Patent ID: 8185739

Claim:
A method comprising: authenticating a High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) transmitting device at a first port of an HDCP receiving device; connecting the first port of the HDCP receiving device to a pipe of an HDCP architecture of the HDCP receiving device at a first time; receiving a synchronization signal from the HDCP transmitting device at the first port of the HDCP receiving device at a second time; detecting a loss of synchronization between the HDCP transmitting device and the HDCP receiving device when a time-span between the first time and the second time is not greater than a period of time between synchronization signals sent from the HDCP transmitting device, wherein detecting further includes monitoring a roving pipe of a time-based roving architecture to select a roving pipe of a plurality of roving pipes to replace a main pipe previously selected by a user; and initiating a re-authentication between the HDCP transmitting device and the HDCP receiving device in response to detecting the loss of synchronization.