[Galaxy Tab 2 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gmanapps:
Lol, yeah I know a little about hardware. But I guess I wasn't specific enough as was trying to keep it short. I am evaluating about 10 different devices at the momement for HDMI output and didn't put enough detail as had other things to do. Had been asked by a friend of the forum to come over here and post my findings. I always reserve the right to be wrong, but unless someone finds that the required circuitry is there I have given up looking as I have exausted all my known methods of investigation. And current conclusion is that the GTP3113 is missing the necessary hardware for HDMI out.

The OMAP4430, while is does have basic HDMI support onboard it does require a range of support chips to output the video, which are not on the GT-P3113 motherboard. This is not just as simple as a level converter, specifically on the 4430 its recommended by TI to use the TPD12S015 which provides voltage level conversion, power management, plug detection, and bidirectional gate control. Then are are the required resistors on CPU pins as well as assignments of GPIO and powermanagements control pins from the PMU. While going through a panda board I was able to make a list of traces, connections and support circuitry that is required for the HDMI output to work on the OMAP4430. Since panda boards are built from same basic reference designs provided by TI , I made the assumption that similiar circuitry would be required on the GT-P3113. Typically that means certain pins on the CPU die held up with pull up resistors, certain GPIO pin's tied or PMU pin's tied to a HDMI support chip. All things I don't see.

I see no evidence on the GT-P3113 that such circuitry exists on the MB but did find locations on the MB where I think they left open pads for it. With out seeing any of the expected support chips (AD9381, TPD12S521, TPD12S015 or Sil9234BT) that have been seen in samsung or other manufacturers devices with HDMI out capabilities the only conclusion I can make as it doesn't exist on the GTP3113 which is something samsungs developer support has been telling me from the begining. There developer/platform support folks are general right more often then their general customer support.

While its true the OMAP4430 can support composite video out, it requires specific resistor/capaciter configurations for the board the processors are on. On the GT-P3113 I observed no obvious traces for CVIDEO_VFB, CVIDEO_RSET or connections to CVIDEO_TVOUT to indicate device circuitry was configured to allow composite TV output. So from everythng I can see the device doesn't support composite video out as the required traces and discrete components are not there. Of all the video out options it is in theory the easiest to add onto a device via some soldering and modification but its something I have never tried. But right now the driver comes up and detects that the composite video option is disabled via hardware, so physical modifactions would have to be made.

Numerous others have done work with the omapdss driver trying to determine what can be enabled on the GT-P3113 and checking signal levels (via oscilliscope) on pins were we would expect signals to be present. I could go and on....and on with everything that has been tried. But all indications is that the physical connections and wired components are just not there to allow video output. I would be pleasantly surprised if we turned out to be wrong and would welcome someone showing me what we might have missed as would love to get HDMI working on our GTP3113's.