Floppyhead – Digital Media and Streaming

HTPCs are full of surprises, like the annoying EDID issue if you connect to a TV through a receiver.  According to Wikipedia:

Extended display identification data (EDID) is a data structure provided by a computer display to describe its capabilities to a graphics card. It is what enables a modern PC to know what kind of monitor is connected. EDID is defined by a standard published by the Video Electronics Standards Association.

The issue rears its head when you switch your AV Receiver away from your HTPC (or boot-up without your AV Receiver/ TV on and selected to your HTPC) you Video Card loses the signal and thinks that there is no longer any Monitor or Audio device “attached” to your HDMI port.  EDID override was possible using a registry hack provided at AVSforum.com (thanks Tulli!).  However, the hack was device specific and was complicated to implement.

ATI finally decided to address the EDID issue with the release of Catalyst 10.4 drivers for their video cards.  Apparently the fix only works on Windows 7 machines.

Making HTPCs more like a normal consumer electronic device is almost like hitting a moving target.  The elimination of EDID problems is just another small step in that process.