Thanks bookemdano. I'm looking forward to the results. My concern is with playing videos from broadcasters' websites using Safari. With a cMP, Netflix on Safari is a lost cause without the Silverlight plugin, that I know. I'm not sure about Amazon.
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Streaming protected content with an upgraded video card
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Thanks bookemdano. I'm looking forward to the results. My concern is with playing videos from broadcasters' websites using Safari. With a cMP, Netflix on Safari is a lost cause without the Silverlight plugin, that I know. I'm not sure about Amazon.
Afaik MVC recommends and sells only EVGA GTX 750 Ti. These are the most reliable.
My GTX 750 Ti was a Gigabyte.
Great. I really appreciate it. My 750 Ti is also an EVGA. While you are at it, could you also check if your card is identified as "Ti" in About This Mac. Mine always left the "Ti" out for some reason.
OK I threw my 750 Ti back in my 4,1>5,1 cMP yesterday (running 10.13.6). First off, it does show the Ti in "About This Mac":
I was unable to get the globaltv site to work due to not being in Canada. And every video I tried on CBS.com just said it wasn't available. However, I get that same message on my 2015 MacBook Pro and it just dawned on me that it's likely due to using PiHole for ad-blocking. I'll try disabling it when I get to work and see if it will play.
I was able to get video playing on NBC.com (one of their dumb reality shows... can't remember which).
BUT... Movies I had bought through iTunes would not play. At first I was connected to a Dell 2407wfp via DVI and was getting the following error:
I did some googling and found some posts about that monitor having potential issues with HDCP over DVI. So I unboxed the new Dell P2715Q I recently bought and connected that to the 750Ti via DisplayPort. Rebooted for good measure and tried to play an iTunes movie again... only to get the same error.
I can't imagine the P2715Q not having HDCP, so I think perhaps it's the card that is not negotiating it properly. Not sure if that's an issue with the card, the MVC EFI mod, or the web drivers. I don't have another NVIDIA card to test (well, aside from the stock GT120).
Does anyone know of a Mac app to test for HDCP compatibility/versions? I know for Windows you can use Arcsoft BD & 3D assistant or Cyberlink UHD Ready (and maybe other tools too) but I don't know of anything on MacOS.
I forgot to try Amazon but will do that later today. I don't subscribe to Hulu so I can't try that.
Edit: I sold my Radeon 7950 already. I have a Sapphire Pulse RX 580 sitting here but am waiting for the power cable to arrive from China. Once it arrives I will test that with the same DP cable/monitor to see if the iTunes movie will play.
It would be interesting if anyone has an unflashed Maxwell NVIDIA card they can try under 10.13.6 with the web drivers installed to rule out anything caused by the MVC firmware.
I was unable to get the globaltv site to work due to not being in Canada. And every video I tried on CBS.com just said it wasn't available. However, I get that same message on my 2015 MacBook Pro and it just dawned on me that it's likely due to using PiHole for ad-blocking. I'll try disabling it when I get to work and see if it will play.
I was able to get video playing on NBC.com (one of their dumb reality shows... can't remember which).
BUT... Movies I had bought through iTunes would not play. At first I was connected to a Dell 2407wfp via DVI and was getting the following error:
I did some googling and found some posts about that monitor having potential issues with HDCP over DVI. So I unboxed the new Dell P2715Q I recently bought and connected that to the 750Ti via DisplayPort. Rebooted for good measure and tried to play an iTunes movie again... only to get the same error.
I can't imagine the P2715Q not having HDCP, so I think perhaps it's the card that is not negotiating it properly. Not sure if that's an issue with the card, the MVC EFI mod, or the web drivers. I don't have another NVIDIA card to test (well, aside from the stock GT120).
Does anyone know of a Mac app to test for HDCP compatibility/versions? I know for Windows you can use Arcsoft BD & 3D assistant or Cyberlink UHD Ready (and maybe other tools too) but I don't know of anything on MacOS.
I forgot to try Amazon but will do that later today. I don't subscribe to Hulu so I can't try that.
Edit: I sold my Radeon 7950 already. I have a Sapphire Pulse RX 580 sitting here but am waiting for the power cable to arrive from China. Once it arrives I will test that with the same DP cable/monitor to see if the iTunes movie will play.
It would be interesting if anyone has an unflashed Maxwell NVIDIA card they can try under 10.13.6 with the web drivers installed to rule out anything caused by the MVC firmware.
Many thanks for checking. My card would likely not play any videos on NBC... Furthermore, it appears like this
There may be hope in Mojave, since by force installing the Webdriver (albeit without acceleration) I can play DRM content. In High Sierra, I noticed that if I install the Webdriver with SIP disabled and then enable SIP, there is also no acceleration; however, in this case, protected videos will not play.
More info: Before getting my MVC 750 Ti, I had a regular 750 Ti, and I don't recall it having problems playing protected videos. But I can't say for sure. So it would be interesting if anybody with an unflashed card could verify this.
There may be hope in Mojave, since by force installing the Webdriver (albeit without acceleration) I can play DRM content. In High Sierra, I noticed that if I install the Webdriver with SIP disabled and then enable SIP, there is also no acceleration; however, in this case, protected videos will not play.
More info: Before getting my MVC 750 Ti, I had a regular 750 Ti, and I don't recall it having problems playing protected videos. But I can't say for sure. So it would be interesting if anybody with an unflashed card could verify this.
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OK after disabling my PiHole ad-blocker, CBS streamed just fine for me. Still can't get iTunes to overcome the HDCP error.
Just tried streaming on Amazon (tried both a movie and one of their original TV shows) and Safari just shows the "Missing Plug-in" button. But clicking on it (which is supposed to pop up a message telling you which plug-in it needs) doesn't do anything. I've tried quitting the browser and re-opening but no change. Will try a reboot here in a few and see if that changes anything.
I'm sure it wants Flash or Silverlight. But the really odd thing is that Amazon has an HTML5 player, and says it supports Safari Version 10 or newer on 10.12.5+). But it's obviously not using the HTML5 player when I try with Safari 11.1.2 on MacOS 10.13.6). Googling about this didn't turn up much of anything, so I'm not really sure what the deal is there.
Edit: Oh, the HTML5 player is only supported in Chrome, IE, Edge and Opera (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/help/id=201422810). I guess the list I saw earlier that includes Safari incorporates browsers that need the Silverlight plugin.
I think you said that Silverlight stuff works for you anyway so I won't bother testing that.
Let me know if there is anything else you want me to try.
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Yes, I known. My remark was to point out that the same situation gave different results in Mojave than in High Sierra.
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Thanks so much. Since you are able to stream major broadcasters no problem, I'm starting to think that there really may be an issue with my card, or other hardware (PCIe SSD, CPUs), or a combination... I'll just have to figure out what the next step is.
In a strange turn of events, I can confirm that my cMP and flashed GTX 750 Ti can stream videos just fine from CBS and NBC in the US (even if in Canada videos from major broadcasters don't play). It seems that my graphics card might not be entirely at fault after all...
Ah, yeah then it's likely if I were able to get on a Canadian VPN I'd get the same error you did on the globaltv site.
They are probably just enforcing HDCP, whereas I guess NBC and CBS aren't.
I finally got my power cable for my newly purchased Sapphire RX 580, a card which Apple is officially supporting in High Sierra and Mojave. FWIW I just installed it and connected the same Dell P2715Q over DP and iTunes still gives me the error about my monitor not supporting HDCP (when it definitely does, according to Dell).
From some googling, Apple seems not to support playing HDCP content on external displays. Maybe certain combinations of things work, but I've also seen a lot of reports of it not working even on external monitors plugged into MBPs and iMacs. And like many/most things, Apple is really vague and opaque about the situation, so I'm not sure what, if anything we can do.
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It's not working for me on 10.13.6 with the same card (well, mine's the Sapphire Pulse 8GB, is that what you have too?). Can you let us know what monitor you're using, and which output(s) on the card? Thanks.
Sapphire Pulse Rx 580 8GB, 24" Apple Led Cinema Display with DP to mDP adapter and HDMI to 55 inch 4k tv. Both work.
Maybe it's not liking the 4K resolution. I mean I knew that iTunes would only stream the 4K versions of movies to the AppleTV, but I'm sort of surprised that it won't stream the normal 1080 version. I'll retry it on some lower-res monitors.
Interesting...
Installed the Mojave Public Beta on a different drive. First thing I did was open iTunes and try to stream a movie. It worked perfectly. To be clear that's with the same RX 580, monitor and input I was using before.
So then I thought maybe the NVIDIA web drivers (which I still had installed in HS 10.13.6) were interfering even though the RX 580 was the only card installed. So I uninstalled the web drivers and rebooted. Unfortunately, I'm still getting the DRM error. So I dunno. Maybe some remnant of the NVIDIA web driver remains and screwed up HDCP on my 10.13.6 install. Not sure I really care to make a clean 10.13.6 install just to test this, but along with the two other reports of success with the 580 I'm thinking this is an NVIDIA problem--most likely the web drivers. Would still be interesting for someone with a non-EFI NVIDIA card could test iTunes/Fairplay DRM and see if they can get a movie to play.
Installed the Mojave Public Beta on a different drive. First thing I did was open iTunes and try to stream a movie. It worked perfectly. To be clear that's with the same RX 580, monitor and input I was using before.
So then I thought maybe the NVIDIA web drivers (which I still had installed in HS 10.13.6) were interfering even though the RX 580 was the only card installed. So I uninstalled the web drivers and rebooted. Unfortunately, I'm still getting the DRM error. So I dunno. Maybe some remnant of the NVIDIA web driver remains and screwed up HDCP on my 10.13.6 install. Not sure I really care to make a clean 10.13.6 install just to test this, but along with the two other reports of success with the 580 I'm thinking this is an NVIDIA problem--most likely the web drivers. Would still be interesting for someone with a non-EFI NVIDIA card could test iTunes/Fairplay DRM and see if they can get a movie to play.