5 ms·

Why on earth is a connector standard secret?

by cedws 10mo ago

TheChaplain 10mo ago
How else will you charge people from implementing support for it?
- pipo234 10mo ago
  Well, in video land there is patent pools. For example, you pay nominal fee to download specs from iso/ice 14496-12 to learn the details about BMFF and then pay mpeg-la a couple of dollars per device of it uses an AVC / h264 decoder. These are open standards, but mpeg-la tries to recoup some of the research costs from "freeloaders". Open source implementations like ffmpeg are a bit of a grey area,here
  - littlestymaar 10mo ago
    That's obviously less bad, but let's not pretend this is great either.
    - pipo234 10mo ago
      Yes, not great indeed. This is why we have av1, ogg, etc. with most of the hard research re-done just to sidestep those pesky patents.
  - stephen_g 10mo ago
    For now at least - for H.264 AVC, the patents are expired in most countries and most of the final US patents that may apply to AVC High profile will expire in the first half of 2026 [1]. Except in Brazil, where there are even MPEG-4 patents still in effect (expiring later in 2026) and the H.264 patents will last until the early 2030s, I think because of a rule that gave 10 years extra but is now changed but not retrospective for these patents [2]. 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_MPEG-4_AVC_expired_yet%3F https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_M... 2. https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/brazilian-validity-term-10-years-grant-comes-end-2021-05-24_en https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/news-eve...
zoeysmithe 10mo ago
Why not? Its not an open standard. This is the rent-seeking behavior you get under for-profit capitalist implementations. This is why we push so hard for open standards.
- 0l 10mo ago
  Uh, the HDMI forum is non-profit
  - zoeysmithe 10mo ago
    Profit/non-profit isn't a big difference. Many non-profits are essentially businesses in practice (money spent/managed, the non-profit just a conduit to the for-profit companies that defacto own it), but just don't issue stock. A non-profit can act like this, and DOES. Non-profits exist in a capitalist context and inherit those norms. Again, this is why we aim for open standards. Also a non-profit is just that, its not a charity. A charity is an entirely other classification and even those are regularly used and abused like this.
    - bluGill 10mo ago
      There is more than stock required to be non-profit. I suspect technically a non-profit could issue stock, though it is probably not something any would ever try. Non-profit is a business arrangement where making money isn't the goal. There are many different versions of one though: many local clubs are a non-profit and they exist only for the benefit of their members.
  - interstice 10mo ago
    Then why do they have all this?
  - crote 10mo ago
    That's meaningless, because they delegated licensing to HDMI® Licensing Administrator, Inc. And even if they are somehow a nonprofit: you are also not making any profit when all the money you retrieve via licensing fees is used to pay the royalties of the various patent holders. Nobody cares if the mailing list where they discuss the upcoming specs is managed by a non-profit, the broader HDMI ecosystem is still a massive money grab.
clhodapp 10mo ago
It's not the connector, it's the communication protocol. It's super lame though. It will be great to watch the downfall of HDMI Forum when their artificial dam against DisplayPort in the living room finally breaks.
- MBCook 10mo ago
  Why would display port ever start taking over in the living room?
  - bluGill 10mo ago
    Because the manufactures don't have to pay a license fee and so once someone start using it everyone will follow and then drop hdmi. However so far nobody has cared enough to be first.
  - clhodapp 10mo ago
    It's cheaper to implement than HDMI. So if DisplayPort ports are common on displays, devices will start using it (cheapo devices first). If DisplayPort ports are common on devices, displays won't need HDMI anymore. Plus, industry-wide, it's wildly inefficient to have one high-bandwidth video connector for monitors and a different one for TV's when the technical distinction between those is pretty much non-existent and we could scale our engineering effort across a much wider set of devices. So, after a transition period, cost-saving will eventually lead to DisplayPort taking over.
    - mschuster91 10mo ago
      > when the technical distinction between those is pretty much non-existent I think CEC support is still spotty and ARC (audio return channel) isn't supported at all in DP.
      - 0x457 10mo ago
        Well, CEC is a huge mess and barely works[1]. You're right on ARC and eARC. I'd rather DP had a better version of both, but that wouldn't happen. [1]: If you have a stack that works, I'm happy for you, but trust you're just lucky to have a working combination.
0x457 10mo ago
We also have a secret json schema for Dolby Vision, idk why are you surprised. This talk is about protocol, but the connector.

Why on earth is a connector standard secret?

by cedws 10mo ago

Why on earth is a connector standard secret?

TheChaplain 10mo ago

How else will you charge people from implementing support for it?

pipo234 10mo ago
Well, in video land there is patent pools. For example, you pay nominal fee to download specs from iso/ice 14496-12 to learn the details about BMFF and then pay mpeg-la a couple of dollars per device of it uses an AVC / h264 decoder. These are open standards, but mpeg-la tries to recoup some of the research costs from "freeloaders". Open source implementations like ffmpeg are a bit of a grey area,here
- littlestymaar 10mo ago
  That's obviously less bad, but let's not pretend this is great either.
  - pipo234 10mo ago
    Yes, not great indeed. This is why we have av1, ogg, etc. with most of the hard research re-done just to sidestep those pesky patents.
- stephen_g 10mo ago
  For now at least - for H.264 AVC, the patents are expired in most countries and most of the final US patents that may apply to AVC High profile will expire in the first half of 2026 [1]. Except in Brazil, where there are even MPEG-4 patents still in effect (expiring later in 2026) and the H.264 patents will last until the early 2030s, I think because of a rule that gave 10 years extra but is now changed but not retrospective for these patents [2]. 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_MPEG-4_AVC_expired_yet%3F https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_M... 2. https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/news-events/news/brazilian-validity-term-10-years-grant-comes-end-2021-05-24_en https://intellectual-property-helpdesk.ec.europa.eu/news-eve...

zoeysmithe 10mo ago

Why not? Its not an open standard. This is the rent-seeking behavior you get under for-profit capitalist implementations. This is why we push so hard for open standards.

0l 10mo ago
Uh, the HDMI forum is non-profit
- zoeysmithe 10mo ago
  Profit/non-profit isn't a big difference. Many non-profits are essentially businesses in practice (money spent/managed, the non-profit just a conduit to the for-profit companies that defacto own it), but just don't issue stock. A non-profit can act like this, and DOES. Non-profits exist in a capitalist context and inherit those norms. Again, this is why we aim for open standards. Also a non-profit is just that, its not a charity. A charity is an entirely other classification and even those are regularly used and abused like this.
  - bluGill 10mo ago
    There is more than stock required to be non-profit. I suspect technically a non-profit could issue stock, though it is probably not something any would ever try. Non-profit is a business arrangement where making money isn't the goal. There are many different versions of one though: many local clubs are a non-profit and they exist only for the benefit of their members.
- interstice 10mo ago
  Then why do they have all this?
- crote 10mo ago
  That's meaningless, because they delegated licensing to HDMI® Licensing Administrator, Inc. And even if they are somehow a nonprofit: you are also not making any profit when all the money you retrieve via licensing fees is used to pay the royalties of the various patent holders. Nobody cares if the mailing list where they discuss the upcoming specs is managed by a non-profit, the broader HDMI ecosystem is still a massive money grab.

clhodapp 10mo ago

It's not the connector, it's the communication protocol. It's super lame though. It will be great to watch the downfall of HDMI Forum when their artificial dam against DisplayPort in the living room finally breaks.

MBCook 10mo ago
Why would display port ever start taking over in the living room?
- bluGill 10mo ago
  Because the manufactures don't have to pay a license fee and so once someone start using it everyone will follow and then drop hdmi. However so far nobody has cared enough to be first.
- clhodapp 10mo ago
  It's cheaper to implement than HDMI. So if DisplayPort ports are common on displays, devices will start using it (cheapo devices first). If DisplayPort ports are common on devices, displays won't need HDMI anymore. Plus, industry-wide, it's wildly inefficient to have one high-bandwidth video connector for monitors and a different one for TV's when the technical distinction between those is pretty much non-existent and we could scale our engineering effort across a much wider set of devices. So, after a transition period, cost-saving will eventually lead to DisplayPort taking over.
  - mschuster91 10mo ago
    > when the technical distinction between those is pretty much non-existent I think CEC support is still spotty and ARC (audio return channel) isn't supported at all in DP.
    - 0x457 10mo ago
      Well, CEC is a huge mess and barely works[1]. You're right on ARC and eARC. I'd rather DP had a better version of both, but that wouldn't happen. [1]: If you have a stack that works, I'm happy for you, but trust you're just lucky to have a working combination.

0x457 10mo ago

We also have a secret json schema for Dolby Vision, idk why are you surprised. This talk is about protocol, but the connector.