Intel driver engineer Suraj Kandpal presented at the recent X.Org Developer’s Conference (XDC2025) on the challenges around supporting content protection on Linux such as for High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) and Protected Audio Video Path (PAVP).
Many Linux users would rather not see the likes of HDCP support and the like by open-source drivers but it’s largely become a fact of life for those wishing to enjoy commercial video streaming services and other modern content on the web.
Kandpal’s presentation covered the HDCP and PAVP architectures, the challenges in supporting them by open-source drivers, the CONTENT_PROTECTION and CONTENT_TYPE DRM/KMS APIs on Linux, and other bits.
For those wishing to learn more about the content protection by Linux GPU drivers can find the XDC2025 presentation embedded below along with the PPTX slides.
