Mixing open and closed source

[agd5f]

I expect we'll get (some amount of) open-source GPU accelerated h.264 through framewave on CAL. If we had that, how much would we really care about the UVD?

DRM aside, the UVD block only provides acceleration of a small part of the video decode and rendering pipeline. With shader programs and textures we could still provide decent acceleration for video, HD or otherwise.

[Kano]

Can you tell my why somebody would need to RE the DRM part? I don't think anybody would spend time for that because it is not needed at all to view unencrypted data - and thats basically the one and only way to watch hd content currently without using Win. When you look at LinDVD - that player is REALLY old and I don't think that there will be an update for BD in the near future. Or did you hear that somebody is working on a new closed source player for BD?

[Svartalf]

I'm not saying you guys don't have the skills and the interest, just that practically speaking nobody has the time to spend on it. I know a number of devs who *could* do great work on a gaming-oriented high performance open source 3D driver but so far all of them feel that there are other, higher priorities for them to work on with the time that they do have available.

This would be me you're talking to- and I'd have to concur a bit with that assessment.

It's not that I can't work on this sort of stuff- there's other fires to fight right at the moment.

However...if my stack of things to do changes up a bit, I might find myself working on things like that as it kind of is needed by the game porting efforts and I honestly need to remove excuses (yes, excuses...) for people to keep using Windows in my business venture that I'm trying to start up.

Priorities change. To say that we won't be getting there isn't the same as "it'll be a while yet".

[Svartalf]

DRM aside, the UVD block only provides acceleration of a small part of the video decode and rendering pipeline. With shader programs and textures we could still provide decent acceleration for video, HD or otherwise.

Heh... Which is why I want OpenGL and GPGPU capabilities first and foremost. With the right muscle in the card, while it'll be less efficient than the purpose built blocks, it'll do well enough with shaders anyhow. The rest is just nice. It's not needed if I've got comparable answers elsewhere.

[Svartalf]

Can you tell my why somebody would need to RE the DRM part? I don't think anybody would spend time for that because it is not needed at all to view unencrypted data - and thats basically the one and only way to watch hd content currently without using Win. When you look at LinDVD - that player is REALLY old and I don't think that there will be an update for BD in the near future. Or did you hear that somebody is working on a new closed source player for BD?

I certainly have little desire to play BD's- while they're nice, clear, and all, they're not worth the price in DRM I'm having to pay to watch them. Sure, when there's no DVD's I'll have an issue. But it's a smallish one.

If they want to view me as a thief. Fine. I'll just quit buying. Just like with any other business that treats me that way.

[bridgman]

I think the content provider position is that they don't view *you* as a thief, it's the other guy

Seriously, this is a chicken-and-egg situation right now. OEMs are starting to get more interested in Linux, and one of their big questions will be whether BD playback is important for their products. If the decision is "yes", then one or more player apps would probably show up fairly quickly. Without an obvious market, though, it's not worth it for the player app vendors to make a releaseable product.

[anduke]

Hello all
Reading this thread there's one aspect I'd like to point out about HD video acceleration; maybe I'm wrong, but from this discussion it appears that the only benefitted from HD video acceleration would be blueray discs (with the obvious concerns revolving around media protection)... My point instead is: what about self product home movies? I mean, with HD video cameras lowering in price, it won't be long that a lot of people (me too) will start messing with HD video on their pc's. At that time I'll want HD acceleration from my video card, regardless of BD...

Bye

[Porter]

Hello all
Reading this thread there's one aspect I'd like to point out about HD video acceleration; maybe I'm wrong, but from this discussion it appears that the only benefitted from HD video acceleration would be blueray discs (with the obvious concerns revolving around media protection)... My point instead is: what about self product home movies? I mean, with HD video cameras lowering in price, it won't be long that a lot of people (me too) will start messing with HD video on their pc's. At that time I'll want HD acceleration from my video card, regardless of BD...

Bye

The short answer is that the content providers don't care what you want, and they'll strongarm hardware vendors into restricting legal use by any method available to them until they've totally consolidated their control over consumers' ability to view or experience any kind of content on any kind of device, worldwide.

I have free tinfoil hats available for those who are interested.

[anduke]

@ Porter
Sure, you have a point
But hardware vendors will need to sell (me and others) their new hardware (video cameras, HD tv's, BD-burners, etc., ATI's cards ). Today I can easily burn my marriage footage (for instance) on a dvd-r and throw it in a player; if there won't be an equivalent of SD chain also for HD video, hardware industry will choke on content providers' greediness: else who'll need some useless hardware? (me not > no new ATI video card to play accelerated HDvideo, no new HD video camera, no BD burner and so on)

[Porter]

@ Porter
Sure, you have a point
But hardware vendors will need to sell (me and others) their new hardware (video cameras, HD tv's, BD-burners, etc., ATI's cards ). Today I can easily burn my marriage footage (for instance) on a dvd-r and throw it in a player; if there won't be an equivalent of SD chain also for HD video, hardware industry will choke on content providers' greediness: else who'll need some useless hardware? (me not > no new ATI video card to play accelerated HDvideo, no new HD video camera, no BD burner and so on)

The content providers don't care one iota about the hardware vendors' business models. As far as the content providers are concerned, the technology vendors only exist to create outlets for the content providers' product. They don't care whether users are prevented from using the devices they've purchased because of content-protection schemes that don't make good sense. All they care about is protecting their bottom line and controlling the traditional supply chain model.

It's a totally broken system, but it will continue until the hardware vendors finally wake up to the fact that they will have to stand up to the content companies and by doing so, protect the consumer. It used to be that government was in the business of protecting consumers, but that went away with the exponential growth of corporate lobby power.