The USB-IF has been none too happy about the various standards that have been pushing other signals than USB down its ports and cables with solutions such as MHL (Mobile High-definition Link) or MYDP (Mobility DisplayPort) being severely frowned upon as they dont conform to the USB standard. It seems like the USB-IF has finally come clean as to why, as it has announced a new USB audio/video device class that will allow for A/V signals to be transported over USB.
Its quite a sneaky move by an organization that has been quite harsh towards any solution that has pushed anything but USB data over the USB interface, especially as the USB standard will now start to compete with MHL and MYDP (even though the latter havent been implemented in any retail hardware were aware of). The details are scarce on the USB-IF website with regards to the new A/V device class, in fact we could find none beyond the press release. We presume its relying on USB 3.0, simply because of the bandwidth high definition video requires, but even this isnt mentioned.
By all intents and purposes it appears that the USB A/V device class will be a major competitor to HDMI as a means of displaying video content on larger screens, be it an HDTV or a projector. The USB-IF is suggesting that the standard is ideal for phones and cameras which is quite easy to understand as these devices already have USB connectivity. Theyre also suggesting it as a means of getting what we presume is uncompressed video from a webcam to a PC for processing before showing it across the internets. The selling point is of course the single interface for data, audio and video, something MHL also offers, at least until you attach the dongle that splits the USB and HDMI signals.
What isnt so clear is if third party chips are needed to be able to push the A/V information from one device to another, something we presume is the case. On top of that theres nary a mention of any interested device partners and without interest from at least a few major industry players, its likely that this is a standard that wont take off. Its also going to require some kind of adapter which will have to contain at least an additional chip or two if you want to connect a USB A/V enabled device to an HDMI port, as we have a feeling this wont be support on the host side with the help of a simple passive adapter.
The good news is that the USB A/V device class licensing is given on a "reciprocal, zero-royalty basis" although we have a feeling that at least a few companies are going to try to get a slice of the cake here, least not Digital Content Protection LLC, the organization behind the HDCP copy protection standard, as theres no way the USB A/V standard is going to be without content copy protection. In as much as the USB A/V device class sounds like a great idea, theres far too little information currently available to draw any conclusions, but were going to try to find out more about it to see what is actually being offered here.
Source: USB-IF (pdf link)
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