Gadgetory

you know it wasn't too long ago that if you wanted to get a crisp image and surround sound from your shiny new DVD player it wasn't unrealistic to be using eleven different analog cables mercifully the HDMI cable came to our rescue a few years back with the most recent version 2.0 be capable of carrying 4k at 60 Hertz with up to 32 channels of surround sound and even HDR all on that single cable Wow but of course with all the cool copyrighted content flowing through that one convenient pipe the powers that be wanted to make sure that it couldn't be copied without permission which is why most HDMI source and display devices set top boxes graphics cards TVs even the chromecast also support a feature called high bandwidth digital content protection or Shi T the idea behind HDCP is to keep devices from recording content at its original quality which obviously doesn't mean that you can't capture anything off of your TV or computer if that were the case twitch wouldn't be raking in all that game streaming money HDCP restrictions only kick in with specifically encrypted content most commonly movies and TV shows chances are you've encountered it if you've ever tried to create a backup of a blu-ray you bought or if you've tried to run a screen capture software while watching Netflix which does use HDCP compliant streaming now I know what you're thinking G Linus what could possibly go wrong with such an overwrought anti-piracy scheme well plenty of things there are a number of issues with HDCP that have ended up frustrating average users far more than the people trying to make a quick buck distributing pirated copies of Blade as you might guess the fact that HDMI and HDCP with it has gone through several revisions means that trying to hook up a newer device to an older device can result in your content of choice completely refusing to play and even if all your equipment is relatively new you can still run into dreaded HDCP handshaking errors you see handshaking is a process where each HDMI device recognizes the other and exchanges encryption keys although this usually happens without a hitch some setups especially on the bleeding edge or due to poor after-sales support from the manufacturers as often happens with TVs can be finicky and if you don't turn your devices on in the correct order or your magic 8-ball is giving you some bad news you'll only see snow or a blank screen instead of getting an actual picture this can even happen if you're not trying to watch encrypted content my TV at home I can't access the BIOS yeah and on the subject of TV let's say you're running something like a sports bar and you want to show the big game on lots of screens with HDMI HDCP can cause problems here as well since dumb splitters that you would normally use with an analogue connection won't work due to the digital handshaking and encryption processes instead you're at the mercy of your cable or satellite provider who gets to decide how many displays their set-top boxes will support typically a low number so they can cram extra set-top boxes down your throat for a nominal fee but that isn't to say that there aren't workarounds the most common way to defeat some of these HDCP frustrations is with a proper HDMI splitter many of which ignore HDCP and sometimes allow new and old equipment to play together more nicely of course they also allow you to send your age to my signal to multiple screens but the splitter still has to be recognized by your source device which can be hit or miss depending on the firmware and exactly what version of hdcp your gadgets and the splitter itself support so your mileage may vary so the most frustrating yet unsurprising thing about all of this is that while HDCP is great at angering normal consumers it's actually terrible at stopping piracy as the encryption scheme it uses is relatively weak and has already been cracked including the most recent version at the time of building 2.2 so perhaps one day we'll be able to convince our corporate overlords to ditch HDCP but given that these are the same geniuses that gave us things like rootkits on audio cds mandatory online gameplay and product activation we may be in for a bit of a wait speaking of wait what are you waiting for do you want to build a beautiful website do you want to use tools that make it easy to put together something whether it's for your store or your sports team that you coach or a restaurant that tells other people who you are and what you're about will stop waiting because Squarespace for only 12 bucks a month lets you do just that all of their gorgeous templates feature responsive design all of their websites include a commerce module they've got cover pages which is a feature that allows you to set up a beautiful one-page online presence in minutes they've got their logo designer they've got like tons of great features and they've got 24/7 tech support via live chat and email so stop waiting start a trial with no credit card 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