DVI & VGA Under Threat As DisplayPort 1.1 Approved

Author	Gordon Kelly
Published	5th Apr 2007

DVI & VGA Under Threat As DisplayPort 1.1 Approved

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Are the days of the DVI and VGA numbered?

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has approved version 1.1 of the DisplayPort interface for use in flat panel displays, projectors, PCs and CE devices. With it comes significant benefits such as a much smaller form factor – making it laptop friendly, low voltage and low power operation, two way display connectivity, optional audio support and higher performance than dual link DVI at 10.8Gbps.

Furthermore Hollywood can back the standard too since it is compatible with High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) version 1.3 making it HD DVD and Blu-ray friendly.

"The benefits of version 1.1 are significant, and will encourage adoption of DisplayPort in new generations of computers and consumer electronics equipment," said Bill Lempesis, VESA executive director. "Our task groups and committees within VESA worked very hard to ensure that DisplayPort 1.1 satisfies the important objectives it is designed for, and as a result, this new version has widespread support among all the leading computer and consumer electronics suppliers."

Lempesis positive outlook apart however perhaps the most important aspect in the widespread adoption of DisplayPort 1.1 is that it comes royalty free and is an open and extensible standard. This is in stark control to HDMI which carries significant fees (hence the low number of ports in early/cheap HDTVs).

So will DisplayPort 1.1 signal the death of DVI, VGA and even HDMI? In a word: No. DVI probably and VGA yes (eventually) but HDMI is so heavily integrated into the multimedia world and is still such a new standard that it will be nigh on impossible to tear it out so soon.

Personally, I would expect to see DisplayPort 1.1 infiltrate the computer space heavily over the next 12/18 months and become the preferable connection option over DVI, VGA and HDMI but as far as your home cinema goes it is likely to have to settle for second billing.

Link:
VESA