The trouble with HDCP 2.2 is that every video device in an ecosystem – servers, switches, receivers, displays—must be compliant with the new 4K content-protection scheme to display any image at all.
So what do you do with all of those expensive video components from a few years ago … or last month?
At CEDIA Expo in October, Zigen came out with an HDCP 2.2 fix called The Buffer, which can “connect any HDCP revision source to any HDCP revision sink device.” It’s on display at ISE 2016.
According to the company: If you ever connected a UHD Satellite STB, Sony FMP-X10 UHD player or NVidia Shield UHD Netflix account and got the message: “This TV does not support HDCP 2.2. Make sure you have HDCP 2.2 capable TV” or a similar, make sure you never see it again with The Buffer!
Watch Zigen’s Jeff Murray discuss The Buffer at CEDIA Expo 2015
Several dealers happily discovered this device at CEDIA.
“With all of the yapping about backwards compatibility with HDCP 2.2, Zigen claims to have a magic box that will allow you to make a non-2.2 product work with a 2.2 television,” says Marty Hayse, purchasing director for Phoenix-based Dennis Sage Home Entertainment. “Every installer that does finals will want to have this on their truck.”
But another dealer questioned the legality of The Buffer.
Can you reference your interpretation of the legality of the “first repeater” rule? How a 2.2 HDCP Transmitter can be connected to a 2.2 HDCP repeater and allow the content downstream to non-2.2 HDCP repeaters and non-2.2 HDCP receivers? There are those that think this is legal, those that don’t. Why do you believe it’s legal?
Here’s what Zigen’s Jeff Murray had to say:
The intent for this device is to be used as a bridge for customers who purchased 4K displays before silicon (chips) were available. There are 10 million plus buyers of displays that fit into this category who are already buying 4K, 2.2 sources that don’t work. Our engineers work within the scope of HDMI, HDBaseT, and HDCP to develop our products and are confident that use of The Buffer to display content purchased online (streaming) or viewed via STB or the new Blu-ray player on a display they purchased falls within the intent of the program.
Watch Zigen’s Jeff Murray discuss 4K transmission with CI:
