says Allow DRM Content and then yes, as far as I know, you need to be using laptop or a HDMI display.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    Yes HDMI forum are shitbags, but there are definitely technical advantages to HDMI. Just that I can think of, DisplayPort doesn’t have ARC (audio return for sound systems), or CEC (device can turn on TV/display, TV remote can pause movie playing on console, etc) and the max length for a DisplayPort cable is no more than 3 meters before you have to go to expensive active cables. Most of these are easy to work around for most PC setups, but if Valve wants the gabecube to easily fit into living room/TV setups, it does present a challenge.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    All of these supposed advantages are solved by USB-C though. Even the length is higher (5m, I believe). I'd be fine if the DisplayPort connector is gone, but the actual standard is just better for most purposes.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (3 children)

    Cec over USBC?

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    I've never actually used CEC, but everything I've seen says it's just like a USB HID, correct? According to wikipedia, there already exist USB to CEC adapters.

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  • [–] 21 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    My understanding is it’s not even a licensing issue. The HDMI consortium won’t let you include features from 2.1 and 2.2 in an open source driver. it sounds like Valve would be willing to pay, but they’d have to include a closed source driver for the video card.

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago (6 children)

    That's still a licensing issue: you're not allowed to license from the HDMI consortium and then freely sublicense to all your users, which is what open source requires. Hopefully this eventually concludes in the end of relevance for HDMI and we can have a freer, and just better ecosystem in general.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I don’t see “relevance for HDMI” ending anytime soon. Tell me how easy it is to find a TV with DP inputs. Nearly 99% of consumer gear uses HDMI.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    It's easy to find a TV with USB-C input, though not universal. That still uses the DP protocol, and cables with different connectors on opposite ends are both cheaper and more common than those with HDMI as a result. Also, this is only even an issue if HDMI 2.0 isn't fast enough for you, so old devices aren't a concern.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    The only down side is DP Alt mode is optional and must be enabled and supported by the internal controller and system. In order to do that, you might as well just go full DP at that point and somehow I don’t think the manufacturers are gonna spend more money on that. Most likely the USB-C port only supports a mass storage class device.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Valve should ship it as displayport internally and bundle a free HDMI adapter that they sell in the store, that way it's all open source and the HDMI issue is taken care of in the most flippant way possible.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I think thats actually what Intel did on their A series graphics cards. Only had display port out signals but had a display port to HDMI adapter built into the board.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Yes, but that adds more cost. I don't have any hard data on this, but it feels like their current solution works fine, since anyone using more data than 2160p60, who also won't accept chroma subsampling, probably is already using DP. Maybe this is a direction to pressure the HDMI forum, since unlike AMD, valve's drivers are actually open source on the majority of their users' machines. And if things change in the future, external adapters or proprietary adapters are both solutions.

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  • [–] 20 points 11 months ago*

    HDMI has always sucked. I used DVI for the longest time, because HDMI couldn't push enough pixels to a 1920x1200 display (topped out at 1080p for the longest time). Then jumped straight to display port when I finally got a 4k monitor.

    HDMI was always 4-5 years behind other contemporary protocols, and for your trouble, you also got a stack of proprietary bullshit to go with it.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago (6 children)

    I’m not sure where I got this idea, but I thought it was because Display Port doesn’t carry audio, and a single-cable solution was more appealing.

    But apparently Display Port also supports audio, just none of my devices seem to recognize it…?

    Apparently the only advantage of HDMI is ARC (Audio Return Channel), allowing devices to send audio back to the video source, which might be useful in some home theater setups.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    And cec. Idk what arc is but I use cec daily.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    ARC lets you connect your speakers to your TV via HDMI, while also letting your TV control the speakers via CEC. The downside is that it takes up an HDMI port, and they only put like 2 of them on modern TVs.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago

    Conglomerate like Sony pushes it with their business in selling TV and collateral interest in media DRM for their services.

    Other TV OEM companies follow Sony&co. lead because... uhm... "Oh! They make customers.... spend money" broadly shake hands in air

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