Extron Glossary of Terms

Digital AV

HDCP – High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection - A digital rights management scheme developed by Intel to prevent the copying of digital video and audio content. HDCP support was included from the beginning for the HDMI interface, optional for DVI. HDCP defines three basic system components: source, sink, and repeater.

Sources send content to the display. Sources can be set-top boxes, Blu-ray Disc players, computer graphics cards, and so forth. A source can have only one HDCP transmitter.

Sinks decrypt the content so it can be viewed. Sink is typically used to describe a flat-panel display, television, or projector. Sinks can have one or more HDCP receivers.

Repeaters sit between sources and sinks. They accept content, decrypt it, then re-encrypt and transmit. Internally, a repeater may provide signal processing, such as scaling, splitting out audio for use in an analog audio playback system, or splitting the input data stream for simultaneous viewing on multiple displays. Switchers, matrix switchers, and distribution amplifiers are all examples of repeaters.