Samsung forum: Samsung Smart TV - development needed

Thank you for being helpful
I read about HDCP here it was good reading.
http://www.hdhes.com/accessories/HDCP.aspx

My PIP issue is not that my Mac mini or my digital receiver or xbox cannot show on the TV, it is that Samsung made PIP to only swap between internal TV card and a HDMI input of ones choice.

For all of us that lacks the possibility to decode satelite within the TV and have to use a box, (very common in Sweden) the PIP function is not useful. I want to be able to swap between two HDCP working video streams added to the TV via HDMI cables.

Eg Xbox/satellite reciever or pc/satellite or even PC and XBox

Yeah, right, HDMI/HDCP royalties.. That will be - let's check: US$0.05 per unit (no matter how many ports or "streams"). HDMI+HDCP royalty is actually a little bit cheaper, so Samsung is paying 4 cents per unit (or perhaps 8 cents, because internally it has 2 built-in HDMI RX in two separate chips). This is completely irrelevant to PIP issues.

Anyway: it's not possible to watch two HDMI inputs concurrently (nor HDMI + Component, HDMI + VGA, VGA + Component) in PIP mode, UE55D7000 hardware architecture doesn't allow such luxuries . That's because HDMI, VGA and Component inputs are muxed (HDMI inputs are actually muxed twice - there is Silicon Image HDMI switch involved as well). HDMI switch has only one output, also there is only one data bus for hi-res video between front-end chip and main SoC.
More elaborate design (without such limitations) is certainly possible; problem is: it will cost about 3-5 dollars more to manufacture..

SmartView/DualView is yet another thing; indeed, it this case limitations are mostly legal, not technical.

Not really. In fact they don't need to add much more hardware-wise. Most of it is already there (at least since SDP83/Chelsea SoC used in B-series models) - this thing is able to process 2 HD video streams just fine. Main CPU is not very relevant here, it's basically not used for video processing.
RAM - yes, you will need two 8MB buffers for 2nd input capture (16MB is not that much; to put things into perspective, for example: 3 year old B650 model has 512MB onboard RAM, and Samsung is wasting about 20% of it - i.e., it's preallocated for various hardware subsystems, but never actually used for anything).

Basically all they need for "HDMI PIP" is an extra HDMI RX/HDCP crypto unit in main SoC (perhaps 2% more chip real estate, most likely less than 1%). My 3-5 dollars estimate was for even more elaborate version (with 2nd analog front-end added, which will allow PIP mode for VGA + Component, Component + SCART, etc.).

Bob,
Thanks for the insight, but I respectfully disagree with your "quite a cost" estimation.
I have real-world experience with numerous custom ASIC/SoC designs (though, to be frank, I'm more of a software guy). Also mixed-signal stuff is not my thing, so certain assumptions I made regarding analog front-end extension may be a little bit off . Still, "3-5 dollars" estimate was not that completely unfounded.
Analog part aside, HDMI/HDCP implementation itself is IMO quite cheap nowadays (cheap to mass-produce, not necessarily cheap to develop, but that's another thing). For example: recent HDMI port processors (with HDCP) - how much do they cost in bulk pricing?

I'm not sure what do you mean by Intel current systems not allowing HDCP crypto in the SoC (???). Apparently Samsung has just broken this rule.. FYI, they shamelessly integrated HDMI RX (HDCP crypto unit included) into their new SDP1106 DTV SoC (used in 2012 ES7000/ES8000 models). I guess we will have to report them to Intel .

Judging from what's inside T-ECPAKUC firmware, SDP1106 has 2 built-in HDMI ports. Knowing Samsung, 2nd port will be left unused (what a waste), and they are yet again going to utilize Silicon Image port processor (SIL9587, or perhaps SIL9489 - there is support for both chips in the firmware) to switch all external HDMI inputs. So, sadly: no decent PIP in this year's flagship models. I know it's not exactly the most wanted feature, but, still - quite a disappointment

Talking about money-wasting: HDCP-related stuff in the SDP1106 is probably completely redundant. AFAIRC (unless things changed a lot since SIL9287?) Silicon Image HDMI switches with InstaPort technology are outputting already decrypted HDMI stream.

Oops, I see; I inadvertently used <s> BB code. Since it's not possible to edit posts on cnet forums, can a moderator please clean it up a little bit for me? Thanks.