So your DVI and HDMI inputs on your HDTV gear are not HDCP Complaint - can these become HDCP compliant?

The simple straightforward answer to this rather complex question is that in reality, there is no way you can convert a non-compliant DVI or HDMI enabled device into an HDCP compliant one.

Mind you, we are not saying that it is not possible to make use of some dongle to successfully connect your non-compliant HDTV with an HDCP enabled DVI or HDMI port. 

Yet behind this short statement, there is a full list of issues one needs to look at in order to fully appreciate what are the implications associated with the use of dongles or HDCP stripper boxes that promise to provide a solution to non-compliant devices. 

What is the extent of this problem?

It is estimated that up to end 2004, 10% of all US households had a television set capable of displaying high definition content. The irony here is that a good percentage of those HDTV users did not even had the chance to view any HD material - partly due to lack of HD content and the premium pricing involved, but not only. Many ended up with a HDTV simply because of its large screen or the stylish slim design rather than its HDTV capabilities.

The unfortunate thing however is that most of these HDTVs are not HDCP compliant. Maybe you think that 10% does not represent a high penetration rate - true. But in absolute terms, this implies that the present number of non-compliant HDTV sets is in the region of several million units! These 'old' HDTVs may eventually be doomed to a pre-mature end-of-life - OK not immediately, but surely much earlier than expected by their owners when these early adopters made their expensive purchase.

 

So, is it just Blu ray and HD-DVD?

Up to now, a non-compliant HDCP input on your gear was not an issue in that HDCP was not a requirement, but things have already started to change with the arrival of the new Blu-ray and HD-DVD players.

However, it is not just Blu-ray or HD-DVD that come with HDCP on board. The FCC is pushing so that by February 2009, all over-the-air signals in the US will become 100% digital (Note: The mandate here is for 100% digital television, not 100% HDTV). Initially, the analog shut-off date was end December 2006, but the present number of digital sets is still too low for the shut-off to take place as originally planed.

The situation is not so clear with cable and satellite providers since they can’t eliminate all coaxial, S-Video, composite, and component inputs or they’ll lose most of their business overnight. At the same time, one has to keep in mind that in an attempt to reduce the 'analog hole', so called because of the available unsecured access over analog interconnects, FCC and MPAA want HDCP/HDMI and HDCP/DVI to become the input of necessity in the years to come. OK, so it is not going to be January 2007, but ...

If the FCC and MPAA have their way, any television displaying a program encoded with HDCP not connected through a compliant DVI or HDMI port, might either force the source device to purposely downgrade the video quality, or even refuse to allow their content to be displayed over a non-compliant device. This situation will render non-compliant HDTVs suitable only to display standard or enhanced video!

 

Yet there is even more to this dark side of HDCP reality!

Both Microsoft and Apple will soon be releasing operating systems (OS) that support the playback of true high-definition content. This in itself is a major positive step towards a more complete integration of the home PC with the rest of your entertainment system. But to offer HD content, any device - irrespective of whether it is a TV or a PC - must ensure compliance with specified policies; in other words, it must also be HDCP compliant!

Now, HDCP support on your PC is not just a matter of upgrading to a new OS; the PC video card and the display device or monitor, will have to be HDCP compliant as well, otherwise you will still be excluded from accessing high definition content on your PC.

The truth is that HDCP support on you PC can only be brought about by a major expense.

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HDCP Converters and Stripper Boxes - Do these represent a solution?

Surely, many early adopters of HDTV feel screwed up with the present situation. These have paid top-dollar for the first HDTVs to hit the market, and now, just a few years down the line, their expensive HDTV is doomed to early retirement! Possibly, their non-HDCP compliant HDTV may turn out to be inadequate for displaying HD content by 2010.

In these circumstances, it is only logical to look around and try to find possible solutions that would hopefully serve as a safety valve that will extend by as much as possible, the usability of your HDTV till you will be in a position to upgrade your gear.

As already noted earlier on in our article, there is no way a non-compliant HDCP device can become compliant. This means that there is no way you can use some 'magical' HDCP converter.

Similarly, you cannot use an HDCP/HDMI enabled A/V receiver to switch an HDCP source to a non-compliant display via HDMI (or DVI). The only possibility to connect an HDCP/HDMI source to a non-HDCP one is simply by stripping away the HDCP encryption and then sends a bit-perfect copy of the original signal to your display device - either through a component video connection, or through a non-HDCP DVI or HDMI port. In this manner, you will be re-creating an exact restriction-free replica of the original high definition content. This is exactly what HDCP strippers do!

 

How do HDCP Strippers work? An HDCP stripper box is placed between your playback device (e.g. HD-DVD or Blu-ray player, etc) and your non-HDCP compliant display. It then behaves in a similar manner to a secure device. In order to achieve this, HDCP strippers use the same HDCP chips built into high definition displays. The HDCP source will see a compliant device, so after the authentication process, it will simply proceed to deliver its signal to the HDCP stripper, which will then create the non-restricted copy to forward to the sink device.

This means that an HDCP stripper can effectively enable HDCP sources like HDTV, HD DVD or Blu-ray Discs, to work at full high definition resolution with equipment using either analog or 'unprotected' DVI and HDMI inputs.

 

Are HDCP Strippers legal? Strictly speaking, HDCP Strippers are in reality encryption countermeasure devices. Whether all that the user is doing is just removing the digital rights management from the original signal in order to be able to view it on his or her non-HDCP compliant HDTV is another story, yet we cannot see how these devices can pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

 

Are HDCP strippers freely available on the market? Probably, the first company that came out with such a device was the German company Spatz-Tech, with its DVIMAGIC HDCP stripper. This HDCP stripper was selling online at just under $500 US. It first appeared some time in mid-2005 and was sold and marketed as a DVI amplifier, yet its main attraction was its application as an HDCP stripper.

The DVIMAGIC HDCP Stripper did not come cheap, but then legal issues apart, $500 is just a small price to pay for a working display!

It seems that the DVIMAGIC is no longer available (all product links seems to have been removed from the company's website). However, whatever is the case, we are sure that as long as there is a demand for these boxes, other electronics manufactures will come up with similar solutions as well.

 

But do HDCP Strippers really represent a solution?

If you are one of the not-so-few early adopters of HDTV that have been screwed up with HDCP, you might be thinking that you'll be able to buy an HDCP stripper and solve all your HDTV connectivity problems, but...

Be careful - there is a very serious issue here that may put the $500 or so spent on an HDCP stripper literally down the drain use - in an instant. Once an HDCP stripper hits the (black????) market, all a content provider needs to do to put that box out of use is simply revoke the encryption keys used by the device.

We will not go into the actual detials of how HDCP works here. However, it is important to have an idea what key revocation is in order to fully appreciate why HDCP strippers represent a risky short term solution.

HDCP security is built around a three-stage authentication protocol:

Device authentication that will not allow non-compliant devices to receive HD content. During this process, source and sink devices exchange their 'public' key which they then use in conjunction with their set of special secret keys, in order to arrive at a common computed number that they will eventually use in the encryption process.

Encryption of the actual data that will flow over the link using the special computed number arrived at during the device authentication process.

Key-revocation procedures to ensure that any device which violates the license agreement could be relatively easily blocked from receiving HD data. Key revocation lists are encoded onto the media - meaning the newer the media - e.g. DVD disc - the larger will be the revocation list.

It is this key revocation process that makes HDCP sort of 'future-proof' when it comes to combating the use of fake or rogue devices. Through key revocation, HDCP gives the media, content, or even other devices, the ability to invalidate keys of devices known to be a problem.

This means that everything may be working fine with your $500 HDCP stripper box and then one day, you discover that your HDTV is refusing to show any picture. What happened is that your HDTV source has simply invalidated the keys used by your stripper box - hence it is no longer passing the authentication process.

But then you may argue - what if the keys used by a genuine product have actually leaked out for use by a dongle manufacture to make a rogue device? Does this mean that at some point, a customer may end up with his genuine HDCP compliant Plasma TV blocked simply because the rogue device happens to make use of the same keys?

There is no clear answer to this - we simply have to wait to see how high definition content owners will react to the presence of stripper boxes and the like. Surely, this is much of a headache for the content industry in as much as a source of uncertainty for the HDTV product owner.

However, there is one certainty about HDCP we can all be sure about - HDCP has the power to retroactively disable any HDCP-enabled device!

 

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