What happens to HDCP when you go HDMI -> DVI?

[Leros]

I'm looking at getting a settop HD-DVD or BluRay player to connect to a computer monitor. Most of the monitors I'm looking at do not have HDMI, so I would need to convert to DVI.

What happens to HDCP when you convert HDMI to DVI? Will my image get scaled down or will everything look good?

Side queston: How are DVI splitters? Any loss of quality or lag?

 

[Shawn]

I'm not sure about Blu-ray, but I know that currently HD DVD releases don't have content protection turned on yet. This means that movies will play fine without an HDCP display up until the point that the studios turn on content protection. Once they do all movies released after that point will get scaled to 480P, while previous titles will not. I don't believe that this is supposed to happen until 2009 though.

 

[Leros]

So currently, the whole HDCP thing isn't anything to worry about?

 

[GregGreen]

DVI-D will carry HDCP protection also -- but your monitor would need to support HDCP also.

 

[Leros]

Originally posted by: GregGreen
DVI-D will carry HDCP protection also -- but your monitor would need to support HDCP also.

So it sounds like. If I get an HDCP monitor now, I can worry about getting an HDCP video card later on. Which is perfect, because I am happy with my video card now.

 

[jonny13]

One thing to note though is that PowerDVD requires HDCP to play video on a digital connection, regardless of whether the disks have content protection on or not. Most of the newer cards have HDCP for the same price as one without it, so you might as well get one that has it.

Also, I have DVI>HDMI from the PC to my HDTV and it does keep the HDCP signal, like GregGreen says.

 

[Leros]

Originally posted by: jonny13
One thing to note though is that PowerDVD requires HDCP to play video on a digital connection, regardless of whether the disks have content protection on or not. Most of the newer cards have HDCP for the same price as one without it, so you might as well get one that has it.

Also, I have DVI>HDMI from the PC to my HDTV and it does keep the HDCP signal, like GregGreen says.

Thats really interesting. Are there any HD DVD playing programs besides powerDVD that don't require HDCP?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: jonny13
One thing to note though is that PowerDVD requires HDCP to play video on a digital connection, regardless of whether the disks have content protection on or not. Most of the newer cards have HDCP for the same price as one without it, so you might as well get one that has it.

You can get around not having a vid card with HDCP by using AnyDVD.

Also, I have DVI>HDMI from the PC to my HDTV and it does keep the HDCP signal, like GregGreen says.

Yep.

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: Leros

Originally posted by: jonny13
One thing to note though is that PowerDVD requires HDCP to play video on a digital connection, regardless of whether the disks have content protection on or not. Most of the newer cards have HDCP for the same price as one without it, so you might as well get one that has it.

Also, I have DVI>HDMI from the PC to my HDTV and it does keep the HDCP signal, like GregGreen says.

Thats really interesting. Are there any HD DVD playing programs besides powerDVD that don't require HDCP?

Not that I know of. WinDVD is supposed to be coming out with an HD DVD compatible player soon, but I don't know if it will require HDCP also.

PowerDVD will work if you hook up your monitor with D-SUB instead of DVI. You can use DVI without HDCP if you install the program AnyDVD HD.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Originally posted by: Shawn
Not that I know of. WinDVD is supposed to be coming out with an HD DVD compatible player soon, but I don't know if it will require HDCP also.

WinDVD 8 is already available and does require HDCP. I haven't tried it but the concensus over at AVS seems to be that it's not up to snuff yet in PQ or stability. iirc, Nero also has an HD player as well which also requires HDCP. Apparently a developer cannot get a license to produce an HD DVD or BD codec without implementing HDCP.