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so for a few days I noticed that that the movies on Amazon Instant weren't as clear as they used to even when it was clearly stated it is in HD. So then I noticed that the HD button was greyed out and when I hovered over it, it says something is not HDCP compliant and that's why it can't play the HD content.

Now the thing is, up until a few days before it worked fine and I have changed nothing since then, not even any driver updates.

I then searched the web and found a tool from CyberLink to check HDCP compliance and it says

Software Player: Not found
Video connection: Digital(without DHCP)

Which is odd, because neither have I changed my monitor nor my DVI cable either.

So what should I do about it?

Relevant specs:

  • OS: Win 7 pro 64bit Samsung SyncMaster P2450H(HDCP compliant according to samsung)
  • Club3D HD7970GHz
  • On the DVI Cable: "E321484 AWM Style 20276 80°C 30V VW1 High Performance DVI-D Cable"
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  • Please mention your OS in the question and tags.
    – slhck
    Feb 3, 2015 at 22:46
  • Disconnect/reconnect your monitor while your computer is on, that will force it to redetect it and hopefully enable HDCP again.
    – user256743
    Feb 4, 2015 at 2:16
  • @AndréDaniel didn't work. Tried multiple times, still no HDCP compliance
    – rfreytag
    Feb 4, 2015 at 17:53

2 Answers 2

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According to Wikipedia:

Some DVD players, HDTV sets, and video projectors have DVI connectors that transmit an encrypted signal for copy protection using the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) protocol. Computers can be connected to HDTV sets over DVI, but the graphics card must support HDCP to play content protected by digital rights management (DRM).

Check/reinstall you drivers.

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  • Can you expand upon the "check/reinstall drivers" part?
    – bwDraco
    Feb 4, 2015 at 1:12
  • What I meant, neither your hardware nor cables have been changed; so the reason can be windows update which screwed your video drivers up. Check if the driver was recently updated.
    – ilkhd
    Feb 4, 2015 at 3:13
  • huh, I booted my PC up today, and checked the HDCP compliance again and now it's back there. It's odd because I haven't reinstalled the drivers yet as I wanted to. But I think I might know what could've caused it. I have a ASUS Xonar DX soundcard, sometimes when I boot the driver doesn't initialize correctly and I end up with either noisy sound or no sound at all. To fix this you just have to disable and reenable the card in the hardware manager. It might be that this action causes the HDCP to stop working.
    – rfreytag
    Feb 4, 2015 at 12:12
  • ah scratch that. It seems that it just randomly won't work for whatever reason.
    – rfreytag
    Feb 4, 2015 at 17:53
  • oh and additionally I reinstalled the video drivers now and still didn't fix it. Looks like I have to pray to the might HDCP god before I turn on my PC and monitor and hop he hears me so it works.
    – rfreytag
    Feb 4, 2015 at 18:04
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Reinstallation of drivers, as mentioned by @ilkhd, worked in my situation. Summary first, details afterwards.

Summary: Ensure you have a cleanly installed set of video drivers. In some cases, revert to the original set provided by the OEM, or the original parts providers, in order to ensure that all parts are working together in the right way in order to provide the correct HDCP verification. Check that the versions display correctly when verifying using different tools and that all system drivers work together. In my case, a combination of incorrect/incompatible newer driver installations messed things up. Fixing the default video driver installation re-enabled the capability to play HDCP content.

Details: In my case, iTunes on Windows 10 running on a laptop of 2015 vintage. Laptop is a Dell with display port capability, though in this case through a dock and connecting to external monitors, one through the display port, the other through VGA. That said, the main need is to be able to display purchased content, like movies, on iTunes on the built-in laptop display. iTunes would error out notifying that the system must either have a built-in display or be connected to a display that has hardware HDCP support, like an HDTV, in order to play HD content. This didn't make sense b/c the laptop HAS a built-in display that is 1080p. Why does it think that it doesn't have this display and/or have HDCP capability?

While looking through the driver details in Device Manager>Display adapters for the Intel graphics, I noticed what looked like an Intel HDCP service executable in the driver list. It is at C:\Windows\system32\IntelCpHDCPSvc.exe. So it seemed that the support for HDCP was there, but somehow not active.

Then I noticed that the driver version wasn't displaying consistently in System Information and from various update tools that scan the versions, such as Dell Update and Intel Update, and even the device manager dialog for the Intel Graphics. Tried a driver update for the Intel graphics. Did not fix the consistency issue and the driver version displayed in some places didn't match the driver version I thought I installed.

Then, I rolled back the intel driver. After doing that, the driver versions displayed consistently, and also showed the version that I had just installed. Go figure.

Tried iTunes again. Got ALMOST the same message. Instead of saying that I need a built in display, it said that I need to move the window fully into the built in display, or to display externally to a TV or other HDCP capable device. The window was on one of the external displays. Moved the window to the built in display and... it works. Content plays, no error message.

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