It most likely would prevent you from playing anything HDCP. HDCP is illegal (?) to reverse engineer, and there are special versions of HDCP2 specifically for HDMI. You need a license and a verified device for HDCP.

That might not matter much for an ordinary PC, but this Steam Machine will be competing for the living room with the PS5 and Xbox which have Netflix, Disney, HBO, etc; Not sure if things like Spotify are HDCP-protected.

It will be interesting to see how Valve works out the kinks for that. Honestly in general it'll be interesting, because putting those things on Steam Store basically turns Steam Store into a general software store instead of a game store. And the only cross-platform store at that.

With iOS and Android being broken open, you could have games be completely cross-licensed. I'd say other software too, but sadly with everything going the subscription model, you usually already have cross-licensing, in the form of an account.

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ruined 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

it's removing HDCP protection that's problematic, not adding HDCP protection

looking at the available information on HDCP, it looks like the transmitter does not have to be authenticated - they use the receiver's pubkey, much like a web browser transmits to an HTTPS server

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kalleboo 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

How does HDCP work over DisplayPort? I guess HDCP is a different spec from HDMI itself?

	▲	Dagonfly 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, HDCP is seperate from HDMI and DP. The source and the sink need a HDCP-licence. Both devices have embbed keys that get exchanged to estabish a encrypted channel. Without the licence you can't get the required key material. AFAIK, you can even sell HDMI devices without HDCP. Practically though, every entertainment device needs HDCP support.