USB On-The-Go

Android is a Linux. This means that it can have a keyboard, mouse and other periferials. You could (and probably can) even burn a CD using an Android phone. One of the nice things in OTG was to connect an external screen which is turning the phone to a full blown computer. Or a media player...

HAHAHA! NAÏVE PERSON!

You couldn't watch Netflix on USB OTG. Because... because of... REASONS YOU STUPID PIRATE!!! OR FUTURE PIRATE!!! OR FUTURE WANNA BE PIRATE! YOURETOCLOOSSEETOBEEINGPIRATEYOUPIRATE!

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disclaimer: I do not want to offend anyone. Above sentences are what I hear in my head when I see that my phone with USB OTG/USB-C is not showing the video on my tv or monitor, or even showing but only subtitles.

disclaimer 2: connecting screen using USB OTG was called MHL, not all devices had (has?) it

Android being based on Linux doesn’t mean it has all of the capabilities of a Linux distribution anymore than iOS being based on BSD or even more relevantly being a fork of MacOS means it can do everything that Macs can do.

As far as connecting an external monitor, that’s a standard USB C alt mode that your phone doesn’t support.

https://www.benq.com/en-us/knowledge-center/knowledge/usb-c-...

My iPhone 16 can send video and power to my USB C portable monitor over one cord. It can only drive the monitor as far as power up to 50% brightness.

If I plug in a separate power supply to the second USB C port on my monitor I can run my monitor at full brightness and the monitor will charge my phone while my phone is sending it video.

https://imgur.com/a/wyV4ReK

Of course my laptop supports powering and video at full brightness over one USB-C port

What I describe is my genuine experience. I had a phone with usb otg with MHL. And netflix app didn't send video to the screen of the TV. It sent only text of subtitles. Because of some stupid limitations.

I'm honestly a bit confused about what your actual point is. Most people would agree that HDCP is hostile to consumers, but what does any of that have to do with USB or for that matter android? It sounds to me your problem is that your particular MHL implementation just didn't support HDCP. And AFAIK MHL has nothing to do with the USB standard other then reusing the connector to speak their protocol.

You're right, if this MHL implementation didn't have HDCP it would behave exactly like that. Sad.

My thinming is square. I still connect my monitors using SVGA and watch movies on them. Truly this sounds to really complicated that a phone which is indeed a computer cannot do computer things. My first android was closer to my Linux than every each version following. My colleague had SSH server on his Motorola phone. What I moan about is that limiting, strangling list of changes made to browsers and systems that is happening right now

> Truly this sounds to really complicated that a phone which is indeed a computer cannot do computer things.

I agree with that point, but I don't think that's what's happening here.

Go back a couple of years and you'll find tons of posts of people trying to get Netflix working on linux. People did find various workarounds of course, including really stupid things like changing the user agent of your browser, but it really wasn't working out of the box like it should.

So the problem really isn't that your pocket computer can't do computer things, but that HDCP is doing what it's designed to do, restrict people from using video streams in a way not envisioned by the designers. The fact that this is a (legally) legitimate use-case doesn't matter, it's just collateral damage.