How to stream HDMI input to a desktop window

Question

Is it possible to stream a HDMI/DVI input into a window and not to the whole monitor/screen area?

I'm developing some application for a Pandaboard running the Linaro distribution(Linaro is Ubuntu for embedded devices). I have it working perfectly, login to the full desktop environment with the Gnome(Unity 2D) and everything. Usually I connect to it via ssh or RDP and that does perfectly the job; or I have a monitor connected to the board's HDMI output, keyboard and mouse directly to the board. But sometimes:

• I do not have a network connection or I want to bypass completely the usage of the network(so no direct connection setup possible)
• I do not have another monitor available

So I would like to be able to use my laptop, on which I run Ubuntu, to see in a window on my desktop the output from the board's HDMI port.

Answer 1

HDMI output from computers or cameras isn't protected by HDCP, just copyrighted material like movies from blue-ray disc players is protected.

On the other side, AFAIK Panda board has just HDMI output and no video inputs, so it is impossible to feed any HD video without additional hardware.

Answer 2

The HDMI plug on your Pandaboard and the HDMI plug on your Laptop are the same 'side' of an HDMI connection. HDMI is a client-server protocol, except they're called something different. Essentially one side produces content, and the other side accepts it. The designers of HDMI did it this way to make it harder to rip 1080p content right off the wire. There is no way to make this work (to my knowledge) without writing a custom driver for your HDMI port that says it's a TV or another display device (software may not even be enough, it might require a hardware hack)