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Originally Posted by RevRhubar /forum/post/18244029
Hi, I'm about to buy a new laptop/all-in-one PC and want to make sure it'll deal with HD. I'll likely upgrade to an external Bluray player/burner in the future. But will I need to make sure the laptop has an HDMI i/p to allow HDCP protected material to play with out complaining or having the resolution scaled down?
As far as I know, all the Blu-Ray player software for Windows requires a full secure video path, which includes requiring HDCP on the video path, all the way out to the display. Whether that means HDMI, or DVI+HDCP, it doesn't matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RevRhubar /forum/post/18244029
(And similarly for external HDTV terrestrial/satellite tuners.)
There are no such restrictions for PC ATSC reception equipment. There are, however, *no* devices available to customers to receive either DirecTV or Dish/E* content. Such hardware has been demonstrated, but the units demonstrated have been stated to not be intended to be brought to retail availability. I don't know if Windows Media Center's protected content (like for streams acquired via CableCARD) requires a secure video path; odds are fair that it does, though.
Edit: That said, you can use devices like Hauppauge's PC DVR video capture device, but that uses component video, re-digitizing and re-encoding the video, with some level of quality loss. I think it may even integrate with Windows Media Center now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RevRhubar /forum/post/18244029
Most of the Blu-Ray players I've seen seem to have a USB port but I didnt think HDCP was used over USB?
HDCP isn't used over USB. However, there is an encrypted transport used via the SCSI-3 command subset used for talking to DVD and Blu-Ray drives reading protected content, which does extend to USB attached devices. So yes, officially licensed playback software does encrypt that content wherever possible. HDCP is only an encryption protocol used for the DVI (and HDMI, as it's an offshoot of DVI) protocol layers. (It may be used for secure DisplayLink transports too, not sure.)