HDCP woes..Amazon Prime does what?

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ccityinstaller

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 23, 2007
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Hey guys,

I have an interesting issue I am running into with the sig rig below (one VEGA has been removed while in RMA land and a RX 550 has been installed for HTPC duties in its place)...I am running the 18.9.1 drivers, but have used 5 or 6 drivers since the beginning of summer...

My issue is this..I have a 1080P TV hooked up via a displayport to HDMI (active) adapter which is using the latest FF (and Chrome) build to display Amazon Prime shows...I can watch the shows in their decent 1080P quality with no issues at all. Any show on Prime. When I try to watch a movie, I get nothing but the shitty low bitrate 480P option and nothing else. No amount of fiddling will fix this on my end. So let's recap:

1. Amazon Prime Shows work fine. Movies do Not.
2. AMD driver and windows have HDMI link assurance "ON" and HDCP is reported and enabled.
3. TV is hooked up via a displayport to HDMI active adapter. Moving to HDMI port on the RX550 does not fix the issue.
4. Moving the HDMI cable to my primary VEGA (PCI-E 16X slot 1) does not make a difference.
5. Different browsers/versions do not make a difference.
6. Different AMD drivers do not make a difference.
7. Shows work fine in 1080P no matter the port/card used.
8. This happened before and after the Spring (1803 IIRC) Windows 10 update.
9. Netflix plays just fine (but their quality is terrible even with the 4K package).
10. Hulu works great (shows look better then Netflix as well!)

Anyone have any ideas?
 
Do you get any error when trying to play the movie? Or does it just downscale?

Edit 1 :I am thinking it is the active adaptor, but not sure why it is content specific. Does it stream Amazon movies to your normal computer display?
 
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So it's a TV but you are using an adaptor? Why not just run a straight HDMI cable? What's the adaptor for?

According to AMD, the HDMI port on a RX550 supports up to 4K60.
 
Doc Doc said:
Do you get any error when trying to play the movie? Or does it just downscale?

Edit 1 :I am thinking it is the active adaptor, but not sure why it is content specific. Does it stream Amazon movies to your normal computer display?
Click to expand...

No errors, just will not allow any sort of HD stream. It's only on movies. Their "why is HD unavailable" directs you to s generic FAQ that is very outdated.

I am using the adapter because I had a FreeSync display hooked up to the HdMi port since FreeSync will not work via an adapter if the LCD does not have native display port.

I removed the adapter completely, and tried plugging the TV into the HdMi port on both the 550 I want to use for the video playback, and after that did not work, I tried it with the HDMI 2.0 port on my primary VEGA with the same result.

It's definitely something that is Amazon specific, which sucks since I cannot stand watching the movies in a soft blurry mess that is their crappy SD feed.
 
Wow - that's weird, man. So just movies don't work right @1080p? When I get home today I'll swap out the video card on my main rig to test it out. I have a Vega 56 sitting around somewhere. I've been meaning to do a mobo + PS swap anyway, so might as well throw a GPU in there while I'm at it. I'll report back later tonight / tomorrow and see if I get the same issue on Amazon Prime (movies).

Just to rule out the easy stuff - did you try swapping out HDMI cables? Not saying that's the cause but I usually try the easy stuff first since I've seen weird shit happen before. Couldn't hurt if you had spares laying around.
 
dvsman said:
Wow - that's weird, man. So just movies don't work right @1080p? When I get home today I'll swap out the video card on my main rig to test it out. I have a Vega 56 sitting around somewhere. I've been meaning to do a mobo + PS swap anyway, so might as well throw a GPU in there while I'm at it. I'll report back later tonight / tomorrow and see if I get the same issue on Amazon Prime (movies).

Just to rule out the easy stuff - did you try swapping out HDMI cables? Not saying that's the cause but I usually try the easy stuff first since I've seen weird shit happen before. Couldn't hurt if you had spares laying around.
Click to expand...

It is JUST the movies, which is why it is so strange. I cannot get any sort of "HD" at all with any movies..I have checked like 50 random movies, and they all do the same. I am using a brand new 4K rated (whatever the high bitrate cable is 18.4 Gbps IIRC??) cable..It was the first thing I changed. And yes, the signal is going in the proper direction (assuming the cable is labeled correctly)...
 
Using a PC to access streaming services is a crap shoot anyway. It's easier just to use a dedicated box for consumption, I've had no issues with the AppleTV doing 4K with Prime streaming. Obviously you can use their FireTV boxes and sticks also.
 
Disconnect any other displays except your TV and see if that works. I initially thought of the adapter since not all of them support HDCP.
 
Armenius said:
Disconnect any other displays except your TV and see if that works. I initially thought of the adapter since not all of them support HDCP.
Click to expand...

I tried that with no results. Can play shows completely fine on every service including Prime not no movies on Prime. I even downloaded the stupid Amazon windows 10 app only for it to do the same thing. I am not going to worry with it any longer, just really sucks that I pay for a service I am not really getting the full benefit from. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.
 
Have you called Amazon support? Try eliminating any factors and simplify the signal chain. Also make sure to clear your cache.
 
I don't know if this is your problem, but a couple of years ago when I tried watching a movie on Prime from my computer, I had no HD option either. When I contacted support, their response was that HD was not offered on all titles when playing from a computer. It didn't bother me much because I typically watch from my Roku, but I was pretty disappointed in the response. Could be different now and some other problem, but that was my experience (again from a couple years ago).
 
So I pulled the Titan Xp I had in my HTPC (2700x), did some driver cleaning and put in my Vega 56. and loaded new drivers. Plugged HDMI straight in to TV and tried some Prime. Regular Prime shows worked and Prime movies worked (says Best setting out of the 3 options, good, better and best IIRC). As Hitman928 said - might it be particular to the specific movie you're trying to watch?

Like some have said, I use the smart app on my TV most of the time so it just works. I usually only spin up the HTPC for specific reasons or to try some games to see how they look on 4K OLED.
 
dvsman said:
So I pulled the Titan Xp I had in my HTPC (2700x), did some driver cleaning and put in my Vega 56. and loaded new drivers. Plugged HDMI straight in to TV and tried some Prime. Regular Prime shows worked and Prime movies worked (says Best setting out of the 3 options, good, better and best IIRC). As Hitman928 said - might it be particular to the specific movie you're trying to watch?

Like some have said, I use the smart app on my TV most of the time so it just works. I usually only spin up the HTPC for specific reasons or to try some games to see how they look on 4K OLED.
Click to expand...

I've tried it on over 50+ movies over a bunch of driver revisions...I just thought of something though...I have a legit copy of Win 10 Pro, but when I upgraded to the delayed 1803, it will not activate..seems it doesn't like the x370 to x470 Mobo swap..Do you think that is the issue?
I loathe to give MS anymore.money but I'll buy a $10 license to see if that will fix this. Otherwise I'm out of ideas.
 
ccityinstaller said:
I've tried it on over 50+ movies over a bunch of driver revisions...I just thought of something though...I have a legit copy of Win 10 Pro, but when I upgraded to the delayed 1803, it will not activate..seems it doesn't like the x370 to x470 Mobo swap..Do you think that is the issue?
I loathe to give MS anymore.money but I'll buy a $10 license to see if that will fix this. Otherwise I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...

I don't think that would be an issue. You could contact MS and they will help you activate Windows10 though.
 
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