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HDMI Forum Continues To Block HDMI 2.1 For Linux, Valve Says (heise.de) 88

Posted by msmash from the stranger-things dept.
New submitter emangwiro shares a report: The HDMI Forum, responsible for the HDMI specification, continues to stonewall open source. Valve's Steam Machine theoretically supports HDMI 2.1, but the mini-PC is software-limited to HDMI 2.0. As a result, more than 60 frames per second at 4K resolution are only possible with limitations. In a statement to Ars Technica, a Valve spokesperson confirmed that HDMI 2.1 support is "still a work-in-progress on the software side." "We've been working on trying to unblock things there."

The Steam Machine uses an AMD Ryzen APU with a Radeon graphics unit. Valve strictly adheres to open-source drivers, but the HDMI Forum is unwilling to disclose the 2.1 specification. According to Valve, they have validated the HDMI 2.1 hardware under Windows to ensure basic functionality.

HDMI Forum Continues To Block HDMI 2.1 For Linux, Valve Says More | Reply

HDMI Forum Continues To Block HDMI 2.1 For Linux, Valve Says

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  • Sherman act? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by coats ( 1068 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @12:01PM (#65848907) Homepage
    This needs an anti-trust lawsuit.
    • anti-law suit doesnt apply to forcing anyone to hand over specifications for free. Open source = give us free shit, we give it away for free. You gonna sue apple for not giving up the specs to operate a M chip ecosystem?
      • Sounds like a valid antitrust suit... or would be but for the insane court system which ignores most anticompetitive actions.
        • Valve dont have to sue, cheaper to just pay the license fee and be on their selling their product to make a buck

          • Open source drivers (Score:5, Informative)

            by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @01:17PM (#65849135) Homepage

            cheaper to just pay the license fee

            The problem is that unlike Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, Valve isn't selling a closed box with proprietary blob.
            Their hardware runs Linux with a close-to-upstream kernel(*).
            Among other, they are using the FOSS stack: Linux kernel driver, user space Mesa libraries, etc.
            All this is GPL meaning that the code is released (or at least pull requests with the latest are wainting to be eventually upstreamed)

            And the HDMI's licencing currently prohibits making that code available (or conversly, GPL means that every body should be able to read and modify the code that does HDMI 2.1 shit even people who haven't paid the license).

            (*): except for the dock. The Steam Deck's dock has a dedicated chip that does the USB-C DisplayPort to HDMI conversion, so no need to tweak anything on the drivers running inside the SteamDeck.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

              Funny thing - you don't need to license HDMI. You need it if you want to use the logo and advertise it as a HDMI port. But the port connector and such are freely available.

              There are tons of devices with "HDMI" ports that aren't certified devices. Maybe you have a few of them plugged in right now without you knowing.

              All certification gets you is a few extra things. But it isn't needed to ship a product. You could call it "Digital Video Output Port" or even "HDMI compatible digital port".

              Of course, without ce

              • You're so focused on the concept of certification that you forgot how the license actually works. This isn't about HDMI or not. It's about publishing closed aspects of the spec in open source. Licensing isn't a problem. Valve could ship a binary blob and have full HDMI 2.1 capability. But they want to lean on the open source cred. Good for them, but we're right back to the days of Linux distros shipping without an mp3 decoder library all for the street cred.

                Naming it something different doesn't magically al

        • Sounds like a valid antitrust suit... or would be but for the insane court system which ignores most anticompetitive actions.

          There's nothing anti-competitive about this. There's no attempt to monopolize or any other aspect that the Sharman act applies.

          It's a closed spec which can't be opened, nothing more. There's literally zero anti-trust related issues here, and Valve could in theory use a closed source binary blob driver for HDMI 2.1. They just don't want to (and I applaud them for it).

          I know that Slashdotter's knowledge of antitrust laws in general sucks, but something weird has happened in the past couple of months that peop

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by higuita ( 129722 )

        Valve can complain to the European commission, while HDMI group can make money, they can't limit competition and must be open to talk

      • This is not about handing over the specifications, this is only about allowing an open source implementation to use the v2.1 features. AMD already wrote the open sourced v2.1 driver years ago but the HDMI Forum have refused to license it.

  • HDMI was born to DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @12:02PM (#65848913) Homepage
    Well, let's see, before HDMI, we had DVI, which worked for both analog and digital, and we had displayport which works. The problem is: the MPA has money and therefor political clout. Oddly, most of the ports on my RTX 4070 are DVI: "1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a"

    • ...that's not DVI, that's DisplayPort.

      DVI is the prequel to HDMI, that single HDMI port on your GPU is also putting out DVI signalling at the lower bitrates. It's also how the various RP2350 "HDMI" boards work, is the DVI protocol is a very simple subset that the early generations of HDMI was built on top of with additional data structures.

    • HDMI is anti-consumer (Score:4, Interesting)

      by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @01:41PM (#65849231) Homepage Journal

      I used to certify HDMI equipment, and the standards for HDMI were always there to protect IP rights even if it made the devices less reliable and harder to use. End-users just know that sometimes when they bought a new Blu-ray player or settop streamer that it didn't want to work at full resolution with their TV or their A/V switch or the various incompatibilities that exist between revisions.

      • On "IP rights": what's to stop me from renting a video, and then just pointing my 4K camera at it to record while playing? Assuming I have a tripod, and can get the ratio close enough, can't I make bootleg videos that way? Sure, it's more work, but it's probably less hassle than futzing with HDMI adapters, and such.

        • Go ahead, there's an analog hole and for the most part the industry doesn't care. With your described setup, you're likely to have a great deal of color loss as the gamut of the screen and your camera are not well matched.

          The goal of HDCP is to make it inconvenient for a typical user to make a high quality copy of a video or stream (like pay-per-view sports streaming tends to want higher levels of content protection). Stopping all possible avenues of copying media is not the goal of DCP (Digital Content Pro

    • The problem is: the MPA has money and therefor political clout.

      Y'know, back in the day of $30 BluRay movies, I could see why the MPA would fight tooth and nail to encrypt HDMI to prevent piracy.

      Color me skeptical that's nearly as important as it used to be. When's the last time you bought a BluRay? Since the vast majority of video watching is streaming now, there's so much less incentive to rip and re-distribute movies. Bigger problems are probably people sharing accounts or using VPNs to circumvent geographic restrictions.

      Same thing seems to have happened to music. Si

    • DRM has nothing to do with it. DisplayPort also has DRM (the same DRM: HDCP) but doesn't have the same restrictions. It's pure licensing bullshit for certain features.

      Also what ports you have on your GPU isn't relevant. The only question is what ports you have on your TV, and I'm guessing it's not DisplayPort as HDMI has a feature set specific to your living room that gives it some significant staying power.

  • So, why has nobody reverse engineered it? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    C'mon hacker people, do your thing and jailbreak this shit!

    • It's not a matter of the knowledge not existing, it's that in order to make an HDMI port you need to license a package of patents and agree to them. Random hacker might not care, but Valve, unfortunately, would be sued up the wazoo if it didn't license the package or broke the agreement that goes with it.

      A DisplayPort to HDMI 2.1 dongle is the way to go, and honestly I'd either put it in the box, or if it's not legal to do that, advise people to order one at the same time, preferably using language along th

    • That has been done, but the difference between a HDMI splitter soldered together, and being allowed to use the protocol as a mass-market company without getting sued into the ground is a different thing. HDMI is heavily patent encumbered. Ideally we move from it to DisplayPort or something a bit more open, but that doesn't seem to be the case, because almost every TV has HDMI.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      One problem is the supply chain control. If you don't play ball then you can't buy the chips you need to make your product. About a decade ago I made a fast HDMI switcher for use in a retail store game display. We were able to get sample chips for product development but the supplier would not sell us chips for volume production until our hardware was HDMI certified. I think the core issue was the chip we used was stripping the HDCP as part of it operation, so was only allowed in displays, not switches

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    My laptop looks like crap compared to a TV monitor. Even an older generation TV set.

    but the HDMI Forum is unwilling to disclose the 2.1 specification.

    Really? The Chinese have it*. And I bought a Chinese converter to rescue a few older but still good plasma and even CRT TV sets.

    *Probably due to the fact that this is where our Windows machines come from.

    • Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)

      by alexru ( 997870 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @12:26PM (#65848981)
      Valve has it too, but they can't make support public in the drivers until the spec is pubic. If they were working with proprietary drivers, there would not be an issue, but Valve are not assholes, and they also can't violate NDAs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Himmy32 ( 650060 )

        ... until the spec is pubic. ...but Valve are not assholes...

        Yeah, that would a dick move.

    • HDMI forum requires a license so while I bet Valve is able to get a hold of everything technical to make it work I'm thinking they'll risk lawsuit if they just make it work, might be something Chinese companies are less concerned about?

    • And I bought a Chinese converter

      I've never seen a converter Chinese or otherwise that actually implements the HDMI 2.1 spec completely. There's more to this than just *claimed* bandwidth, and that "more" bit is very critical in gaming setups, e.g. VRR. I've never seen any converter on the market support it.

  • DisplayPort has been better than HDMI at everything since it began. Why fixate on proprietary shit?

    • Re:why HDMI? (Score:5, Informative)

      by BeepBoopBeep ( 7930446 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @12:40PM (#65849031)
      Its a steam machine, aint no TV have display port.

    • Because consumers keep buying HDMI, even though it sucks.

    • Everything? Displayport supports sending CEC remote codes between devices? It offers eARC for receivers and speakers? No DisplayPort has provided higher resolution and bandwidth for display. That's it. There's far more to these protocols than simply electrical signalling and the DisplayPort spec lacks some features that are virtually essential in the living room now.

      There's a reason no TVs use display port.

  • Of everything uses displayport, hdmi will die off. Consoles are the main driver, so the steam machine going displayport will create a massive incentive for TVs to use displayport. Displayport to HDMI can be bundled with the machine.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by flink ( 18449 )

      Steam is such a tiny player in the handheld/console space, I doubt it will move the needle for most TV manufacturers. Certainly Sony would be in no rush to make things easier for them.

  • At This Point (Score:3)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @12:57PM (#65849089)
    At this point, I think I'm over HDMI. While I haven't used any devices with DisplayPort, I'm inclined to switch to it with the purchase of my next monitor. For computing, I have a lot of issues with HDMI and I'm suspicious of HDCP being the culprit. Also, the latest versions of DisplayPort almost always have superior bandwidth compared to the latest versions of HDMI.

    For home theater, I hate the fact that HDMI couples audio and video together. I understand why other people like that, but for people with advanced setups this is an enormous pain in the ass. If my AV receiver doesn't support the latest HDMI video features, then my only option is to connect the device to the TV and use eARC to send the signal to the receiver. But depending on my TV, certain audio formats aren't supported via eARC. With HDMI, every damned component in the signal chain has to to choose whether or not to support (and pay the requisite licensing fees) for all of the many features offered by the latest versions of HDMI. If I had the option of using separate digital outputs for video and audio, this wouldn't be as much of a problem. I know I'm in a small group of people affected by this, but coupled with the other issues regarding HDMI I'm considering minimizing its use in my house.
    • You just too cheap to upgrade your reciever, 4k video/audio codecs havent changed in over a decade. 4K Dolby Vision/TrueHD Audio are so old now, which means, just buy a modern receiver. Aint no one want 2 cables.

      • You just too cheap to upgrade your reciever

        This post may be a troll, but I'll respond in the event that you're serious. At the time that I bought the Playstation 5, it came with HDMI 2.1 which was recently released and I had just purchased a television that supported HDMI 2.1 as well. However, there were no AV receivers for about a year after that which supported HDMI 2.1, let alone contained all of the sonic qualities and other features that I wanted. And that brand new TV didn't support several Dolby

  • Perpetuating piracy, then (Score:3)

    by RUs1729 ( 10049396 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @01:43PM (#65849251)
    Nothing like artificially constraining people's options to guarantee that piracy will thrive. Is it that they can't learn, or that they won't learn?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      It is they won't learn. They have someone telling them what they want to hear, so won't listen to people who are saying what they don't want to hear. Wishful thinking make life so much easier than facing reality.
    • Hope springs eternal that "the next big thing" will keep people from recording stuff, and provide a one-way direct link to customers' wallets. Meanwhile, I just posted here, https://linux.slashdot.org/com... [slashdot.org], and until Sony makes a camera that won't record a video on a TV screen, anyone can make a bootleg at any time, if they try hard enough.

    • This has literally nothing to do with piracy or DRM which literally did not change in the slightest between the 2.0 and 2.1 spec, but ... sure whatever you say.

  • Hardware designers should switch to the much more capable Display Port.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ukoda ( 537183 )
      Won't happen, companies don't like bad feedback and products returns. The best option is to have both Display Port and HDMI ports. People who understand the difference can then use the Display Port. Remember a typical consumer has a TV with a spare HDMI port and a HDMI cable so they expect to plug that cable into a HDMI port on the new device they brought. When they can't they return product to the store and write a scathing review about how the product didn't work.

      Asking people to learn about Displa
      • yep not like tvs just when to only hdmi. most had hdmi and component for a long time before the anlong tuner where phased out entirely

  • What this says to me is that the future must be something open and not HDMI.

    Anyway, HDMI is not a forever technology ... soon or later something better will take that place. To stay with a technology controlled by "some" is not a good idea.

    • hdmi sticks because because it has drm so movie types make sure to keep pushing it. otherwise we would all be on display port now.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by JustNiz ( 692889 )

      >> soon or later something better will take that place.

      I am under the impression that Displayport already did.

  • Can't Europe (Score:3)

    by kwerle ( 39371 ) <kurt@CircleW.org> on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @03:49PM (#65849657) Homepage Journal

    Can't Europe solve this for us? I expect this kind of crap in the US, but Europe tends to lean a little more toward consumers than copyright holders, right?

    I wonder if pursuing this in Europe would be more fruitful than doing it here.

    • Can't Europe solve this for us? I expect this kind of crap in the US, but Europe tends to lean a little more toward consumers than copyright holders, right?

      I wonder if pursuing this in Europe would be more fruitful than doing it here.

      I'm not sure what you think Europe is, but it is in no way illegal to have a closed spec over here. Never has been. Hell I remind you the Germans were instrumental in the development of MP3. Look how well the open source community did with that spec, a default Linux install didn't ship with an MP3 decoder for 2 decades.

      This is a licensing issue, nothing more nothing less. Europe isn't a magical place where everything is forced to be open source. It's a magical place where cheese tastes good.

  • Done with HDMI (Score:3)

    by StormReaver ( 59959 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @04:01PM (#65849683)

    I will be actively seeking out DisplayPort-compatible devices for all future A/V purchases, and will recommend the same for anyone who asks. I have just become a DisplayPort evangelist.

    • I will be actively seeking out DisplayPort-compatible devices for all future A/V purchases, and will recommend the same for anyone who asks. I have just become a DisplayPort evangelist.

      So you're not going to get any new A/V purchases? The reason DisplayPort is virtually non-existent is that it lacks a chunk of livingroom specific features. E.g. eARC, CEC-Passthrough, those are all things you need in your TV to communicate correctly with receivers, speakers, and bluray players (If you're a physical media kinda gal) There's no Displayport alternative. In fact without HDMI it's not possible to route Dolby TrueHD, Atmos, or DTS:X to a receiver as the alternate audio connections don't have the

      • So you're not going to get any new A/V purchases?

        If necessary, then yes. I don't see that as a problem. I will also make it know to the sales people that lack of DisplayPort is why I am refusing to buy their stuff.

  • Might have to ... (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday December 10, 2025 @04:55PM (#65849791)

    ... give a little ground on the opensource drivers.

    Valve strictly adheres to open-source drivers, but the HDMI Forum is unwilling to disclose the 2.1 specification. According to Valve, they have validated the HDMI 2.1 hardware under Windows to ensure basic functionality.

    In my experience, some Linux systems still need binary drivers for stuff like WiFi or cellular. Just hold your nose while you download the Windows driver and load it with NDISWrapper.

  • Congratulations on making the HDMI interface even more irrelevant compared to Displayport.

  • My understanding is that if you want to make a HDMI device you need to pay a license fee (covering patents and etc) and that the HDMI people can and will use you if you use HDMI without paying.

    And if they control IP rights that allow them to force everyone to pay up, why would this stuff (which isn't even the full spec, just the bits bring done in the driver rather than the firmware or hardware) bring open cause a problem?

    • you also have to keep the implementation closed. Both AMD and Valve are willing to pay the license so that is not the issue, the issue is only that the HDMI Forum refuses to bless AMD:s open source 2.1 driver, which AMD wrote back in 2024.

  • Maybe someone could start an IETF RFC for communications protocol for digital video over local wire and fiber that is open.

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