
AMD Intentionally Crippled Their HDMI Adapters - saurabh
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQ4MDE
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Robin_Message
Isn't this backwards? Reading the spec (well, the wikipedia page) for DVI, and
making some educated guesses, it seems to me the only way to know that a
DVi->HDMI adapter is connected is if it provides EDID saying it is an HDMI
device.

What is EDID I hear you ask? Well, it's extended display identification data.
Physically, it's provided by an EEPROM on the I2C bus of the DVI port at
address 0x50.

Could it be as simple as only AMD providing adapters that accurately portray
themselves as HDMI devices?

EDIT TO ENTIRELY REVERSE IMPLICATION OF ABOVE QUESTION: No, it sounds like
said EEPROM is necessary to make the video part of such an adapter work at
all.

It seems AMD additionally identify if it is a blessed adapter and only send
audio packets if that is the case. Definitely annoying, but fair given that
there is no actual standard. People would definitely moan more if AMD cards
blew up non-AMD adapters/monitors connected via non-AMD adapters.

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hapless
EDID tells you whether you're connected to an HDMI device.

AMD added a special chip to their adapters that adds extra data to the EDID
data in-line to say "yes i am a real ati adapter." This was totally
unnecessary.

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alanctgardner2
This is entirely sensationalist. There is no safe way to just blast audio data
to any old DVI monitor. Something bad might happen, and AMD didn't want to
take that risk. So they (wisely) including configuration to disable a non-
standard feature when they didn't think it would be supported. The only thing
I could see them doing better is allowing vendors to add themselves to the
whitelist, but that amounts to starting a standards group for audio over DVI.

~~~
hapless
EDID tells you whether you're connected to an HDMI device.

AMD added a special chip to their adapters that adds extra data to the EDID
data in-line to say "yes i am a real ati adapter." This was totally
unnecessary.

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colanderman
Actually, they intentionally crippled their DVI ports. Their HDMI adapters
"uncripple" said ports. FTA:

 _Included with many graphics cards are DVI-to-HDMI adapters for running an
HDMI monitor off a DVI port on modern graphics cards. However, for whatever
reason, if you want to use HDMI audio, AMD only wants you using the adapters
included with the graphics card itself._

~~~
kylec
Is audio even included in DVI? They're probably including it in some non-
standard way that differs from other, non-standard ways that other video card
manufacturers use to adapt DVI to HDMI with audio.

~~~
anonymfus
_> Is audio even included in DVI?_

No, but audio is not on physical layer in HDMI.

Overclockers.ru user vick created scheme of adapter:
[http://i.imgur.com/nBLpzS8.gif](http://i.imgur.com/nBLpzS8.gif)

See full article with Russian instructions about creating DIY adapter there:
[http://people.overclockers.ru/vick/record9](http://people.overclockers.ru/vick/record9)

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anonymfus
Old news, it was discovered in 2007 by overclockers.ru user vick:

[http://people.overclockers.ru/vick/record9](http://people.overclockers.ru/vick/record9)

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andybak
Didn't finish the article as I had to write letters of complaint to the
website and the advertiser about those awful double-underlined ads.

~~~
gnu8
Install Noscript so you can instead write letters of complaint to web
developers who like to use cute scripts to break ordinary links.

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ebbv
This article is sensationalist and inaccurate, and the site has full screen
splash ads without any obvious way to dismiss them. This article should be
removed.

~~~
iSnow
Which ads?

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samograd
Silicon Spectrum is running a Kickstarter to GPL their GPU:

[https://www.facebook.com/siliconspectrum](https://www.facebook.com/siliconspectrum)

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gcb0
why would they do that?

its not like they are crushing nvidia and can do whatever they want with a
captive market.

also not documenting it will prevent people from giving them money for
adapters. ..maybe it is riaa enforcing protections against the analog loopback
on drm content? that is the only explanation. they are getting money to do
that to users. so you can be the product even when paying?

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tehwalrus
I am always perplexed by stories like this. These ports are on all sorts of
machines from all sorts of vendors - deliberately crippling your self-branded
hardware that can easily be swapped out for a working version (potentially
with a refund in some jurisdictions) seems very shortsighted.

