Talk:Mobile High-Definition Link

MyDP?
"Also see" section has a mention of "MyDP", which is not a link anywhere, and the linked DisplayPort page has no mention of it. Kav2k (talk) 08:06, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

What does this mean?

 * "The first implementations dual-purpose the most popular mobile connection (micro USB) and the most popular HDTV connection (HDMI). Other than the connectors being used, no USB nor HDMI technology is being used.  It is exclusively MHL signalling through the connectors and over the cable." --

--JBrown23 (talk) 04:00, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Difference from HDMI
I wish the article explained why and how MHL differs from HDMI. I gather MHL allows to power mobile devices. Is this the only critical difference with HDMI? --ilgiz (talk) 03:40, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I wish it did too, but the people who control the HDMI and MHL specs make great efforts to keep every detail secret, in an ill-conceived attempt to prevent illegal copying of content. You need to pay about $10k for basic access to HDMI documentation, and sign an NDA so you can't publish the information here, or anywhere. The sad thing is that the professional pirates just make bitwise copies of DVDs, Blu-Rays etc, using mildly modified hardware, so don't need to circumvent HDMI copy protection to carry out their criminal activities. It only affects legitimate users who may need to do something slightly non-standard with their own, legally recorded material, and does nothing to prevent serious piracy. But so it is will all such schemes dreamed up by the RIAA/MPAA. It would indeed be nice if all interfaces, protocols, etc were truly free, in the interests of full interoperability. I have a pressing need to be able to derive something very simple, audio word or byte timing (not even data!) from my camcorder output (my legitimate data!), but I can't afford the fee to be able to do it. (I can contrive to do it with an existing HDMI device, in a very ugly way.) This is not the place for political campaigning, but that is what is needed, to free our interfaces for the benefit of the world at large. So sorry, can't help you out as I would like.

But to answer a small part of your question, MHL does indeed allow you to power your mobile device, and very useful it is.

Sorry, forgot to sign first time around. Not trying to hide... Tiger99 (talk) 11:20, 8 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Does anyone know whether an MHL port will be backward compatible to HDMI? I guess that would mean, are the MHL pins lined up with existing HDMI ones, and can you plug an HDMI signal into an 19 pin port and have it recognize that it is indeed HDMI and it adjusts accordingly?  I understand this is how Thunderbolt-over-USB-C works - it dynamically reassigns the pins if operating in TB-mode.


 * If not, I can see this creating a damn mess of cable hell (all over again - how many examples are there of this?). Since HDMI is almost the standard now (I think).  Now if you have a "some HDMI connectors are HDMI, and others are actually MHL and *won't* work with HDMI.."


 * Of course, if it is backward compatible, then you have athe situation of someone getting an MHL cable, plugging it into an HDMI socket, and it doesn't work.. I suppose that MHL devices (the "male end of the cable" devices) could also be required to do the dynamic reassignment to work with an HDMI socket. Jimw338 (talk) 20:12, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Link to dongle
Having linked to the Dongle wiki entry, I have added to that article to explain a bit about MHL to HDMI (etc) dongles, as I feel at least a rudimentary explanation belongs there, with the expectation that anyone interested will follow the link back here. Tiger99 (talk) 10:55, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Why does this article mention DisplayPort royalties?
Is there any reason why this article mentions MPEG-LA's claims against DisplayPort? They are already covered in the DisplayPort article, and it is uncertain whether they'll hold up in court.

Also, it seems weird to specifically mention MPEG-LA's advertised royalty rate for DisplayPort, while being silent on the royalties the MHL Consortium charges the implementors of this specification. --James (talk) 01:48, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

MHL Alt Mode
Regarding, "checked the references and MHL Alt Mode still looks like 4-lane superMHL" by DmitryKo (talk):

Reference 12, "MHL RELEASES ALTERNATE MODE FOR NEW USB TYPE-C CONNECTOR". mhltech.org: "Using the MHL Alt Mode, a USB Type-C connector and cable can support the MHL 3 specification, which includes 4K video, multi-channel surround sound audio, HDCP 2.2 and is backward compatible with existing versions of the MHL specification."

Reference 10, "MHL Consortium Announces SuperMHL – The First Audio/Video Specification With Support Up To 8k". mhltech.org. MHL, LLC, : "New support for the MHL Alt Mode for the USB Type-C specification"

So, Reference 12 clearly specifies that when MHL Alt Mode was released it was released with support for MHL 1/2/3. superMHL was released only after this. Reference 10 specifies that when superMHL was released support for superMHL as well was added to MHL Alt Mode. Hence, MHL Alt Mode supports MHL 1/2/3 and superMHL.

Reference 9: superMHL Specification Version 1.0: Experience Beyond Resolution, MHL Consortium: Here they says, superMHL can work with 1 to 6 TMDS lanes.

Reference 11: "MHL Alt Mode: Optimizing Consumer Video Transmission" (PDF). usb.org. MHL, LLC: Here they says, with MHL Alt Mode MHL 1/2/3 works using only 1 TMDS lane. superMHL works using 1 to 4 TMDS lanes. i.e Depending on the whether source device supports MHL/superMHL transmitter and the resolution of the video, the MHL Alt Mode may use 1/2/4 TMDS lanes.

So, from Reference 9, 10, 11 & 12: MHL Alt Mode supports MHL 1/2/3 or superMHL 1.0 explicitly. And it is not 4-lane superMHL alone.

Announcements and products section
It seems incongruous to list some products that have MHL but don't have any reason be notable like the HTC One and EVO 3D, or ones that were released well after the first ones in 2011, like the LG Nitro HD in December. So I've cleaned-up the History section to cover the first phone to have MHL, and then removed the others in this section. Otherwise, when you consider how long the product list is on the MHL Devices page, how can any sort of list make sense.

Secondly, the other items in this section either redundantly refer to announcements already covered earlier in the article (like superMHL and USB Type-C), or list pointless marketing 'milestones', like '200 adopters reached'. So I've removed the remainder of this section because 'Announcements' is a legacy from when before this article was expanded (for example, edit showing the creation of 'Products Announcements' title: Revision as of 22:03, 28 January 2013 – 209.49.73.33). — C0nanPayne (talk) 00:55, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Other way for Mobile with USB 3.x to HDMI
I would like to read within articles of the Wikipedia in See Also section:

Link describing non MHL, non SlimPort/MyDP way to connect mobile phone with USB 3.0 to HDMI.

As I know there are USB 3 to HDMI dongles which require special drivers for specific operating system (Win, Mac, Lin, Android, OsX) and they can handle HDMI on any mobile phone and other device with just USB 3.0 (and even lower spatial and temporal resolution on just USB 2.0) port just by software change.

However drawback is they require: Driver, and they use CPU processing power (that is also electrical power draining battery).

I would like to read about this,

as USB hubs can be cheaper than HDMI splitters, and HDMI switchers, and HDMI matrixes (that is both switches and splitters in One Box)

and I would like to find out something useful from Wikipedia.