6 ms·

It's about time somebody does some reverse engineering and just uploads the needed stuff online to make HDMI 2.1 work in Linux. It's getting absurd at this poin

by klipklop 10mo ago

It's about time somebody does some reverse engineering and just uploads the needed stuff online to make HDMI 2.1 work in Linux. It's getting absurd at this point. TV's need to start including Displayport, HDMI is a giant pain in the ass for gamers.

sounds 10mo ago
I'm switching to DisplayPort
- jauntywundrkind 10mo ago
  That HDMI Forum does not allow TVs to be sold with DisplayPort is a massive reason I think they deserve to have their building surrounded by angry people with pitchforks and torches. Anti-competitive abusers, doing awful things to prevent a better world. DisplayPort actually makes sense as a digital protocol, where-as HDMI inherits all the insane baggage of the analog past & just sucks. HDMI is so awful.
  - somat 10mo ago
    Oh wow, that explains a lot, I sort of always figured it was just market momentum that meant you never see tv's with a display port. sort of like ... we need a digital video link VESA develops DVI ... market gap for tv's identified hdmif develops HDMI which is DVI with an audio channel ... while technically a minor feature that audio link was the killer feature for digital tv's and led to hdmi being the popular choice for tv's VESA develops displayport a packet(vs streaming for DVI and hdmi) based digital link, it's packet nature allows for several interesting features including sending audio, and multiple screens. ... no tv's use it, while display port is better than hdmi it is not better enough to make a difference to the end user and so hdmi remains normal for tv's, you can find a few computer monitor with DP but you have to seek them out. I will have to see if there is some sort of stupid "additional licensing cost" if a tv is produced with displayport, that would explain so much. I don't claim that there are no tv's with DP but I certainly have never seen one.
  - noname120 10mo ago
    > That HDMI Forum does not allow TVs to be sold with DisplayPort Wait what?! This would be jaw-dropping anticompetitive behavior. Could you source this statement?
  - bobdvb 10mo ago
    No, they don't put DP on because every $ of hardware they fit to the TV needs to provide value. DP requires a large board component that may need manual handling, circuit traces (+ decoupling) and silicon on the chip to interface. It then requires software support in the stack and that needs testing/validation. The percentage of people who will actually use DP to connect their TV vs HDMI is tiny. Even people who do have DisplayPort on their monitors will often times connect it with HDMI just because it's the more familiar connector. I spent a decade working in that area and we literally were debating about spending cents on devices that retailed for hundreds, or thousands. The secondary problem that drives that is that ~90% of TVs sold use the same family of chips from MStar, so even if you wanted to go off-track and make something special, you can only do it from off-the-shelf silicon unless you pay a fortune for your own spin of the silicon. If you want to do that then you better commit to buying >1m chips or they won't get out of bed. HDMI forum was founded by mostly TV manufacturers, they're not interested in constraining the market in that way. It's all just been market consolidation and making TVs cheaper through tighter integration.
TheAmazingRace 10mo ago
Not to mention, DisplayPort is the superior standard over HDMI in both technological terms as well as it being royalty free.
- metadat 10mo ago
  As long as you are okay with a 1-3m long cable. Unfortunately, for longer runs, DisplayPort is kind of a nightmare. HDMI tends to "just work" as long as you use fiber optic construction.
  - PunchyHamster 10mo ago
    nothing stops cable makers from making the same for DP
    - brirec 10mo ago
      In fact I’ve used a 100 foot fiber optic DisplayPort cable that I “just bought” on Amazon, admittedly for a LOT of money (like, I think it was about $100 USD, 3 years ago or so).
      - metadat 10mo ago
        That's not actually such a bad price. I didn't know they even made these - cool!
      - jauntywundrkind 10mo ago
        Huh, I thought I had mine earlier. Mine was from May 2021. They were very very new and had very few reviews, and it was $56. For a 100' fiber optic cable that promised 8k60 and was light. This cable is absurdly long. I have no idea how to coil it nicely. At my last place I had three stories, and would sometimes just dangle most of it down to the ground then wind it up from the roof.
      - crote 10mo ago
        I just wish they sold the transceivers separately from the fiber. Being able to use any random length of cheap off-the-shelf SMF/MMF fiber would be so much more convenient than having to get a custom one-off cable. They exist for medium-speed HDMI (see for example [0]), but I haven't seen them for modern high-speed DP yet. https://www.amazon.com/Converter-Extender-Transceiver-module-support/dp/B078J1B6YF https://www.amazon.com/Converter-Extender-Transceiver-module...
nubinetwork 10mo ago
TFA says that AMD has a working 2.1 driver, but the hdmi forum goons rejected it.
- summermusic 10mo ago
  Maybe one day I can pirate an HDMI driver
  - machomaster 10mo ago
    You wouldn't pirate a car, why would you pirate a driver!
    - aleph_minus_one 10mo ago
      > You wouldn't pirate a car, why would you pirate a driver! I wouldn't steal a car, but I would copy one or download one from the internet and 3D-print it.
      - Grisu_FTP 10mo ago
        Yea, IMO piracy is a misnomer. To steal something (or Pirate) you would have to take something which causes the original to disappear from the owner. But Piracy isnt that, you create an unlawful copy, but you didnt steal (IMO) Which is why i cant participate in the "Is AdBlocker Piracy" debate, because for me, not even piracy is piracy :P
  - nicman23 10mo ago
    one day you wont have to
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- throwawayfour 10mo ago
  If they have a working driver since 2 years ago, couldn't they just release it to the community? I imagine most gamers would typically be capable/ok with that.
bootsmann 10mo ago
Isn't HDMI held by TV manufacturers who are looking to make some extra bucks on the side getting a utility from cables/monitors/GPUs? I don't think they would intentionally nuke this revenue stream.
KingLancelot 10mo ago
[dead]
petepete 10mo ago
I'd rather buy a 65-75" computer monitor and put it in my living room. I just don't care about the other things in a TV - I don't want smarts, I don't want speakers, I no longer need a tuner.
- Alupis 10mo ago
  The pixel density, among other things, are very different between a TV and a Monitor. This is why a monitor of similar size will be vastly more expensive than a TV - they're optimized for different viewing experiences/use-cases. For a simple example, a TV usually assumes the viewer isn't sitting just inches away from it...
  - kakacik 10mo ago
    There are differences but man you for sure picked the most incorrect one - 4K say 42" OLED TV and same dimension PC gaming screen have exactly same pixel density, there is no subspace magic.
    - petepete 10mo ago
      I have a 4k 42" OLED Phillips Evnia monitor on my desk. If they sold a 4k 65-75" version of it, I'd buy it in a flash. https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/42M2N8900_00/evnia-gaming-monitor-oled-gaming-monitor https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/42M2N8900_00/evnia-gaming-moni...
ragebol 10mo ago
I'm not a gamer, so honest question: what is PITA with HDMI for gamers?
- fossilwater 10mo ago
  Before HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort already supports high refresh rates (greater than 120Hz) at high resolutions. Also many high-end PC graphics cards offer more DisplayPort ports than HDMI.
  - NekkoDroid 10mo ago
    I think most graphics cards nowadays come with roughtly 3 DP ports and 1 HDMI port. It might be different for things like the Multi-media cards that are on the low-low end of the spectrum (think of GT 730 level in a generation) might have more HDMI ports since they are more intended for such an audience.
ivolimmen 10mo ago
Well HDMI is better than all the standards I used before it. Never did something with DisplayPort but for what I can tell it's Apple related (right?). I used DVI-I, DVI-D, VGA, and even old stuff in the past.
- somat 10mo ago
  There is the vesa standards organization with a pretty good history of successful display connections standards vga(analog video) dvi(digital video) and displayport(packet video) and very little drama affecting the end user with how the connection is used. Contrast this with the hdmi consortium which put together the hdmi standard. originally hdmi was just dvi with a built in audio channel. and while I will concede that the audio channel was a killer feature and resulted in the huge success of hdmi. They really did very little technical work and what work they did do was end user hostile (hdcp rights management) It really is too bad that display-port is sort of relegated to computer monitors as it is better designed and less end user hostile than hdmi. but hdmi with it's built in audio channel won the market for digital video connections and by the time display port was out people were, understandably, reluctant to switch again. While display port is better, it is not enough better to be for the end user to care.
- kakacik 10mo ago
  Have you even bothered reading any discussion here? I can't downvote you but its easy to see why others did so, a very lazy and clueless comment about very basic of tech everybody uses, on Hacker news. You can for sure do better.

sounds 10mo ago

I'm switching to DisplayPort

jauntywundrkind 10mo ago
That HDMI Forum does not allow TVs to be sold with DisplayPort is a massive reason I think they deserve to have their building surrounded by angry people with pitchforks and torches. Anti-competitive abusers, doing awful things to prevent a better world. DisplayPort actually makes sense as a digital protocol, where-as HDMI inherits all the insane baggage of the analog past & just sucks. HDMI is so awful.
- somat 10mo ago
  Oh wow, that explains a lot, I sort of always figured it was just market momentum that meant you never see tv's with a display port. sort of like ... we need a digital video link VESA develops DVI ... market gap for tv's identified hdmif develops HDMI which is DVI with an audio channel ... while technically a minor feature that audio link was the killer feature for digital tv's and led to hdmi being the popular choice for tv's VESA develops displayport a packet(vs streaming for DVI and hdmi) based digital link, it's packet nature allows for several interesting features including sending audio, and multiple screens. ... no tv's use it, while display port is better than hdmi it is not better enough to make a difference to the end user and so hdmi remains normal for tv's, you can find a few computer monitor with DP but you have to seek them out. I will have to see if there is some sort of stupid "additional licensing cost" if a tv is produced with displayport, that would explain so much. I don't claim that there are no tv's with DP but I certainly have never seen one.
- noname120 10mo ago
  > That HDMI Forum does not allow TVs to be sold with DisplayPort Wait what?! This would be jaw-dropping anticompetitive behavior. Could you source this statement?
- bobdvb 10mo ago
  No, they don't put DP on because every $ of hardware they fit to the TV needs to provide value. DP requires a large board component that may need manual handling, circuit traces (+ decoupling) and silicon on the chip to interface. It then requires software support in the stack and that needs testing/validation. The percentage of people who will actually use DP to connect their TV vs HDMI is tiny. Even people who do have DisplayPort on their monitors will often times connect it with HDMI just because it's the more familiar connector. I spent a decade working in that area and we literally were debating about spending cents on devices that retailed for hundreds, or thousands. The secondary problem that drives that is that ~90% of TVs sold use the same family of chips from MStar, so even if you wanted to go off-track and make something special, you can only do it from off-the-shelf silicon unless you pay a fortune for your own spin of the silicon. If you want to do that then you better commit to buying >1m chips or they won't get out of bed. HDMI forum was founded by mostly TV manufacturers, they're not interested in constraining the market in that way. It's all just been market consolidation and making TVs cheaper through tighter integration.

TheAmazingRace 10mo ago

Not to mention, DisplayPort is the superior standard over HDMI in both technological terms as well as it being royalty free.

metadat 10mo ago
As long as you are okay with a 1-3m long cable. Unfortunately, for longer runs, DisplayPort is kind of a nightmare. HDMI tends to "just work" as long as you use fiber optic construction.
- PunchyHamster 10mo ago
  nothing stops cable makers from making the same for DP
  - brirec 10mo ago
    In fact I’ve used a 100 foot fiber optic DisplayPort cable that I “just bought” on Amazon, admittedly for a LOT of money (like, I think it was about $100 USD, 3 years ago or so).
    - metadat 10mo ago
      That's not actually such a bad price. I didn't know they even made these - cool!
    - jauntywundrkind 10mo ago
      Huh, I thought I had mine earlier. Mine was from May 2021. They were very very new and had very few reviews, and it was $56. For a 100' fiber optic cable that promised 8k60 and was light. This cable is absurdly long. I have no idea how to coil it nicely. At my last place I had three stories, and would sometimes just dangle most of it down to the ground then wind it up from the roof.
    - crote 10mo ago
      I just wish they sold the transceivers separately from the fiber. Being able to use any random length of cheap off-the-shelf SMF/MMF fiber would be so much more convenient than having to get a custom one-off cable. They exist for medium-speed HDMI (see for example [0]), but I haven't seen them for modern high-speed DP yet. https://www.amazon.com/Converter-Extender-Transceiver-module-support/dp/B078J1B6YF https://www.amazon.com/Converter-Extender-Transceiver-module...

nubinetwork 10mo ago

TFA says that AMD has a working 2.1 driver, but the hdmi forum goons rejected it.

summermusic 10mo ago
Maybe one day I can pirate an HDMI driver
- machomaster 10mo ago
  You wouldn't pirate a car, why would you pirate a driver!
  - aleph_minus_one 10mo ago
    > You wouldn't pirate a car, why would you pirate a driver! I wouldn't steal a car, but I would copy one or download one from the internet and 3D-print it.
    - Grisu_FTP 10mo ago
      Yea, IMO piracy is a misnomer. To steal something (or Pirate) you would have to take something which causes the original to disappear from the owner. But Piracy isnt that, you create an unlawful copy, but you didnt steal (IMO) Which is why i cant participate in the "Is AdBlocker Piracy" debate, because for me, not even piracy is piracy :P
- nicman23 10mo ago
  one day you wont have to
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
throwawayfour 10mo ago
If they have a working driver since 2 years ago, couldn't they just release it to the community? I imagine most gamers would typically be capable/ok with that.

bootsmann 10mo ago

Isn't HDMI held by TV manufacturers who are looking to make some extra bucks on the side getting a utility from cables/monitors/GPUs? I don't think they would intentionally nuke this revenue stream.

KingLancelot 10mo ago

[dead]

petepete 10mo ago

I'd rather buy a 65-75" computer monitor and put it in my living room. I just don't care about the other things in a TV - I don't want smarts, I don't want speakers, I no longer need a tuner.

Alupis 10mo ago
The pixel density, among other things, are very different between a TV and a Monitor. This is why a monitor of similar size will be vastly more expensive than a TV - they're optimized for different viewing experiences/use-cases. For a simple example, a TV usually assumes the viewer isn't sitting just inches away from it...
- kakacik 10mo ago
  There are differences but man you for sure picked the most incorrect one - 4K say 42" OLED TV and same dimension PC gaming screen have exactly same pixel density, there is no subspace magic.
  - petepete 10mo ago
    I have a 4k 42" OLED Phillips Evnia monitor on my desk. If they sold a 4k 65-75" version of it, I'd buy it in a flash. https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/42M2N8900_00/evnia-gaming-monitor-oled-gaming-monitor https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/42M2N8900_00/evnia-gaming-moni...

ragebol 10mo ago

I'm not a gamer, so honest question: what is PITA with HDMI for gamers?

fossilwater 10mo ago
Before HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort already supports high refresh rates (greater than 120Hz) at high resolutions. Also many high-end PC graphics cards offer more DisplayPort ports than HDMI.
- NekkoDroid 10mo ago
  I think most graphics cards nowadays come with roughtly 3 DP ports and 1 HDMI port. It might be different for things like the Multi-media cards that are on the low-low end of the spectrum (think of GT 730 level in a generation) might have more HDMI ports since they are more intended for such an audience.

ivolimmen 10mo ago

Well HDMI is better than all the standards I used before it. Never did something with DisplayPort but for what I can tell it's Apple related (right?). I used DVI-I, DVI-D, VGA, and even old stuff in the past.

somat 10mo ago
There is the vesa standards organization with a pretty good history of successful display connections standards vga(analog video) dvi(digital video) and displayport(packet video) and very little drama affecting the end user with how the connection is used. Contrast this with the hdmi consortium which put together the hdmi standard. originally hdmi was just dvi with a built in audio channel. and while I will concede that the audio channel was a killer feature and resulted in the huge success of hdmi. They really did very little technical work and what work they did do was end user hostile (hdcp rights management) It really is too bad that display-port is sort of relegated to computer monitors as it is better designed and less end user hostile than hdmi. but hdmi with it's built in audio channel won the market for digital video connections and by the time display port was out people were, understandably, reluctant to switch again. While display port is better, it is not enough better to be for the end user to care.
kakacik 10mo ago
Have you even bothered reading any discussion here? I can't downvote you but its easy to see why others did so, a very lazy and clueless comment about very basic of tech everybody uses, on Hacker news. You can for sure do better.