[mythtv-users] Intet NUC as frontend?

[Brian J. Murrell]

On Wed, 2013-11-06 at 21:41 -0600, Martin Compton wrote:
> 
> It has to do with the HDMI license requirement to support HDCP (DRM).

If the content origination says there's copyright.

The point here is that you have a TV which displays the content and you
have a device when sends it.  That sending device could be a Bluray
player, Mythtv (HTPC), etc.

The HDCP requirement (AFAIU) is that the the display device has to
respect any assertion on copyright that the sending device makes.
Typically that means not passing on any (hi-def version of a) signal
that is part of a copyright flagged source.

Now, a Bluray device is going to assert a copyright flag to the TV when
it plays copyrighted material.  That means the TV is restricted in what
it can do with what it receives.  Typically it means the TV can display
it but not pass anything on (i.e. the audio, to a receiver) in it's
original hi-def format.  For audio, TVs will typically pass on a
down-sampled 2.0 version of the audio.

However!  A Mythtv HTPC is not going to assert any copyright flags on
anything it sends.  So from the television's perspective it's open
season.  It can display, copy, etc., the original signal.  It can do
whatever it wants.

So, if you have a TV which is restricting what you can do with a signal
you send to it from a Mythtv HTPC then you have a broken TV.  To be
sure, such broken TVs do exist.

I had one of these.  It was a Samsung.  It refused to pass on anything
except a downsampled 2.0 audio to my receiver which was connected to the
TV with an optical connection even on content given to it from my Mythtv
HTPC.  There was most definitely no copyright flag being asserted but
the TV decided to downsample the audio before sending it on anyway.
That TV went back.  I suspect this was mostly laziness.  It's easier to
just downsample everything you pass on rather than to write the code to
check the incoming signal for a copyright flag and only downsample when
it was set.  I don't buy Samsung products any more given that I know
they are lazy.

b.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 490 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20131107/f1720eb3/attachment.sig>