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I'm using Arcsoft TMT3 to play Blurays. It's been playing fine for a few years but all of a sudden TMT3 says that my system isn't HDCP compatible. No changes to anything in the system -- possibly a change to Win7, upgrade to SP1. The manufacturer of TMT3 thinks the issue is with the vid card driver but I'm getting the same results before and after an update to the vid card driver.

I wonder if there is a simple tool I can use to determine if my setup is HDCP compliant? That way I can determine if it's an issue with the video card or the player software.

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  • Has the gear attached to the output changed at all? Is there a driver installed for the display itself?
    – Shinrai
    Jul 27, 2011 at 20:18
  • No, TV has been same for 2 years. No driver installed for the display. It's just a pretty standard HDTV.
    – jcollum
    Jul 27, 2011 at 20:35
  • See also this answer for Firefox and / or Linux: superuser.com/questions/1616548/…
    – baptx
    Feb 28 at 18:58

4 Answers 4

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Cyberlink has a free utility that's intended to assess Blu-Ray and 3D playback readiness. While you're asking about the more general case of HDCP compatibility, period, the requirements are essentially the same and this will even break down component by component what the problem is.

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  • It was a good idea, but the utility was a big fail: failed to detect my BD drive, failed to detect my display, failed to detect my software player and said my driver version was 8.x.x when it is more like 275.33. Keep in mind that the setup that I have was successfully playing Blu-Rays just a few weeks ago. I'm trying to troubleshoot why it suddenly wants to stop playing about 30s in to the disc.
    – jcollum
    Jul 29, 2011 at 1:53
  • Ouch! I've used it successfully before myself so I don't know what's different here. (FYI, if it's an Nvidia driver that version number probably is right - the version you see when you download it is the PACKAGE version, not the actual driver version itself. I'm running 266.58 here but Device Manager shows the video driver as 8.17.12.6658 - notice how the last five digits match.)
    – Shinrai
    Jul 29, 2011 at 14:14
  • It may have been reporting correctly then, since I was using the tool over Remote Desktop. I ran it directly on the TV and it found the TV and the BD drive. Arcsoft also has a tool to do this, called BD HD Assistant or something like that.
    – jcollum
    Jul 29, 2011 at 15:44
  • This tool is awesome. I came here because the Win10 Amazon app would not play HD video. The tool determined that a Intel SGX driver was missing and could even install it for me. This incidentally also enabled HTPC video on Amazon!
    – Felix Dombek
    Apr 24, 2020 at 23:22
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The nVidia control panel will display the HDCP status of your card, cable, and display. You'd still need another tool to check the drive and anything else, though.

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Have you recently added any drivers? I think windows disables HDCP when certain drivers are loaded because the drivers could access decrypted data and can't be trusted to not abuse that privilege (unsigned drivers, or if you're running windows with driver signing disabled).

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  • Yikes, hadn't considered that. I haven't changed any components in the system for quite some time, even the mouse has been the same for more than 6 months. Wonder how I'll track down unsigned drivers...
    – jcollum
    Jul 29, 2011 at 16:21
  • Years later I'm pretty sure it was some issue with the BluRay software. I decided to ditch software bluray players after that.
    – jcollum
    Nov 3, 2022 at 23:31
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I was looking for something like this to test if I could watch purchased Amazon videos in HD, but I didn't really want to download and install anything to my machine.

Amazon actually has a free video linked to in their documentation which can give you an idea of whether your setup supports HDCP. One thing that it doesn't seem to do is explain why your setup doesn't support it. (I think in my case it's my dual monitor setup again.)

December 2020 update

The text of the now removed documentation page, from archive.org:

HDCP for Amazon Video on Computers

You can only stream Amazon Video content in HD through your computer's web browser if your computer and connected display screen(s) meet HDCP requirements.

You can check whether your computer is HDCP-compliant by playing this free movie. Use the video player's HD indicator to determine if your device meets requirements:

  • If the HD indicator is illuminated, HDCP requirements have been met and the video is playing in HD.
  • If the HD indicator is dim, HDCP requirements have been met, but the video isn’t playing in HD because your Internet connection isn’t fast enough.
  • If the HD indicator is disabled, HDCP requirements have not been met and the video is playing in SD. Hover your mouse over the HD indicator to see a message explaining why HDCP requirements have not been met.

Note: Some Video Graphics Array (VGA) and Digital Visual Interface (DVI) connections and monitors don't support HDCP, which may prevent your computer from meeting HDCP requirements.

For more information, go to System Requirements for Streaming on Your Computer.

So if you can find a free, HD video on Amazon Prime Video, it sounds like you can verify HDCP on your machine.

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  • 3
    Sadly it doesn't work outside the US.
    – Tony Edgecombe
    Dec 17, 2020 at 17:00
  • And they removed the documentation, with no alternative (that I can find at least). :( Text pulled from the Wayback Machine, but it sounds like if you can find a free video on Amazon Prime Video, you should get an indication on if your setup supports HDCP. If that's not an option, looks like installing a program as suggested by the other answers would be the alternative.
    – James Skemp
    Dec 17, 2020 at 22:19
  • I wonder how they do it though. Clearly there is some JavaScript running in the browser that's checking right?
    – Matthew Herbst
    Jul 6, 2021 at 20:15
  • I don't know if it's JavaScript, or if it's part of the logic that handles video. My assumption was and is the latter. But I honestly don't know.
    – James Skemp
    Jul 7, 2021 at 18:54
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I ran across this because Amazon Prime video isn't playing in HD because HDCP isn't supported.

I found that Chrome has a built in API for testing HDCP status, and there's a demo page that sounds like the simple tool you're looking for: https://googlechrome.github.io/samples/hdcp-detection/

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