Be Suspicious of HDMI

I don't think you hate HDMI enough.

Oh, I hate you.

While most people know it as the cable that you plug into your TV or monitor from your console or PC, the truth is, they're a lot more sketchy than just being a waggling cord. And the new Steam Machine proves that. HDMI pretty much exists as a money pool for the companies that develop the technology, even though there's better free versions available. They charge between five and 10,000 US dollars a year

for licensing the HDMI name, and then charge a per unit cost for each product and HDMI logo used. And then, if companies wanna use a feature like HDCP, they have to pay on top of all of that. They have enough money to sponsor articles about themselves on various outlets.

Yes, HDMI sponsors tech news. DisplayPort, however, does basically everything HDMI does but as a royalty-free option and technically has more features and resolution and refresh rate support. The Steam Machine highlights this nonsense disparity. The DisplayPort 1.4 connector is there, supporting up to 4K 240Hz.

But the HDMI connector on the box is an HDMI 2.1 setup. But Valve cannot call it that. They can only call it HDMI 2.0 because the HDMI organization doesn't license 2.1 for Linux devices. Good on Valve for including a port to connect it to a TV, but I think it's time that the entire industry for displays

but I think it's time that the entire industry for displays switched over to a less greedy company.