There is something wrong with my audio....

Unbeknownst to most consumers, there’s an anti-piracy protocol built right into the HDMI cable standard. Not only does it have a poor track record when it comes to piracy prevention, it outright breaks the viewing experience for many people. Read on as we explain how it works, why it breaks your TV, and how you can fix it.

What Is HDCP?

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is a form of Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM protocols are designed to protect content creators and distributors against piracy. Different companies and industries use different protocols, but the basic premise is the same: DRM locks purchases you make to you and your devices. When you buy a movie on iTunes and can only play it on devices with your account, you’re experiencing DRM.

Content creators and distributors should be afforded some protection, since it’s expensive to create and distribute content. The trouble is that DRM typically makes life more difficult for honest paying consumers—and in many cases outright breaks the experience—while not really doing much to deter piracy. This is the kind of trouble we run into with games that require authorization servers to run; if the company goes under so does the authorization server and suddenly the game won’t run.

In the case of the HDMI standard and digital video, the HDCP DRM standard causes an unfortunate number of headaches for regular old consumers just trying to enjoy their televisions and engage in other legitimate activities.

HDCP was developed by Intel and is used not just with HDMI, but with a variety of digital video standards like DisplayPort and Digital Visual Interface (DVI). It provides for an encrypted connection between a content outputting device (like a Blu-ray player, cable box, or streaming device) on one end and a receiving device (like an HDTV or audio-video receiver) on the other end.

HDCP is everywhere and is built into devices like Blu-ray players, cable boxes, and satellite TV receivers, as well as into streaming video devices like the Roku, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV. It’s also built into laptops and computer hardware, DVRs, and other modern HDMI devices.
Where HDCP Breaks Down

Although HDCP’s underlying encryption and protocols are sophisticated and outside the scope of this article, the basic premise of how it works is quite simple. There is a licensing body that issues licenses for HDCP devices. Each HDCP-compliant device, like your Blu-ray player or Xbox, has a license and the ability to talk to the receiving device on the other end of the HDMI cable.

The outputting device says “Hey display! Are you HDCP compliant? Here is my license, show me your license!” The display (or other HDCP compliant device) returns with “Why yes, I am legit! Here is my license!” When that process works, it happens within a thousandth of a second and you, the consumer, never even notice. You power on your Blu-ray player or DVR, it makes nice with your HDTV, and you live a happy life never knowing what HDCP even is.

Unfortunately, however, there are a host of situations where HDCP gets in the way of consumers doing perfectly legal things with their devices and content. If any device in the chain is not HDCP compliant, the video stream will fail.

For example, if you have an older HDTV set that is not HDCP compliant then you cannot watch any HDCP compliant content on it. If you plug in your HDCP-compliant device to a non-compliant device, you’ll either see a blank screen or an error message like “ERROR: NON-HDCP OUTPUT,” “HDCP unauthorised,” or simply “HDCP ERROR.”

Want to turn that old monitor with integrated speakers into a cheap little video box with a Chromecast? Sorry, there’s a very good chance that old monitor (despite having an HDMI port) is not HDCP compliant. You won’t be streaming anything to it unless you want to dedicate a whole computer to the project.

Want to record your video game sessions or stream them live? It’s hit or miss. Console makers have gotten better about recognizing that players want to record and stream their content, but HDCP is still problematic. The Sony Playstation lineup is a perfect example of this problem. While Sony did release an update in 2014 for the PlayStation 4 that unlocked HDCP while actually playing the game, they can’t provide the same update for the PlayStation 3 because the HDCP output is locked at the chip level in the PS3.