[opendtv] Re: Rival display interfaces face off
- From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 27 May 2006 17:40:11 -0400
I think you can mostly avoid the nose yanking by never paying extra to
future proof new purchases with such things as DTCP, HDCP, HDMI, or the
new ones mentioned below.
Rest assured that by the time any of them is a standard they will also
have been cracked and a new one will be on the way. Meanwhile just do
not purchase or watch any content available only on strange new interfaces.
- Tom
Albert Manfredi wrote:
> This article demonstrates EXACTLY why analog interfaces for video and audio
> will continue to be necessary in the foreseeable future. Talk about
> consumers being yanked around by the nose ...
>
> While analog interfaces have stood the test of time, no rational person can
> expect that a digital baseband interface will last longer than any other
> fad. It's too easy for manufacturers to dream up another variant, since
> interoperability among brands is not mandatory or, from a manufacturer's
> point of view, even desirable. One wonders why analog interfaces have been
> so sensible.
>
> Bert
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Rival display interfaces face off
> DisplayPort, UDI duel to deliver digital video
>
> Rick Merritt
> (05/22/2006 9:00 AM EDT)
> URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=188100626
>
> San Jose, Calif. -- Video has hit an impasse on the road to the digital
> home. This summer, separate groups of engineers will finish work on two
> incompatible display interfaces--DisplayPort and the Unified Display
> Interface--vying to become the standard for a secure digital link in
> consumer systems and computers. The pair will compete against two digital
> interfaces already in use--DVI and HDMI.
>
> Thus far, no formal talks are scheduled among advocates of the new
> interfaces, and no one knows just how the competition will shake out. The
> confusion reflects unresolved conflicts among security, interoperability,
> ease of use and low cost at a time when the transition from analog to
> digital media is still in its formative stage.
>
> "We've ended up with a nightmare scenario of multiple standards. It's a
> frightening mess," said Bob O'Don- nell, vice president of clients and
> displays at International Data Corp. (Framingham, Mass.). "The notion of a
> converged display interface may just go away."
>
> But "this is a transition period," said Michael Ep- stein, a manager of
> technology and standards for Philips Intellectual Property and Standards, so
> "everything may not be neat and clean." Epstein is finishing a content
> protection approach for DisplayPort that has the latest security features
> content owners want, but it will not work with the scheme used in today's
> Digital Visual Interface (DVI) and High Definition Multimedia Interface
> (HDMI). "It's not clear there's an immediate need for interoperability,"
> said Epstein, given that shipments of DVI and HDMI are still relatively low
> and the transition to digital still young.
>
> The Unified Display Interface (UDI) uses the same form of content protection
> found in DVI and HDMI. But it lacks features, such as longer encryption keys
> and proximity restrictions, that content owners want to see in
> next-generation systems.
>
> "Everyone would agree having two [new] standards is not desirable. Before
> products become integrated [into chip sets in two or three years], we expect
> to resolve this--but I don't know how," said Simon Ellis, UDI program
> manager at Intel Corp.
>
> All sides agree on the underlying need to shave costs and broaden
> interoperability. Thus they want a single, royalty-free technology that
> could replace low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) inside notebooks,
> supplant VGA in computers and displays, and link to digital TVs, set-top
> boxes and other consumer gear. Content owners fear those older, unsecured
> interfaces will put their movies and TV shows at risk of illegal copying, so
> digital security to plug this "analog hole" is a key motivation,.
>
> "Analog VGA has been the PC standard for 20 years, but now we are seeing
> some pressure for all content to be protected, and we can't do that on an
> analog interface," said Bob Myers, who co-chairs the DisplayPort effort and
> manages a display technology group at Hewlett-Packard Co. "At some point, we
> will have dates by which we need to support copy protection."
>
> According to In-Stat Inc., DVI shipped in more than 60 million systems,
> mainly PCs and peripherals, last year, while HDMI went into fewer than 20
> million systems, mainly digital TVs and set-top boxes. But the two are
> expected to hit parity this year as DVI, which dates back to 1998, peaks and
> HDMI--created in 2002--surges.
>
> As early as 2003, a group of PC makers, including Dell and HP, were chafing
> at HDMI's technical limits and royalty structure. The charge is roughly 4
> cents per system, plus a membership fee that typically runs $15,000 a year.
> They developed DisplayPort as a royalty-free option designed to leapfrog
> HDMI and DVI on several fronts.
>
> DisplayPort taps the electrical layer of today's 2.5-Gbit/s PCI Express bus
> and rides its coattails to bandwidth of up to 10.8 Gbits/s over four
> channels. It also delivers a new and improved copy protection scheme.
> DisplayPort uses a 128-bit encryption key along with AES, rather than the
> 40-bit key used in the high-bandwidth digital content protection (HDCP)
> spec. It adds support for checking the proximity of the transmitter and
> receiver, a new technique to ensure users aren't fooling a system to send
> content out to distant, unauthorized users.
>
> The copy protection scheme will not hit a 1.0 draft until later this summer.
> Then it must go through approval processes at various content organizations,
> such as the Advanced Access Content System, which oversees content
> protection for next-generation DVDs.
>
> To sweeten the pot for OEMs, DisplayPort not only aims to replace the aging
> VGA, which effectively tops out at today's 1,080-progressive-scan
> resolutions. It also wants to replace LVDS, which is being stretched to as
> many as 10 pairs of links between a system and display to handle the
> bandwidth needs inside today's notebook computers.
>
> Backers including Ana- logix Semiconductor, ATI Technologies, Genesis
> Microchip and Nvidia are expected to produce silicon supporting DisplayPort
> before the end of the year. Samsung and Philips are also backing the
> technology, which was officially approved by the 100-plus-member Video
> Electronics Standards Association in a late-April vote.
>
> The rub is DisplayPort's incompatibility with HDCP. "It is not meant to
> interoperate, and it doesn't," said Epstein of Philips. "Content providers
> want to see security improvements with every generation." OEMs could build
> products that support both the new and old copy protection schemes without
> much trouble, he added.
>
> Leslie Chard, president of HDMI Licensing LLC, disagreed, citing projections
> that by the end of 2006 as many as 300 million systems using HDCP may have
> shipped. "How are you going to ask people to use another connector?" Chard
> asked. "I have not heard a demand for more protection from the content
> owners, nor have I heard a demand for lower royalties from OEMs, and we have
> more than 70 HDMI adopters in mainland China."
>
> In addition, although the DisplayPort spec is royalty-free, its contract
> stipulates reasonable and nondiscriminatory licensing for any patents that
> apply it. "If you are a DisplayPort adopter, you don't know what your rate
> will be. Ours is fixed," Chard said, although the HDMI contract does include
> adjustments for inflation.
>
> Building on HDMI
>
> For its part, the Unified Display Interface positions itself as a PC version
> of HDMI, promoted chiefly by Intel and Silicon Image, a Sunnyvale, Calif.,
> chip maker that earlier helped define both the DVI and HDMI specs. UDI seeks
> to maintain compatibility with HDCP so that new systems can link to existing
> digital TVs and set-top boxes. It is targeted squarely at PCs, leaving its
> compatible big brother--HDMI--to own the consumer space.
>
> One thing that's unclear is the road map for HDCP. The technology is owned
> and licensed by Intel, but the semiconductor giant's HDCP representative was
> not available for comment at press time.
>
> Like DisplayPort, UDI is positioned as both an external replacement for VGA
> and an internal replacement for LVDS. It too uses PCI Express and is
> available royalty-free. UDI is in 0.8-version draft today. It plans to
> follow HDMI's example of using three data channels and one clock channel.
> Data rates have not yet been set but are currently estimated to range from
> symbol rates of about 5 bits/s at the low end to more than 8 Gbits/s at the
> high end.
>
> Systems may need an adapter or a UDI-to-HDMI cable to make a physical link.
> Besides Intel and Silicon Image, UDI backers include Apple, LG Electronics,
> National Semiconductor, Nvidia and Samsung.
>
> UDI has slightly more bandwidth than HDMI, but it does not support a few of
> that spec's more consumer-oriented features, including audio and component
> video. That could save PC makers a few cents.
>
> All material on this site Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved.
>
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