Valve: HDMI Forum Continues to Block HDMI 2.1 for Linux

Posted by OsrsNeedsf2P 12/10/2025

Valve: HDMI Forum Continues to Block HDMI 2.1 for Linux(www.heise.de)

902 points | 486 commentspage 2

molave 12/10/2025|

I'm tired, boss.

The winning move is not to play. The HDMI Forum (and other orgs that behave similarly) prey on our desire for the most/best/(insert superlative here). I get that there's no free lunch. It is also true you see a lot of initiatives and projects do a lot of collective good while demanding much less.

ho_schi 12/11/2025||

Kill HDMI, a bad standard from entertainment industry (Sony).

Use DisplayPort (VESA), integrated into USB Type-C (USB-IF). Anyway better, a flawless with HiDPI and FreeSync.

jrepinc 12/10/2025||

Looks like Valve also needs to start making SteamTV, just a TV without any "smart" spyware/adware OS. Until then.. this blackfriday I ordered a TV that by miracle even has a DisplayPort input (Hisense 65U8Q). Unfortunately still "smart" TV but at least it does not have US-based OS but European made VIDAA which hopefully provides much less spyware than the US-alternatives, if it properly respects the EU GDPR laws. Hopefully Hisense starts/inspires a bigger movement towards DisplayPort and this HDMI mafia dies as soon as possible.

jsheard 12/10/2025||

They could also potentially sidestep the issue by designing a discrete DisplayPort to HDMI chip into the system, so the HDMI 2.1+ implementation is firewalled from the open source stack. Maybe next time, if the HDMI Forum still hasn't budged by then.

mizzack 12/10/2025||

Intel did this with the ARC A750/770

https://community.intel.com/t5/Graphics/HDMI-2-1-UHD-144Hz-A...

jsheard 12/10/2025||

Yeah, the chip they used isn't ideal though because it converts DP1.4 (32Gbit) to HDMI 2.1 (48Gbit), so the bandwidth is bottlenecked on the input side. Ideally you'd want a chip which takes DP2.1, which I'm not sure exists yet, and the upcoming Steam Machine only supports DP1.4 so it wouldn't have helped in that case anyway.

unethical_ban 12/10/2025|||

If Steam could find a good OEM to partner with, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

I don't know if any of the monitor manufacturers have an incentive to help Steam produce an ad-free, open-spec monitor/television.

ZeroCool2u 12/10/2025|||

Imagine a Steam TV with the Steam Box simply built-in. That would be incredibly nice. The worst part of my brand new LG G5 OLED TV is the software itself. I'd pay a good deal more to have Valve responsible for the software running on my TV.

cosmic_cheese 12/10/2025|||

It might be nice for a little while, but the PC component is going to age much more poorly than the display will.

I think the better move would be for Valve to make a really nice gamer-oriented dumb TV that's essentially a 50"+ monitor. Kind of like those BFGDs (Big Format Gaming Displays) sans the exorbitant prices. The size of a Steam Box is in comparison quite diminutive, so finding a place to put it shouldn't be too much of an issue and the ability to swap it out for a newer model with the same screen 5+ years down the road would be nice.

Perz1val 12/17/2025||

Would they? A gaming PC from 2015 is still a decent machine today, just don't use laggy ahh win11

vel0city 12/10/2025||||

There's actually a quasi-standard of TV-compute unit interface made for industrial displays. This could be really nice for things like steam cards that could just slot into TVs with whatever performance you need.

https://youtu.be/q9a3dCd1SQI

jrepinc 12/10/2025||||

And even better make it as open as Steam Deck/Machine and allow to install any GNU/Linux distribution onto it maybe even something with KDE Plasma Bigscreen or something similar if desired.

undersuit 12/10/2025|||

You can get TVs with a "PC slot" like the Sharp M431-2. Just need a Steam Slot.

kaelwd 12/11/2025|||

That's only 60Hz though. Are there any dumb TVs with 120+ Hz VRR and HDR?

yjftsjthsd-h 12/10/2025|||

Is this an actual thing people can buy, or only companies?

undersuit 12/10/2025||

I see one for sale at B&H Photo Video.

aydyn 12/10/2025||

Does it really matter that much? Get a $20 roku or google tv stick or whatever you're comfortable with and don't connect the TV OS.

kotaKat 12/10/2025|||

The TV manufacturers still make it highly annoying to avoid their integrated bullshit now. The setting to launch an LG WebOS TV into its last input on power-on is buried under 'advanced settings' several menus deep.

They would rather launch you into their home hub full of preinstalled apps even if it's not online...

... and the thing came with Microsoft Copilot installed, and you couldn't uninstall it, either.

The future!

amarant 12/10/2025|||

The trick is to not buy a "TV".

Get a really big computer monitor/screen, and put it where you'd normally put your TV.

forbiddenlake 12/10/2025||

This trick unfortunately falls down above a certain size, especially if you want to game at a good fps, and stay in the consumer space (price) rather than the commercial display space. That gigabyte 45 inch is too small to use above your fireplace and view across the living room.

In my case I compromised on needing 4k, and got an lg 65 inch with only HDMI.

pete5x5 12/10/2025|||

I have been doing A/V systems professionally for many years and the best system I have found recently is a Sony TV with an Apple TV. No sign-in needed for the TV for basic setup, can be easily set to come on to a particular input, works well with the Apple remote, and functions well with no internet with just a little corner pop-up saying "no internet" when you first turn it on.

You should update the TV when you first unbox it (ideally via ethernet) and then disconnect it. If you don't like Apple TV then your streaming box of choice.

toast0 12/10/2025|||

> You should update the TV when you first unbox it (ideally via ethernet) and then disconnect it. If you don't like Apple TV then your streaming box of choice.

Can you update via USB? I know my (couple years old now) Samsung TVs have firmware downloads available so you don't even need to connect the TV to anything.

cosmic_cheese 12/10/2025||

Yes. I've owned a couple Android-based Sony TVs in the past decade and they both support updating firmware via USB thumb. They also support installing/removing packages with ADB, just like one would with an Android phone, in the case that there's some offline app you want to use on it. The newer models also do a neat thing where if you have external speakers hooked up, its internal speakers can be repurposed for center channel audio which is super cool.

I'll echo the Apple TV + Sony TV combo. It's very solid.

bee_rider 12/10/2025||||

Apple + Sony sounds like a pretty nice combo, although unsurprisingly, right? It is a combination of premium brands. (Of course often premium brands are actually garbage in a nice shell, so maybe it is surprisingly not surprisingly bad, haha).

Marsymars 12/10/2025|||

> You should update the TV when you first unbox it (ideally via ethernet) and then disconnect it.

You also need to wipe the storage cache for the launcher app after disconnecting to get rid of the junky ads that get downloaded.

intrasight 12/10/2025|||

Are projectors the alternative?

zamadatix 12/10/2025||

Projectors can be an option but the price point to get anything comparably good in terms of picture quality puts you squarely back in commercial TV pricing.

trvz 12/10/2025||||

I don’t own a TV, but would’ve bought a LG just because of webOS if I finally decided to get one. But if it comes with uninstallable Microsoft apps, that changes it.

kotaKat 12/10/2025|||

Yeah. I'm actually really mad at that one. They really ruined webOS.

https://old.reddit.com/r/webos/comments/1o886vc/ms_copilot_c...

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/6/24337033/lg-samsung-micros...

jrepinc 12/10/2025||||

Yup LG was one of my contenders, but once I found out about this MS junk it was immediately off the list.

zamadatix 12/10/2025|||

Out of curiosity, what was the attraction around webOS?

Mindwipe 12/10/2025|||

You can literally click to boot into "dumb mode" on all modern Google TVs such as Sony once and forget about it.

ninth_ant 12/10/2025|||

My recent-model Samsung TV repeatedly opens a pop-up info window about their AI features while my AppleTV is playing movies and shows.

So I didn’t connect the TV OS and it’s still thrown in my face. It’s not the end of the world to have to find the tv remote and dismiss a popup every few days, but I sure would welcome competition who doesn’t try this sort of nonsense.

drewg123 12/10/2025|||

Thank you. I was shopping for a TV to use as a display device for an Apple TV. I was considering a Samsung, but now I no longer am.

zamadatix 12/10/2025||

I've found you have to stay granular, i.e. to the model level rather than the brand level, or you end up with basically no consumer focused brand to pick from (or, even more likely, a misunderstanding that a given brand had no such problems because you didn't casually run across an example).

janc_ 12/11/2025|||

Popping up dialogs in the middle of watching a movie sounds like a hidden manufacturing defect. That should be enough to get your money back on returning it to the shop (assuming your country has anything resembling consumer protection laws).

drnick1 12/11/2025||

Someone should just leak the driver anonymously for everyone to use, and Valve can always claim HDMI compatibility without actually saying it's "HDMI compliant."

VerifiedReports 12/11/2025||

Ugh. It's sad we're still saddled with HDMI at all, when DisplayPort has always been better.

Velocifyer 12/11/2025||

This website seems to have “pay for privacy” because you have to pay to not have trackers.

aryonoco 12/11/2025||

Great news. HDMI can just go and die. If the HdMI Forum really thinks it’s bigger than Linux, it’s wrong. While category of devices in this space are just Linux only. Eventually, they’ll add a DP port, eventually (10 years later)

PunchyHamster 12/10/2025||

Need VDMI that is suspiciously similar and compatible with HDMI standard.

tkuraku 12/11/2025||

I have had nothing but issues with HDMI. Doing development and trying to integrate HDMI into a hardware design. Everything should just be Display Port. No question. It is a racket.

rock_artist 12/11/2025|

Looking at recent AV1 submits on HN. It feels it’s all politics waiting for enough interests to burst.

It might take some years. But it’s not far fetch especially if big players would get into it. Let’s say Netflix interest in games gets them to buy company such as Valve and it aligns with their interests of getting some standard.

They can get TV and displays manufactures support it and end up changing the market.

But for such to happen there needs to be enough interests and incentives.

More comments...