| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
Wiring DRM into the systemWiring DRM into the systemPosted Aug 4, 2005 13:17 UTC (Thu) by kh (subscriber, #19413)Parent article: Wiring DRM into the system
I wonder how much DRM is in our current systems and we just are not aware of it. I had a friend complain to me about his new notebook, he can not show a DVD on his LCD and the external screen simultaneously. I looked into it, and eventually found documentation from the manufacturer of the video card that stated that it was not possible to do so due to hardware limitations. I checked a few other notebooks as posible replacements, but they were also similarly limited. I decided this was simply the case, and reported my research to the notebook's owner, and then he showed me his old notebook (from ~1998 or 1999 running Windows 98) that had no problem displaying video as he wanted. I went back and did some more googling and found some mentions of DRM plans from the video card company, but nothing definitive other than it works on a really old notebook, but not on the newer ones. I called the company and the person I spoke to basically called me a liar when I told him about the old notebook. (I understand the disconnect between the support desk and the engineers of these companies, which is another source of frustration when forced to purchase such proprietary hardware - I really hope something comes from that opensource video card effort. It's really sad to me that we still have to feel RMS's Xerox pain.)
(Log in to post comments)
Wiring DRM into the system Posted Aug 4, 2005 13:38 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] The hardware manufacturer is right, here's what's going on and there's no DRM or secret handshakes or anything...
The modern hardware has effectively two DACs to drive two separate devices, this allows it to run at say 800x600 for a cheap VGA projector while also offering 1024x768 on the main LCD screen. Now the YUV overlay used to accelerate video playback performance is normally connected to the DAC and so it cannot overlay onto two different surfaces at once. Another part would have to be added (more expense, more heat) to "fix" this. Hence if you want the acceleration (and most DVD software does) you can only see DVDs on one of the two output devices.
As to why the older laptop can do it, well first note that the newer laptop CAN display a DVD to both outputs, you just need to use software which doesn't require the accelerated YUV overlay. You may be able to switch this off in the existing software (it's easy in mplayer for example). This will probably run the CPU very hard if you make the DVD fullscreen, but there you are, that's why they added the accelerated overlay hardware... Anyway, the older laptop either happens to have two copies of the overlay hardware (unlikely) or it doesn't have such hardware at all, always relying on CPU power. Does it get pretty hot and maybe "chug" a little bit when playing DVD fullscreen on both outputs?
Wiring DRM into the system Posted Aug 4, 2005 14:56 UTC (Thu) by dmantione (guest, #4640) [Link] Here is a confirmation and further explanation from ATI hardware (I havethe driver DDK's): Both old Mach64 based hardware (Rage LT pro, Rage Mobility) and modern Radeon based hardware (Radeon) do have two CRT controllers. Both the LCD panel and the external CRT display connector can be assigned to one of them, you can both assign to the first, both to the second, or one on each CRT controller. On Mach64 hardware, only the first CRTC has access to the hardware overlay. On Radeon hardware, both CRT controllers can use the overlay. Unfortunately, on Mach64 hardware, only the first CRTC can do display strecthing, necessary to run the laptop panel into something other than its native resolution. So, it makes sense to assign the first CRTC to the laptop panel. Now, you can assign your external monitor to the first monitor, but then it needs to run the same resolution and refresh rate as your LCD panel. You can assign it to the second CRTC, so you can change the resolution, but then you loose access to the overlay. The newer versions of the Mach64 Windows drivers give you the choice if you want to use one or two CRTC's. On the Radeon this choice is still there, but both CRTC's can use the overlay.
Wiring DRM into the system Posted Aug 6, 2005 6:22 UTC (Sat) by zblaxell (subscriber, #26385) [Link] Never ascribe to conspiracy what is adequately explained by routine incompetence.
I had a laptop (Thinkpad A30P) for some years with an ATI Rage Mobility chipset. One day, the laptop broke. It was sent to an authorized IBM repair facility, which was paid a flat rate of $85 to fix the machine. Of course, CDN$85 doesn't buy a lot of highly skilled labor, so instead of doing proper diagnostics and fixing the real problem, they replaced the motherboard, display, case screws, and one or two other parts that broke in the shop. New BIOS firmware came along for the ride.
Before that day, I could play video through Xv overlay on both LCD and external CRT (indeed, I was actually watching a video this way when the failure occurred that caused me to return the laptop). When the laptop came back, I could no longer do this.
No changes to the software on the system occurred during that time (no such change could occur, since I kept the hard disk when I returned the laptop, and reinstalled it into the laptop when it came back--something I always do with laptop repairs since many vendors insist on running Windows software to run self-tests).
There were a number of changes on the motherboard (I had to upgrade the kernel's IDE driver to be able to use APM suspend and resume again), and several other quirky Xv behaviors changed (e.g. if the external CRT is used, its resolution didn't match the LCD, and you try to use Xv, there were different bugs after the repair than before).
The machine also had a rather annoying habit of putting the CRT in what looks like the VGA equivalent of Macrovision mode--random horizontal displacements between the start of video signal and the hsync pulse, which could only be cured by a suspend/resume cycle. This problem was present on the laptop from day one, and is still present now--it could be a genuine bug.
All of this could just be due to unintentional changes in the BIOS--since the driver is ATI and the power management is APM, a _lot_ of what the video subsystem does is specified by the BIOS, and there's a really good reason why IBM doesn't recommend users upgrade the BIOS unless they have specific problems--namely, that BIOS upgrades from IBM are more risky in terms of introducing new show-stopping problems than Linux 2.6.X-rcY kernels. There was a BIOS upgrade which broke 80x60 text mode (black screen on LCD), for example. Another BIOS upgrade intentionally changed the programming of the video chips to make less audible noise from the power supply (I'm not making this up--it's in the release notes from IBM), and a third BIOS upgrade started making noises from the Ethernet controller.
Wiring DRM into the system Posted Aug 6, 2005 11:16 UTC (Sat) by dmantione (guest, #4640) [Link] It is possible that the new video card, with new BIOS puts the chip intotwo CRTC mode. That should be solvable by using the atyfb framebuffer driver. You need a kernel version that includes my LCD support patches, recent 2.4 and 2.6 ones do. It will put the chip into single CRTC mode (because the framebuffer layer hardly can handle multiple CRTC's) and should thus allow display Xv on both displays. If there's still trouble with that driver loaded (even if you are running X), I'd like to hear, allthough I'm no longer capable to debug myself as my Mach64 based laptop has died some time ago.
|
|
||||||||||||