ATI makes false claims about HDCP support

[disciple]

ATI, most of its partners, retailers claiming shipping consumer cards are HDCP-ready. These claims are untrue

 Last week, several journals reported about the current state of HDCP support in graphics cards. The article touched on several topics, such as what is HDCP, what cards currently shipping supported HDCP, and why were cards being advertised as being HDCP ready, were in actually not ready at all. This was the case for every manufacturer, regardless of ATI and NVIDIA GPUs.

According to the Microsoft specification, high-definition video content that is transported using a DVI signal must be encrypted with HDCP. If HDCP is not present, regardless of whether an attempt at copying is made or not, the video is scaled down to low resolution to deter copying. For a manufacturer that wishes to use HDCP technology on its products, a signup with Digital CP is required. Upon a signed agreement, the manufacturer must pay the committee an annual fee of $15,000 and a royalty fee of $0.005 per product sold.  This allows a manufacturer to provide DVI/HDCP support, sufficient for high-resolution output.  If a manufacturer wants to implement HDMI, a DVI-compatible connector, an additional $15,000 annual fee to HDMI is needed along with $0.04 per product. To actually implement HDCP protection, unique keys are required on a per product basis which is provided by the committee and requires implementation at the manufacturing level. According to NVIDIA, an extra chip is required that stores unique decoding keys.

Most of ATI's recent retail products are currently shipping with advertisements claiming that the products are HDCP-ready. On ATI's website, the term HDCP-ready was also used, for example on the X1900 series specifications page. Curiously, ATI's professional products such as FireGL list "HDCP-compliant". We spoke to ATI and asked it why the terminology difference and what the difference was in its view, between compliance and ready. Unfortunately, we did not receive a sound response to that question. In an interesting turn of events, today ATI has begun to silently remove references to

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=851

[Czar]

The really sneaky part for me was how they changed their product specifications pages by taking out the bits about being HDCP-ready...ahhh the wonders of Google cache

[Crixx_Creww]

hmph

i expect no less from this stupid company. bahh*waves paw @ati*

[W1nTry]

What I wanna know is why crixx harping on the fact that they not encryption ready... you guys even read the article properly? HDCP is encryption at a price that MS is collecting. No wonder manufacturers don't want part of it, it SUCKS. Feh, crixx again saw only ATI and didn't read the rest of the article... your making bush story credible crixx, from the time it's not Nvidia and Intel you just run off. Funny though you CONVENIENTLY and TOTALLY ignored that little part of the article that says

were in actually not ready at all. This was the case for every manufacturer, regardless of ATI and NVIDIA GPUs.

[Crixx_Creww]

*sigh* poor winny

iam not harping on the fact that ati not hdcp ready, i realise that the encryption is a bad thing, another MS evil.

What i AMMM harping on, is the fact that ati hadda go an lieeeeee an bawl that they areeee, to try and create some marketinn stirr and then sneakily changing they websites to disallow all knowledge of ever sayin they were ready, thas realll sh$%^^$@_U_(@_(@$_*$_28_$*#_$*(*_(

[W1nTry]

You mean like Intel being sued for anti-competitive, monopolistic practices which they claim not to do but were successfully pinned for in Japan and now under investigation in Europe and the US??? that kinda saying 1 thing and doing another??? or say squeezing ur buyers with those money incentives??? and saying its not the anti-competitive??? Had not ur competitor come with better tech and was finally in a position to blow ur whistle as being over priced and under performing whilst still squeezing the market for all its worth? Heck even Nvidia is guilty of hyping and then retracting their stance... u seem to forget 5800FX aka dustbuster? lots of HOT air. Besides, according to Nvidia doesn't it just need an extra chip for the encryption which is not something done by the GPU itself? so saying your GPU supports the HD standard is not a lie, saying your video card is a lie. Not a position Nvidia would find itself in, as it doesn't make its own cards :p Its all about marketing, look at the Phantom... that really is a PHANTOM system dread... all dat hype and WHERE IT? come on crixx ur still ONLY coming down on ATI cause you don't support them. Had Nvidia or Intel been revealed for another LIE you'd be very quiet.

[Crixx_Creww]

oh come now winny no need for those base less accusations against daddy intel and uncle nvidia. They always treated us good.

That whole anti competitive thing was just a lot of poppy cock, nothing to take seriously.

I mean, nothing is wrong with offering a good product @ a fair price for the consumer.
And that is precisely what intel did.
If amd could step up their game, then they too could offer the consumers and the pc manufacturers these incentives which result in low prices for the consumer, in the end , its the consumer that benefiting, and that is the bottom line.

People seem to forget that its the consumers, and not the companies, that are important in this equation.

Is not intel fault amd doh have de money to offer good deals to benefit te consumer. So they should not be penalised for amds short commings.

Let amd go make something of their own with out stealing it from intel and whining to the courts about fairness and blah blah. bunch of lazy babies, oh it not fair that we cah use ss2 and 3 cause INTEL make it so please mr court guy person, FORCE intel to allow us to use their technology to make our products uber so we can then steal their customers.

Where is the fairness in the lost hard work intel put in to create the technology that amd just has handed to them now???

PLease, grow up baby amd/ati ites.

P.s the 5800 was scrapped in place of a BETTERRRRR product, the 5900
so it wasnt hype, its almost the same thing, they just made it a better card, we not vex.

[W1nTry]

Crixx give me a good example of how SSE/2/3 has helped the avg office user come on? let's hear it??? The fact is the MAJORITY of PCs in this world DON'T use those Vector processors and never will. Those things are all hype. Anyways, last I checked AMD IS CHEAPER and ALWAYS HAS BEEN. Their performance per $$ is superior to intel, so how bout this, instead of offering all those marketing $$ to ur clients anf threatening not to give it to them should they buy AMD or buy over a certain limit of 'alternative' processors, give them the discount on ur CPU up front. What about letting them use Centrino moniker without having an Intel chipset/wireless/cpu all those things are hurting the consumer but you don't seem to notice that. AMD is cheaper and they PROMOTE they piers, without AMD via, sis, uli, all these chipset makers would have gone BELLY UP. Why do you think they your precious Intel had to TURN TO LOOKY WHO ATI... yeah ATI is making Intel chipset, cause intel a while back stomped on ALL their competing chipset makers by making their chipsets themselves and charging the competition to make for them too. Thats why via, sis and those others DRAG their @$$es to make chipsets for intel now that they have a shortage of chipset manufacturing capacity. And ATI is making MASS in INTEL :p If AMD did not exist and wasn't kicking intel's @$$ intel would be slow to market with new products, have high as hell prices and we'd be stuck with it cause we have no alternative.