HDCP-compliant devices

[Ohiosnowbird]

So we hit one the other night - new to us. We’ve never had a problem with mirroring content on our iPad to our tv via HDMI until the other night. We were trying to stream Amazon Prime movie and got the message “unable to play the video because your device is not HDCP compliant”. Upon some research, this is now part of any new device you buy, including HDMI cables. Your provider may or may not include this as part of what they stream, in this case Amazon is enforcing it. Another way I’m not allowed to use Prime, in the country you don’t really get 2 or 3 day delivery, so I feel like watching a movie every now and then gets me my monthly $prime worth…

Anyway.

HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is a form of Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM protocols are designed to protect content creators and distributors against piracy.

Here’s the best article I read explaining it: https://www.howtogeek.com/208917/htg-explains-how-hdcp-breaks-your-hdtv-and-how-to-fix-it/

First sentence
HDCP is an anti-piracy protocol built right into the HDMI cable standard, but it doesn't actually work very well, and breaks the viewing experience.

The splitter they recommend is currently unavailable so I am digging around to find another. Anyone got a recommendation? iPad to TV. We don’t have wifi, just hotspot. Verizon cellular iPad.

 

[TheBar]

Your link is from 2017 so this isn't something new. I have 2 PCs connected with HDMI cables that I bought in 2012. One is to a 2012 large screen Vizio TV and another to a 2014 computer monitor. I stream Amazon Prime several times a week with no problem. Are you watching free Prime shows or purchased? Maybe they are only enforcing paid shows.

 

[Ohiosnowbird]

Your link is from 2017 so this isn't something new. I have 2 PCs connected with HDMI cables that I bought in 2012. One is to a 2012 large screen Vizio TV and another to a 2014 computer monitor. I stream Amazon Prime several times a week with no problem. Are you watching free Prime shows or purchased? Maybe they are only enforcing paid shows.

It was one of the few articles that explained it well. We’ve never seen this before. I am watching free prime shows and we have for a while before this without any issues. According to some on Apple forums, Amazon has just begun doing this. I wonder if it’s only for iOS systems Apple iPhone and iPads. One of the movies where this happened was the 1996 version of Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise. We streamed Clarksons Farm 4 without problems- hilarious by the way.

 

[TheBar]

I just streamed the first couple minutes of that show just now with no error messages. It looks like fun so I added it to my watchlist.

My PC is attached to a TV with an old cheapo HDMI cord I got off eBay many years ago.

I'm streaming through the Chrome browser. You can download Chrome on IOS devices so you might try it. If that doesn't work you might buy a cheapo HDMI IOS adapter from eBay. They will be just wires with no chips to signal errors.

So the only variables left would be the iPad and the TV. Have you tried mirroring your screen through a Chromecast device instead of HDMI?

 

[Ohiosnowbird]

I just streamed the first couple minutes of that show just now with no error messages. It looks like fun so I added it to my watchlist.

My PC is attached to a TV with an old cheapo HDMI cord I got off eBay many years ago.

I'm streaming through the Chrome browser. You can download Chrome on IOS devices so you might try it. If that doesn't work you might buy a cheapo HDMI IOS adapter from eBay. They will be just wires with no chips to signal errors.

So the only variables left would be the iPad and the TV. Have you tried mirroring your screen through a Chromecast device instead of HDMI?

Thanks.

We got a new USB C to HDMI 2.1with HDCP support and took the Apple adapter (between the HDMI cable and iPad) out of the equation and prime movies that originally had the HDCP error message play fine now. I know we had old HDMI cables laying around at one point, but apparently that box of stuff got tossed so I couldn’t test my old cables. I don’t know why everything is so complicated anymore. Hope this thread helps someone else!

 

[zulutron]

I know we had old HDMI cables laying around at one point, but apparently that box of stuff got tossed so I couldn’t test my old cables. I don’t know why everything is so complicated anymore.

So you have to buy new cables.