What is HDCP?
“HDCP” was developed to protect the intellectual property of software/movie studios and distributors. It stands for ‘High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection’), and is a digital code buried within the bitstream which is output from the digital source. This prevents unauthorised copying of protected materials, much like Macrovision did for analogue recordings. Only since the introduction of this standard have hardware manufacturers been allowed to offer DVI-D or HDMI outputs on their DVD players, High Definition TV tuners etc. Any device which bears the label “HDCP” simply means that it is complaint with the requirements. It does not change the output signal in terms of quality, it only refers to the additional code which it contains. All HDMI products are HDCP compliant and most DVI products are. Products which are not HDCP compliant will not work with products which are. A common area where this problem is encountered is from a DVI-D video card to HDMI display.
HDCP is “High-bandwidth Digital Copy Protection.” HDCP is a form of digital copy protection and was developed to protect digital audio and video content as it travels across digital connections. Contractual requirements from content providers require DISH Network and all other cable and satellite providers to activate HDCP on your receiver. With these new requirements, your TV and your digital video connection to your TV must be HDCP-capable in order to view Pay-Per-View and Video On demand content through a digital connection.
HDCP stands for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection and is an Intel-initiated program that was developed with Silicon Image. This content protection system is mandatory for high-definition playback of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs. If you want to watch movies at 1980×1080, your system will need to support HDCP. If you dont have HDCP support, youll only get a quarter of the resolution. A 75% loss in pixel density is a pretty big deal Wouldnt you be angry if your car was advertised as doing 16 mpg, and you only got 4 mpg? Or if you bought a 2 GHz CPU and found out that it only ran at 500 MHz? As part of the Windows-Vista Ready Monitor article, I was going to publish a list of all of the graphics cards that currently support HDCP. I mean, I remember GPUs dating as far back as the Radeon 8500 that had boasted of HDCP support. Turns out, we were all deceived.
HDCP is considered by many as the worst consumer nightmare brought about by DVI and HDMI technology! Approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in August 2004 and fully embraced by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), it is also seen as the most powerful form of digital content protection – despite its know flaws – ever devised by the industry in an attempt to protect providers of high definition content material.
