VESA approves DisplayPort 1.1: kiss those DVI and VGA ports goodbye

Get ready for hot, hot convergence kids 'cause the DisplayPort 1.1 specification was just approved. The new VESA-approved digital interface standard is meant to replace DVI and VGA ports while co-existing with HDMI for HDTV connectivity. As you can see in the picture above, it's about the size of a USB connector yet offers 2x the performance of DVI in a much smaller package. They also bake in a nasty dollop of HDCP 1.3 content protection to keep the Blu-ray and HD DVD kiddies happy. The wee size allows the interface to be included in smaller handheld electronics while enabling direct-drive LCD panels thereby eliminating the need for non-panel LVDS electronics in the monitor designs. Of course it also supports pass-through of DVI and HDMI signals via simple adapters similar to DVI-to-HDMI variety on the market today. So which of our esteemed manufactures will bite first? We're not sure, but VESA isn't shy about using Dell's high-end XPS systems in their marketing collateral. Of course, the question they don't answer is, why not just move everything to HDMI? For that, you just have to look at who backs royalty-free DisplayPort (the PC industry) and who backs HDMI (the consumer electronics industry). Yeah, we know.

[Eh @ Apr 4th 2007 3:45AM]

Why couldnt we just use HDMI? Whats the point of making us buy all this extra crap? I was hoping we would finally unite PC monitors and HDTV's together with one single connector.

[Tech^Cellfish @ Apr 4th 2007 4:33AM]

Analog support?

[CaptCaveman @ Apr 4th 2007 11:05AM]

Well, it is supposed to pass through HDMI with an adapter. So I guess it's OK. But I'm a little concerned about the connector it self. One of the complaints that I've heard about HDMI is that it just sticks in the slot and that's it. There's no way of locking it into place. It looks like this connector is doing the same.
I've seen plenty of times when where a monitor cable was hanging on for dear life and the only thing keeping it from being pulled out of the video card was the fact that you could screw the connector down. I hope that when they release monitors using this interface they can be disconnected at the monitor also because I'm sure there will be more then a few broken ends on these cables.

[Brennan @ Apr 4th 2007 4:00AM]

omg no way, does this mean i shouldnt get the X2900 XTX now? God damn it, n i thought DVI was as good as HDMI.

when do u guys think we might see these kinds of plugs on future video card products? Late 2007? 2008?

[Brennan @ Apr 4th 2007 4:09AM]

hmm would i notice a difference in picture when playing games using DisplayPort 1.1 for gaming? Just curious.

[Jesse S @ Apr 4th 2007 4:17AM]

The point of this is that there is more bandwidth, so higher resolutions can be used. It doesn't make smaller ones faster...

[ashmist @ Apr 4th 2007 4:19AM]

Does that mean LCD monitors will be even cheaper because they don't need those extra electronics? Good news, I guess.

Hopefully this will allow for extra long lengths of cable for those of us with projectors and HTPCs

[Colin Robertson @ Apr 4th 2007 4:32AM]

I really don't understand the point of this.

Surely HDMI = DVI + HDCP + sound
and DisplayPort = DVI + HDCP

So really they are annoucing a connection that does less than is alreay available just because it comes in a smaller package? Have I missed something?

[Jesse S @ Apr 4th 2007 5:35AM]

DVI has HDCP...

[Mickey Jones @ Apr 4th 2007 9:30AM]

DVI supports HDCP but is not included in the standard. HDMI includes HDCP. You can have DVI without HDCP but you cannot have HDMI without HDCP.

... and the reason this is introduced is cuz it's FREE unlike HDMI which requires a royalty payment. More dueling standards.

[Jim @ Apr 4th 2007 4:57AM]

Bugger, I was just about to lay out for a new monitor. I guess i'll hold off for another year then?

[Lloyd @ Apr 4th 2007 5:16AM]

I gonna guess that DisplayPort has more bandwidth than HDMI enabling extremely high monitor resolutions that future high density monitors will offer.

I don't know HDMI's limits but I can't see why it would need to go beyond 1080P.

First computers to use it... I'd put money on Apple being one of the first - especially since resolution independence has been one of the key aims of Leopard and there are new Cinema Displays overdue.

[Berre @ Apr 4th 2007 5:25AM]

If i remember corrctly (from the last time DisplayPort made the news), the main reason for DisplayPort is money.

It's a open VESA standard = no royalties.

Manufacturers have to pay license fees on each item sold with an HDMI connection.

[craig @ Apr 4th 2007 10:00AM]

"First computers to use it... I'd put money on Apple being one of the first - especially since resolution independence has been one of the key aims of Leopard and there are new Cinema Displays overdue."

Apple is certainly willing to use proprietary connectors provided they are cheap and users have to buy cables from Apple. Of course, Apple doesn't do their own video cards or motherboards anymore so it's moot. It's whatever Intel, ATI and nVidia give them.

Apple has been dead last in the industry as far as resolution independence and high resolution are concerned. To this day, Apple preaches 100 dpi when the industry has been past that for a decade. Apple can talk resolution independence but until they deliver it's all just noise. Let's see a 17" Macbook Pro with a real, WUXGA screen. How about a 30" 3840x2400 Cinema display (as god intended)? Apple right now is king of low resolution and rhetoric, that's all.

[JeffDM @ Jul 30th 2007 1:27AM]

craig;

Apple DOES have a 17" with a WUXGA screen option, it was released a couple months ago. I guess I haven't noticed any "3840 x 2160" monitors at 30", definitely not at an affordable price. Using that resolution with dual link DVI would mean dropping the frame rate below 60Hz though.

[iRobot @ Apr 4th 2007 5:46AM]

More made up crap by Hollywood.

[3rdsun @ Apr 4th 2007 6:29AM]

I could see this being used on UMPCs and smartphones

[mapsfun.com @ Apr 4th 2007 6:33AM]

gr8

[Alexander @ Apr 4th 2007 7:33AM]

fan-f**king-tastic. ANOTHER bloody proprietary connector, with built-in encryption/content protection. Awesome. Now everything will be 2x the cost because of the 'protection' and won't work because the device manufacturer's won't talk to one another and we'll be right-the-f**k back where we are now with the HDMI 1080p/720p bulls**t.

Analog was good enough. Digital was more than enough. Why do we need content protection going from my computer to my monitor? Were there really devices that could capture the digital monitor signal and convert them back into raw digital video?

Of course there was! So, even before all the blu-ray/HDDVD being cracked people could still copy it. And even now, with all this content protection, you can still do it.

If I have to listen to it with my ears or see it with my eyes, it can be copied.

So just leave out the 'protection' because if people are going to pirate something, then by-god they will do it. All you are doing is making it more expensive, more bloody complicated. Stop spending money on anti-piracy technologies, because here's a little secret:

The people who are pirating your s**t? Yea, they were NEVER going to buy it in the first place. So you haven't stopped anybody from pirating. All you've done is prevent legitimate customers from buying your items because they know it won't work with the setup they have now.

So. Just. Stop.

BAH!!!

[Don @ Apr 4th 2007 11:00AM]

Amen, Alexander - Same is true of software "activation". The sw companies (I'm looking at you, MS and Adobe) who keep tacking on convoluted "Validations" are forgetting that:

The teenage scene guy would NEVER spend $600-800 on Photoshop or Office 2007 Super-Ultimate Pack with Visio. That money isn't "lost to piracy", because they would have never made it in the first place! Barnes and Noble might as well accuse everyone at their store of theft when they go in the store, read some of a book, and then don't buy it. I might be interested in checking out LOTS of books for free, but the number of books I end up buying is obviously lower.

These guys are the ones who "pirate" their software, and then later go on to demand it in their everyday jobs (where it is then legitimately bought), thusly establishing defacto standards.

The money spent on activation technology is completely wasted money. COMPLETELY. It is always cracked, because no IT team or programming group can withstand the worldwide assault of determined whizkids with little to do but cracking their products. What, Bluray took maybe 6 months or less to crack, right? Dumb.

For folks like me who use SW legitimately at work, for work, "activation" is simply another useless step that makes working with the SW harder :(.

The next time I see some industry guy saying that they "lose 1 billion annually" due to SW piracy, I think I'll just find that person and punch them in the balls.

[Alexander @ Apr 4th 2007 11:34AM]

Exactly. I can understand the desire to keep large corporations 'legit'. However, with all the money being spent on anti-piracy measures (keys, activation servers, phone support, etc.) I would think that it would be a LOT cheaper to just hire a bunch of people to go out and check the companies that you sold your product to.

If Penton Media uses Macs for all of their... whatever-it-is they do... Then it would be easy to have a Apple representative go down and see if they are using the current version of software. Not only that, it's a PRIME chance for them to come in and scope out what they are using and see if an upgrade would be worthwile for them.

Cheaper, and it gets you more sales. Why aren't they doing this?

I use Ubuntu. I have to use DeCSS in order to watch the DVD's that I paid my money for on my computer. This is illigal under the current laws in my country (The USA) and as such, I could be jailed for it. Such a waste of time and resources for everybody involved.

Now I can watch the blu-ray discs that I have bought on my Ubuntu computer. I don't even own a blu-ray drive--I had to download the movie off of a questionably-legal site to watch. Is that illigal? I haven't broken any encryption. I simply downloaded a movie--that I own--to watch on my computer. What's wrong with that?

[Smason @ Apr 4th 2007 2:16PM]

Alexander:
That sir, was an excellent rant!
I couldn't agree more.

[Jooles @ Apr 5th 2007 8:12AM]

The amusing thing is... the pirates are the only ones in the whole piracy thing that actually pay for the content in order to pirate it in the first place. And this whole mess is just a waste of everyone's time and money, but how else would big corporations justify their enormous price tags? Have a care for the poor starving multinational software companies...

[effee @ Oct 17th 2007 9:48PM]

Couldn't agree more. This is what I've been saying all along.

[Alexander @ Oct 17th 2007 10:08PM]

Holy-gravedigging a thread, batman!

[Jeff @ Apr 4th 2007 7:40AM]

From the description, it sounds like DisplayPort=Dual Link DVI.

If so, then it's not totally useless. Single link DVI, as 99% of us have, can only support resolutions up to 1920x1200. That's fine for now, but isn't going to cut it in the future.

If nothing else, DisplayPort will cut down on confusion between dual and single link DVI. One standard instead of two.

[Paul in Maryland @ Apr 4th 2007 9:01AM]

Jeff is correct. With the new connector, a 30-inch, 2560x1600 display can be driven by a single connector. Two such connectors could drive an even larger display at 3840 x 2160, a resolution attained by Westinghouse's recently announced 56-inch displays.

[Randy Gentry @ Apr 4th 2007 7:48AM]

It shocks me to see how many computers today sell with VGA connections. Looks like VGA should have gone away buy now. I think it will be a while before we see this.

[PistolPeet @ Apr 4th 2007 8:22AM]

Let's just hope the connectors sit a bit more snug than HDMI, and don't come loose/break so often!

[firebat45 @ Jul 25th 2007 7:00PM]

Except if you drive the T221 with one DVI, you get 12hz, 2 gets you 21hz, and even 4 only gets you 41hz. I bet displaylink supports 60hz or better.

[craig @ Apr 4th 2007 9:53AM]

"With the new connector, a 30-inch, 2560x1600 display can be driven by a single connector."

Just like it can today.

"Two such connectors could drive an even larger display at 3840 x 2160, a resolution attained by Westinghouse's recently announced 56-inch displays."

Two of these ports can do more than that and 3840x2160 doesn't even match the IBM T221 which has existed for many years and is now out of production. The IBM T221 can be driven with single, dual, or quad single-link DVI ports by the way. There are also dual-link versions. Nothing new here.

[shimman @ Apr 4th 2007 9:14AM]

good news...i hope hdmi dies; like all sony backed up technology, hdmi is physcially weak & expensive & limited.

for pc monitors this displayport sounds great as it will even make higher resolution monitors cheaper than ever

[kevin @ Apr 4th 2007 8:22PM]

HDMI is not expensive as long as you don't buy retail. that monster cable that cost 100 bucks costs maybe 5 bucks. Go to monoprice.com and buy them for $5.00 on up (ones as thick as monster are probably $15.00).

HDMI cables are like needles for turntables....marked up 1000% or more.

[DJBro @ May 24th 2007 3:36PM]

do a google search, you can find great prices on hdmi cables... i got a 65 foot hdmi cable to go from my ps3 to the projector in the back of the room (wrapping around the ceiling in a cable duct) for around the same price as they sell 12 foot monster HDMI cables at best buy... good quality cable and HDCP compliant, and you dont need a repeater for lengths under 20 meters (65 feet is 19.5m)

[Graham @ Apr 4th 2007 9:41AM]

Surely HDMI = DVI + HDCP + sound
and DisplayPort = DVI + HDCP . . . . . Bla bla bla . . . Why not try SH 1t or K.my.a. I saw plans
for a similar developement 10 years ago ( it's a money thing )

[Mickey Jones @ Apr 4th 2007 9:46AM]

"two-way display connectivity, optional audio support, higher performance than dual link DVI at 10.8 Gigabits per second, and a unique micro-packet architecture that enables new display features."

Apparently this can carry audio too (optional)

"As presented at CES 2007, a DisplayPort Interoperability Guideline that recommends best practices for providing DVI and HDMI connectivity via the DisplayPort connector and simple cable adapters is nearing completion. "

And you can convert the signal to HDMI with a "simple cable adapter".

[Paul in Maryland @ Apr 4th 2007 10:30AM]

Craig,
Which adapters can drive a 30-inch Cinema Display with a single connector? Or is it that Apple requires two connectors, but other brands can get by with one?

I thought that IBM's 9.1-megapixel display Matrox's 3840 x 2400 card could be driven only by a Matrox HR256. That card requires two connectors: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/cadgis/products/parhelia/hr256.php

[craig @ Apr 4th 2007 10:39AM]

The 30" displays require one dual-link DVI connector, so any card that provides one should work. It's a standard video mode. AFAIK, there is no way to drive a 30" display with two connectors.

The T221 has never required a Matrox card. In the early days, there were Matrox bundles that worked and support from other manufacturers was spotty. Now, many ATI and nVidia cards will drive the monitor properly. Even macs attempt to but most macs get it wrong. A mac mini will even drive a T221 to full resolution (poorly).

There is a newsgroup devoted to the T221: [e-mail]

Lots of information there. I have two T221s and lousy mac support for these monitors is what keeps me using Windows. There is no better monitor for image editing. The 30" monitor needs to be bumped to this resolution.

[Leo @ Apr 4th 2007 9:58AM]

I'm worried about that way things are heading. New technology is great and all, but now my 1 year old HDTV has an old version of HDMI. With DisplayPort 1.1, I see the saem things happening. People are going to drop a bunch of money on new hardware, and a year down the road the spec will change to 1.2 and now we need to buy new video cards and monitors.

[Peterix @ Jul 26th 2007 9:28AM]

@Lloyd
Those two things have nothing in common.
As seen with Leopard, it is possible NOW. All you would have to do is to supply the rendering part of the system information about the real screen size and adjust dpi accordingly. No fancy new display specs are needed for it, sizes could be part of monitor drivers or even specified by the user directly...

[Lloyd @ Apr 4th 2007 2:05PM]

I don't think that you understand what resolution independance is. Making a 15" screen 1920 x 1200 instead of 1280 x 768 does not make it resolution independant - it makes everything smaller - same quality just smaller. Resolution independence involves a vector based GUI that will (as far as the user's concerned) remain the same size accross all monitors regardless of their pixel density (so identical 10cm wide windows on either versions of the 15" example mentioned above will still measure 15". Microsoft has made minimal attempts to incorporate a resolution independant UI - Apple has announced it for Leopard (and using dev tools it can be semi-enabled in Tiger). This means that the visual quality of onscreen elements will actually improve rather than just making everything smaller.

Apple will also be able to specify what they want from manufacturers - they won't "get what Intel, ATI and nVidia give them". Double dual-link DVI cards in the Mac Pro as an example - or the Macbook display connector...

[Chocolate Starfish @ Apr 4th 2007 10:26AM]

If only they would use the "poke-a-yoke" principal and add in an orientation notch to one of the corners (ala Firewire).

I can't tell you how sick of having to try twice to insert my USB plugs into their ports because the connector is symmetrical. These industrial designers should be hung by their poorly designed cables.

[hokiewalrus @ Apr 4th 2007 10:43AM]

I just hope the connector has some kind of locking mechanism so it doesn't fall out.

I'm sick of HDMI cables constantly working themselves loose.

[SH @ Apr 4th 2007 10:47AM]

Yet more DRM capabilities behind this. You can bet Sony has something to do with it. F*ckers.

[uberfu @ Apr 4th 2007 11:23AM]

WTF ?

Apple did this years ago with their ADC connector and no one bought into it - now they want to swap out the connection because Dell and the other PC idiot manufacturers finally get some wind blown up their skirts_

Besides - it looks flimsy as hell_

[craig @ Apr 4th 2007 2:32PM]

ADC was nothing of the sort. ADC was an Apple proprietary connector that combined multiple functions into one cable. No one bought it because it was not for sale...except to Apple customers. Apple abandoned it because it was a pain in the ass for interoperability and wasn't worth the cost.

[Tony Rayo @ Apr 4th 2007 12:46PM]

BTW, according to U.S. law, yes it is illegal to download a blu-ray movie/iso, even if you own a hard copy. That's the way the laws are setup atm.

- Tony R.

[Alexander @ Apr 4th 2007 12:51PM]

@Tony R.

Yes, I realize this. As I pointed out earlier, its illegal to do this with DVD's... The law doesn't specify DVD, or any media. They just say that any attempt to break, crack, reverse-engineer, etc. copy-protection system is illegal.

It was a rhetorical question. But thank you for being vigilant and helpful with your comment.

[craig @ Apr 4th 2007 2:49PM]

"Is that illigal?" Yes

"I haven't broken any encryption." No

"I simply downloaded a movie--that I own--to watch on my computer."

No, you don't own the movie. The copyright owner owns the movie. You own the media that a copy of the movie is stored on. You have limited rights to view that copy but you do not have any right to unauthorized duplication of the copyrighted content.

"What's wrong with that?" Well, it's illegal. Whether you consider that wrong is another question.

[Shadow @ Apr 4th 2007 12:10PM]

Not a bad idea, personally speaking, Im not a big HD nut, hell SD is good for me, but, the fact that this plug is not all big and bulky makes a big difference to me, I mean VGA was huge, and DVI was even bigger. Whats with all this sudden big to small formfactor tech coming out, first USB replacing PS/2 and parallel, and SATA slowly replacing IDE, then PCI-E replacing AGP (this one sux since my comp still runs on AGP), and that express card slot replacin PCMCIA also slowly. And then theres that overpriced IMO HDMI, 80 $ for a bloody cable?!!