Patent ID: 7904938

Claim:
A host interfacing with a cable card in an open cable system comprising: a plurality of High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) ports linked to a plurality of peripheral devices respectively; and a controller configured to receive a request from the cable card, wherein the controller is further configured to generate HDMI status information associated with the HDMI ports in response to the request, wherein the host forwards the generated HDMI status information to the cable card using Generic Diagnostic Protocol, wherein when a plurality of diagnostics corresponding to the plurality of HDMI ports are forwarded to the cable card, the plurality of diagnostics are identified by the same diagnostic identifier, and the HDMI status information includes: connect status information indicating whether a connection exists on each of the HDMI ports, host HDCP status information indicating whether a HDCP is enabled on each of the HDMI ports, device HDCP status information indicating a HDCP status of each of the peripheral devices connected to the host, video format information indicating a current video format used on each of the HDMI ports, and audio information.