Dell, HP, Lenovo Announce New Display Protocol

An anonymous reader writes "If HDMI, DVI and UDI weren't enough for you, several major PC manufacturers have announced a joint alliance to come up with another display adapter, creatively named Displayport. The new method is backwards compatible with DVI, but offers double the bandwidth."

Comments

uh

[rushmeat]

Another toy, Will help destroy, The elder race of man. Thank you Geddy. So, now the average consumer is even more confused when they go to the store?

Re:uh

[Ohreally_factor]

What's with all your im-peart-inent comments? Get a life, son!

Re:uh

[charlievarrick]

I'm all for freewill, but I can think of at least 2112 reasons why parent should not be modded Troll.
It seems these fly by night moderators are on some kind of a witch hunt.
Moderators need to look a little closer to the heart and think of the effect modding has on a poster's karma, because when it comes to karma, I think Tom Saywer said it best:

"He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it - namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain."

Re:uh

[mbius]

It's OK, we've taken care of everything. Displayport will produce pictures that give pleasure to your eyes.

Re:uh

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the (+1, Rush) moderation?

Re:uh

[kimvette]

That's why you're supposed to focus on modding really great posts up, and pass by the opinions you disagree with (if you are not mature enough to maintain objectivity while modding), and pass by posts you don't 'get' because sometimes there may be an obscure reference which may seem off topic or even hateful unless you know the context. If in doubt, pass it by. I know I for one would love to see a thread where if the threshold were set to 3 or higher, the thread would consist of more than just 10 worthwhile posts. The system is somewhat broken here because it doesn't show which user modified which post. I'd wager that if such a feature were added, folks would actually follow the stated guidelines because in addition to meta-moderation hopefully fixing the bad moderation, everyone would know who the jerks are who are trying to ruin this site.

DRM aspects

[l2718]

The real question for many of us is: will this protocol enforce anti-user controls? Perhaps someone knows more about these standards.

Re:DRM aspects

[bhtooefr]

DisplayPort is, as I understand, a direct competitor to HDMI.

Last I heard, it was flopping horribly. Wonder what happened.

Re:DRM aspects

[poopdeville]

From TFA:

The DisplayPort specification also addresses the industry need for a ubiquitous digital interface standard with a compact connector, as well as optional content protection, that can be deployed widely at low cost. A protected digital interface that can be easily deployed on a PC enables broad access to premium content sources such as high-definition movies.

Re:DRM aspects

[rolfwind]

A protected digital interface that can be easily deployed on a PC enables broad access to premium content sources such as high-definition movies.

That's funny, my computers can access premium content now..... without phoning home to see if it's okay.

Why are computer manufacturers so ready to jump in bed with the RIAA/MPAA? If they don't cooperate, will the RIAA/MPAA suddenly decide not to play in the computer arena anymore? I'd like to see that happening. The most I see happening is the RIAA/MPAA bitching and moaning and at the end of the day doing business as usual.

Re:DRM aspects

[blibbler]

What is the negative effect of optionally encrypting the video signal sent to the monitor? Making the (safe) assumption that it will be visually indistinguishable, and as easy to connect and set up, how would this disadvantage a regular consumer? The only "negative" impact of this would be for people who would intend to intercept the signal, convert it into raw video, and encode it (presumably to circumvent the DRM on the HD-DVD disks). Given that the vast majority of people have not bothered with circumventing the DRM on DVDs, and the process of intercepting a video signal would be vastly more costly, and inconvenient, I would be surprised if even 0.1% of consumers would be inconvenienced by this.

Re:DRM aspects

[KwKSilver]

Yep, anti-consumer. F* 'em.

Re:DRM aspects

[westlake]

Why are computer manufacturers so ready to jump in bed with the RIAA/MPAA?

Sony is a giant in both the entertainment industry and electronics.

Fully half of Apple's revenues come from the iPod and iTunes. There are strategic alliances between all the major players in these industries, including, of course, retailers like Walmart.

Re:DRM aspects

[Nossie]

you mean apart from the fact your 1 year old 30" wide screen monitor is probably junk?

oh.. and maybe that because you have a legal right to make a backup of the media... this only hinders things more?

Re:DRM aspects

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, only about a third.

Apple only has $265 million revenue from iTunes, out of $3.678 million for Q4-2005.
(http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q405data_sum.pdf)

Apple has nor reason to kow-tow to the RIAA/MPAA except to get the content owners to put their stuff on iTunes. Why Dell, HP and Lenovo is doing so is beyond me.

Re:DRM aspects

[Zeinfeld]

DisplayPort is, as I understand, a direct competitor to HDMI.

Not quite, its more of a sidegrade. DisplayPort is a direct competitor to UDI which is an Intel scheme to do the same thing.

Both have 'content protection'. I don't know why folk get so up tight about it. There is no way it can possibly work. Copy protection is break once run anywhere. The copyright pirates are going to quickly take apart a display and extract the keys, once they do thay they can do anything they like.

What I am more anoyed about is that this standard does not solve my real problem, cable clutter (extended rant on blog).

The DisplayPort people have half a clue, they have included an audio channel so I don't have to run two sets of cables between my computer and my monitor. But where is the USB? they keyboard/mouse connector? Power to drive an attached laptop?.

There is a pretty small chance that I will be buying a screen so large that DVI is inadequate in the next year or two. I now have cable clutter in three different rooms. Cable clutter is pretty much a universal pain point for every computer user. And don't get me started on those shitty brick adaptors that they now use instead of building power supplies into printers, monitors or the like. At the back of my desk I have a ten way power strip and six adapter bricks. There is another ten way power strip under the printer table.

I currently have two laptops by the same manufacturer that both require a different docking station. Its completely unnecessary, there should have been a standard ten years ago, but that would end the racket of selling $350 docking stations and $100 travel adaptors.

The other way this is a huge lose is that it is still electrical. I have a $90 DVI cable. My son's complete PC cost less than $500. If they made the move to an optical interconnect one cable would meet every need - today or in the future. There would be no problem running cables 100ft or longer. Fibre is now standard for audio interconnect, why not use it for video???

The problem is that the driving force behind the initiative is the percieved need to support bigger displays rather looking at what the majority of customers actually want.

Re:DRM aspects

[Khazunga]

I would be surprised if even 0.1% of consumers would be inconvenienced by this.

Did you ever switch cellphone and lost all your Java games and applications? That's the kind of inconvenience you'll see on movies on the PC platform. It'll affect a couple of orders of magnitude more than 0.1% of users.

Re:DRM aspects

[kimvette]

Actually, if you compare to the rest of the industry, Apple's DRM solution is by far the most reasonable.

Re:DRM aspects

[blibbler]

The 1 year old monitor is junk because it doesn't support encrypted video, not because it supports it. If this new display protocol didn't support encryption, it would be obsolete before it was even shipped.

Re:DRM aspects

[blibbler]

I understand that in some areas DRM can inconvenience people, but how can an encrypted video signal affect people? The only components that should ever encounter this are the video card and the monitor.

It would be a greater inconvenience if the protocol did not support encryption, and the HD video players refused to play HD at full resolution over the protocol.
In any case it is an *optional* part of the spec. Complaining about it would be like a mac user refusing to buy an intel mac for the sole reason that it is possible to install windows on it.

Re:DRM aspects

[Khazunga]

I can't spell it out any clearer. Mobile phones are a prime example of a platform where content producers control the whole hardware platform -- a subproduct of the mobile carrier controling the whole network. Video signal encryption is a significant part of control on the hardware by content producers. It is therefore a negative step, taken against the interests of users. It produces zero added-value to the user. At most, it lifts a fictitious limitation imposed by the content producers themselves (refusing to play HD over unencrypted connections).

At least, I know this will play out as it always does in a healthy capitalist economy. Current content owners will get so protective that they will infuriate the people who pay them, then collapse on themselves, to be replaced by more agile companies. It's just that the time lost in this process seems, well, lost.

Re: Dell, HP, Lenovo Announce New Display Protocol

[Anonymous Coward]

The DisplayPort specification also addresses... as well as optional content protection Optional? I think they made a spelling mistake. Isn't there a s, a t, an a, a n, a d, an a, a r, and a d in the word standard.

Pointless aspects

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't DRM on a monitor like water wings on a fish?

Re:Pointless aspects

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Isn't DRM on a monitor like water wings on a fish?

Probably. It may be necessary to have it for certain "protected" media in Windows Vista, but the easy solution is to not buy that protected media. And not buy Vista as well, assuming it comes out.

Re:Pointless aspects

[TBone]

Not pointless at all.

The output channel is the last place where people who want to break DRM can still manage to do so. No matter what DRM is in place on the computer to prevent copying/duplication/modification, once it's gone through all that, it goes so some sort of output device (speakers for sound, monitor for video). At that point, the DRM protecting the content is nullified, and whatever you wanted to do with the signal at that point you can.

DRM on the output channel prevents all of the "analog" (I know, most new video outputs are digital, but the same methods apply) hacks from extracting the content from the DRM.

Re:Pointless aspects

[malsdavis]

Maybe, depends what the hell a "water wing" is.

Re:Pointless aspects

[mrchaotica]

DRM on the output channel prevents all of the "analog" (I know, most new video outputs are digital, but the same methods apply) hacks from extracting the content from the DRM.

Not all of them, just all the high-quality ones. You can still stick a video camera on a tripod in front of the damn thing.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Firehed]

Stop blaming Vista. If Microsoft refused to support HDCP in any form, you'd just complain that you have no way to view any new content in Vista. Unless you're the type to sue auto makers for giving you the ability to get a speeding ticket, in which case bitch away.

Re:Pointless aspects

[JWW]

No I wouldn't, becuase I won't by any of that content.

To use your car anaolgy, it would be like car manufactures being forced to make cars that couldn't speed. And yes that would cause one hell of an uproar. So I, like everyone else will bitch about HDCP crap.

DRM has a NEGATIVE value to the consumer, the only way to get consumers to buy it is to force them. It really pisses me off. We could be in the middle of a true revolution in digital content, but the "Content Providers" are such greedy bastards they need to "protect their revenue", all while failing to realize that if they just went along with what everyone wanted, they could actually, eventually make MORE money (see the VCR for an historical example they themselves experienced, but are unable, do to their stupidity to apply to this situation).

And true there really is a digital content revolution going on right now, but its wayyy behind where it could (or should) be.

Re:Pointless aspects

[MachDelta]

Waterwings are those little inflatable plastic arm bands little kids sometimes wear to help them float while swimming. I'm guessing you live somewhere in Europe (UK? I peeked at your posting history), so you might know them as something else, perhaps "floaties" or "swimmies". I dunno exactly what they're called in other parts of the world, but you should be able to Google Image for Waterwings if you need a visual reference.

Re:Pointless aspects

[hackwrench]

Waterwings is not a ubiquitous term for them throughout the entire US. Also, one might not have a clue if they don't have kids.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Dwedit]

The VCR was Macrovision Central. Tons of signal degradation in effort of copy protection.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with this. And the hardware manufacturers, too. I can't tell you how much content I have avoided because of DRM, and how much hardware I have refused to buy because in a DRM world it is not worth it. Take off the DRM shackles, and the economy would explode.

Plus, it would be so easy to make up any localized losses. Movie ticket prices, for example, could be raised significantly, because after everyone has gorged on a smorgasbord of content at home they will crave the experience more that a movie in the theater can provide.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Fulcrum of Evil]

If Microsoft refused to support HDCP in any form, you'd just complain that you have no way to view any new content in Vista.

No, you'd still be able to view that content. It wouldn't be protected. Whaddya think, everybody's gonna buy Macs?

Re:Pointless aspects

[Firehed]

Oh, PLEASE bitch about HDCP. I meant don't blame Vista for being compatible with it. You can't honestly expect a company trying to take over the living rooms of the world to not support a (futile) content protection scheme in the name of consumer-friendlyness when that company has been historically one of the most abusive software providers ever.

I completely agree with you. I'm just saying that from any perspective, your idea of not supporting something that'll be there regardless is idiotic. Yes, not purchasing protected content is taking an appropriate (albeit probably pointless) measure. Complaining that a company is compliant with industry standards simply because you hate the standard isn't going to do anything other than make you look like someone who completely fails to understand the issue.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Fulcrum of Evil]

DRM on the output channel prevents all of the "analog" (I know, most new video outputs are digital, but the same methods apply) hacks from extracting the content from the DRM.

Of course, this only affects hobbyists and Linux users (and people who build their boxes). Real counterfeiters just copy the whole enchilada, often at the same factory. DRM has nothing to do with piracy.

Re:Pointless aspects

[killjoe]

It will be impossible not to buy vista because it will be shoved down everybodies throats. once you are using vista if half or it doesn't work because your monitor is not compliant then you will get a new monitor.

These guys may be evil but they are not stupid. If you think they are going to leave you with a choice not to use their stuff you have another thing coming.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps "life jacket" would have been a better term.

Or, you could say it's like giving a bicycle to a fish. Like that one feminist lady.

Re:Pointless aspects

[ultranova]

DRM on the output channel prevents all of the "analog" (I know, most new video outputs are digital, but the same methods apply) hacks from extracting the content from the DRM.

No it doesn't. Open up your nice LCD screen and intercept the signal in the cables / rails / whatever that lead to the liquid crystal dots.

Too much work for Joe Sixpack, you say. But Joe doesn't need to do it. It's enough that someone, anyone, does it, and then all the Joes in the world can download it from the friendly neighborhood torrent tracker.

The harder you make breaking the restrictions, the more face hackers gain from doing so.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Mattsson]

I'd rather say that it's like car manufacturers producing a car that can only be operated by _one_ driver and that could only run on roads approved by the oil-companies.

Re:Pointless aspects

[cskrat]

There may be a few slashdotters that don't have kids, but some of us went out into the big blue room and learned to swim before we got our first C-64.

Re:Pointless aspects

[ExKoopaTroopa]

They're trying to plug the analog hole again...

Re:Pointless aspects

[idlake]

We sort of had that develompent a century ago, until Congress stepped in. Our Congress is currently very corporatist, but the century is still young, and this sort of behavior has really pissed off the voters in the past, once they figured it out.

Re:Pointless aspects

[localman]

I would have thought so... but iTunes 6 remains uncracked.

Cheers.

Re:Pointless aspects

[kimvette]

Only if:

  - the VCR had AGC (early models often didn't) and didn't know how to crack it open to adjust it manually
  - you have not heard of Sima Copymaster or other notch filters or video processors
  - don't buy a VCR with front inputs, which are often not negatively affected by Macrovision.

Also note:
  - Editing VCRs (not consumer models with editing features, I'm talking professional VCRs, which often had RS-232 ports for control by other video devices or computers)
  - Tape duplicators are unaffected by Macrovision

So in other words, Macrovision was a non-issue to "professional pirates." All Macrovision accomplished was ruining the customer's experience, especially if running it through a television which featured AGC on the video inputs, or ran it through a video receiver, unless those legitimate customers were aware of the options above.

Re:Pointless aspects

[kimvette]

Well when you can't even get a majority to get out to vote, especially at the local level, there is not going to be much improvement. The "special interests" and those supporting them always seem to get out and vote but the average person often can't be bothered to. I expect DRM to infest all electronic devices in the next couple of years because the average "consumer" is lazy and won't care until Joe Sixpack discovers the Plasma television he bought for $7,000 a couple of years ago won't display the upcoming DVD format in Hi-Def. By then it will be far too late for Joe Sixpack to do anything about it. He can plunk down $3,000 for a new Plasma television (prices have obviously come way down) to view Hi-Def, or he can just stay pissed off, buy the media anyhow and watch it at NTSC resolution.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Firehed]

But it would be downsampled to just a hair over 480p, so your high-def media certainly isn't HD at all. You can be pretty damn sure that Apple's going to support HDCP in whatever release of OSX they have out by the time that their computers are touting HD drives (I'm thinking 10.6). It would still be protected, just not the raw data being sent to your display. Which is pointless to protect anyways, as I certainly can't think of anyone who pirates via dongle.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Fulcrum of Evil]

But it would be downsampled to just a hair over 480p, so your high-def media certainly isn't HD at all.

Do you really think that hollywood would try that if MS said no?

I certainly can't think of anyone who pirates via dongle.

Neither can I - everyone I know of uses a factory.

Re:Pointless aspects

[1110110001]

To use your car anaolgy, it would be like car manufactures being forced to make cars that couldn't speed. And yes that would cause one hell of an uproar.

Todays cars already have a speed limit in their controllers. I didn't hear anyone scream.

Re:Pointless aspects

[JWW]

Todays cars already have a speed limit in their controllers. I didn't hear anyone scream.

Well I've never run into any limit on any of my cars. By the way, I was talking about cars not letting you exceed the POSTED limit, not having some kind of limiter to keep you from going 110, I'm talking about one that would kick in at 55. And yes people would get very pissed about that.

Re:Pointless aspects

[Firehed]

Do you really think that hollywood would try that if MS said no?

Do you really think they wouldn't? All things considered, Microsoft (with regards to MCE) is a tiny player in the home theatre market.

And I fail to see how HDCP does anything but require people to purchase new TVs. I don't see what would stop you copying something that's has the HDCP flag enabled (if it's done similarly to the broadcast flag). Of course we all knew that - it's clearly just something to move new hardware.

Copy Protection Optional

[doormat]

The only bright light in this spec. That and it supposedly can support *really* high resolutions.

Re:Copy Protection Optional

[T-Ranger]

Optional for who? Not the consumer, Ill bet. And if it is optional for the consumer, you can be sure as shit that that being disabled will be reported - or a monitor key not transmitted - so that the DRMd stuff wont play.

Re:Copy Protection Optional

[kfg]

Kinda like breathing, although there are few who elect not to do it.

KFG

Re:Copy Protection Optional

[arkhan_jg]

I'm thinking optional is a bad thing. Look at HDCP; graphics card manufacturers aren't including it on their DVI-I cards, so even if you had a HDCP compliant DVI monitor or HDTV you won't be able to play hi-res movies on a PC or pc-based DVR once the down-sample-if-not-HDCP bit gets turned on with HD-DVD and blueray disks - even though they have more than enough capability to do so. Worse, broadcast TV is likely to switch to HDCP as a requirement for HD broadcasts once the switchover is complete, or even before.

The content companies seem hellbent on driving away their audience by excessive restrictions, I see little point in just adding a big mess of incompatibilities into yet another standard from the start - it won't stop them keeping people at SD resolution if they don't have HDCP all the way through, for example. It just means we get to figure out why our friends and family aren't getting the HD resolution they're expecting, and can't get because they bought a device with the wrong plug. Then when they realise they've been screwed, they might get annoyed enough with the content companies to let their feelings show. The only way we're really going to beat the broadcast flag and DRM in general is to expose lots of normal people to the heavy restrictions of DRM, while they still remember what it was like with the old system - and when the volume of protests is large enough, we might actually get something done about it.

Even my non-technical friends had already heard of the sony root-kit CD disaster, and thought poorly of Sony because of it - imagine what the shitstorm is going to be like when people realise they're messing with TV!

Re:Copy Protection Optional

[yobjob]

Dude, the last thing I needed right now was more acronyms!

Re:Copy Protection Optional

[verbatim_verbose]

Unfortunately it's not going to be _your_ option. The fact that it's optional for companies to deploy does us no good.

Re:Copy Protection Optional

[petermgreen]

imagine what the shitstorm is going to be like when people realise they're messing with TV!
i remember sky here in the uk introduced macrovison when they introduced sky digital but there was so much bad press (and remember sky have to compete with cablecos etc) that they turned it off for thier normal channels (they still use it on pay per view i belive).

Re:Copy Protection Optional

[HTH NE1]

Worse, broadcast TV is likely to switch to HDCP as a requirement for HD broadcasts once the switchover is complete, or even before.

Last I heard, FCC rules require all broadcast TV to be unencrypted. The Broadcast Flag is not encryption.

Re:Copy Protection Optional

[arkhan_jg]

It doesn't matter if it's an unencrypted signal, as it doesn't do you much good if your tuner downsamples it to SD because you're connected to your HD set via component rather than HDMI. The encryption path is tuner to set, not broadcast aerial to tuner. If the content companies think they can get away with the broadcast flag (aka non-record bit) and downsample bit on HD-disks, there's absolutely no reason they can't also get legislation to get the downsample bit added as a mandatory 'feature' on HD broadcast tuners.

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

it's all too often posts like these get forgotten in the dust when they contain interesting content

Bandwidth...

[setirw]

I've noticed that a lot of users are stating that extra bandwidth is unnecessary.

Keep in mind that today's top-of-the-line LCD displays, running at QUXGA (3200x2400) require multiple DVI dual link connections, and comprise multiple discrete panels, each with its individual signal feed. A display by IBM (T221, I believe is the model number) currently does this.

I believe Lenovo manufactures IBM's flat panel displays. Could the T221 be a potential justification for Lenovo to co-sponsor this technology?

Re:Bandwidth...

[dreemernj]

QXGA is actually higher than the res you mention. I think its 3840x2400. Tiny difference but it supports your point even further. These companies are interested in this port and its extra bandwidth because they are already working on the monitors that wouold make use of it.

Personally I am all for this. 1) backwards compatibility is friendly and 2) I've seen the best HD TV can do and I want better.

Re:Bandwidth...

[setirw]

I said QUXGA. That's a quad UXGA, which are 1600x1200.

QXGA is quad XGA, which is 2048x1536.

Re:Bandwidth...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I believe Lenovo manufactures IBM's flat panel displays. Could the T221 be a potential justification for Lenovo to co-sponsor this technology?

IBM's manufacturing partner for the T22x family was IDTech in Japan.

IBM stopped selling the monitors almost a year ago, probably right about the time they sold their PC division to Lenovo.

Furthermore, DisplayPort has only a negligble bandwidth lead over DVI. The total raw capacity of DisplayPort is 10.8 Gbps versus 9.9 Gbps for a dual-link DVI connection (or a "type B" HDMI connection).

The main reason for DisplayPort's existence is the onerous licensing terms for HDMI - and some technical requirements that make it harder to miniaturize and integrate the DVI/HDMI electronics.

Re:Bandwidth...

[gabebear]

The real problem I see is that this isn't enough bandwidth...

This seems like another band-aid patch to the problem, we are going to have larger than 3200x2400 soon and they are going to require multiple DisplayPort connections. Just doubling the bandwidth isn't going to cut it.

Re:Bandwidth...

[dreemernj]

My bad, I was actually thinking about QXGA-W, which is the 3840x2400 res I mentioned.

Re:Bandwidth...

[Baddas]

I'd guess you're correct, it appears that monitors are running into the same issues as normal networking. Really, to be future-safe, they ought to do an order-of-magnitude increase (eg 100gbps vs DVI-B 10gbps)

Re:Bandwidth...

[MojoStan]

DisplayPort has only a negligble bandwidth lead over DVI. The total raw capacity of DisplayPort is 10.8 Gbps versus 9.9 Gbps for a dual-link DVI connection (or a "type B" HDMI connection).

But if you believe VESA's hype, DisplayPort's bandwidth is "future extensible" while DVI's badwidth is maxed out at 9.9 Gbps (dual-link) per port. Ars Technica's article on DisplayPort also mentions VESA's claim of higher bandwidth in the future.

Here's a spec comparison (includes bandwidth) of DisplayPort, LVDS, DVI, and HDMI (I believe it's from VESA):

http://www.audioholics.com/news/uploads/DisplayP ortDVIHDMIcompared.gif

Re:Bandwidth...

[Alan Partridge]

WHy do people persist with this 'QUXGA' crap? Call it what it is - no-one gives a shit what LGUXA-W is. If it's 3200x2400 that you mean, just fucking write that.

Cunts.

Re:Bandwidth...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

But if you believe VESA's hype, DisplayPort's bandwidth is "future extensible" while DVI's badwidth is maxed out at 9.9 Gbps (dual-link) per port. Ars Technica's article on DisplayPort also mentions VESA's claim of higher bandwidth in the future.

I think it is marketing. For either choice will require new silicon to support increased bandwidth. Its possible that displayport will require less logic to support increased bandwidth than DVI would - but once it is packaged up in a chip that most manufacturers will just drop into their designs, it doesn't matter all that much if that chip has 100K or 200K transistors.

Re:Bandwidth...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. Back when there were maybe 4 resolution options, the acronyms were tolerable. With a near infinite number of possible resolutions, it is just retarded.

Backwards compatible

[notanatheist]

More importantly than being backward compatible with DVI is well it accept a DVI-VGA adapter. You're not taking my kick ass 17" IBM tubes from my workbench any time soon. LCD is just not dependable for working at various resolutions.

Re:Backwards compatible

[Phantom Zmoove]

I'm not quite ready to go LCD either. I have many applications that like to run at various resolutions. I don't like the idea of paying a quality penalty just because I'm not running in the sweet spot. I'll just keep on being old and outdated with my CRTs while everyone cool buys up the flat panel screens. (making my beloved tube monitors plummet in price during the process) :)

Re:Backwards compatible

[joshier]

I'm a long time graphic designer, and I never use my laptops LCD screen to work on, it just isn't good enough. My mate bought a £200 quid LCD screen the other day, and i've checked it out but I would still not do any designing on that either.

Re:Backwards compatible

[tepples]

I have many applications that like to run at various resolutions.

And why won't they run in a window?

Re:Backwards compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we don't always want stuff in small windows and some programs don't want to run windowed.

Re:Backwards compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

Some PC graphics cards (particularly older ones) won't do 3D unless fullscreened.

Some newer cards won't accelerate video decoding unless fullscreened.

Many games don't run at acceptable frame rates at the desktop resolution, and play much better at lower ones, although newer, high speed, low-latency LCDs look fantastic at non-native resolutions as long as there's no text or pixelwork involved.

Some people spent a ginormous sum of money on their 22" CRT that can do 2048x1536 and would like to view their porn at its fullest level of detail on a single screen, but don't want the icons to be 1/32nd of an inch across. This goes for games and (other) apps as well.

The display resolution (obviously) defines both the maximum application owned screen real-estate and also defines the scale of images on the screen; it's important to have the ability to change it.

Re:Backwards compatible

[Malor]

Scaling in both modern LCDs and modern graphics cards is really very good. I'm running a Dell 2405 (1920x1200 native), and all of the lesser resolutions I've tried have been highly playable. It's really quite remarkable... I'd call the display in low res modes only barely inferior to a CRT. In high res, of course, you get the benefits of LCDs for regular work, like ClearType and no flicker.

At this point, unless you're in some way dependent on the slightly more accurate color reproduction on CRTs, a good-quality LCD is definitely the way to go.

Re:Backwards compatible

[FinestLittleSpace]

£200 is VERY low for a graphic design standard LCD monitor. You need to be looking at paying twice, maybe even four times that for a decent GD monitor.

The ad agency I work at all use LCD for their print work, but none of them are cheap. You CAN get more than substantial flat screens, but you have to pay a premium, just like if you want a GOOD CRT.

Re:Backwards compatible

[joshier]

My CRT I use for my work cost me 140 quid. Any more than 200 quid and I'd rather get a 21" crt than a 17" LCD.

Re:Backwards compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

You like saying quid don't ya.

Alright me old China?

Re:Backwards compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck? admins, ban this twat.

Re:Backwards compatible

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck? admins, ban this twat

Dual link DVI?

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Isn't double the DVI bandwidth... "dual-link DVI"?

(I know because I own one of those 30" Apple flatscreens which requires it.)

Or is it like quad-link DVI?

Copied Apple again!!

[Anonymous Coward]

We Mac users call it Dual Link DVI and it's necessary to drive my nice big 30" Apple Display.

(you haven't 3D gamed until your on one of these puppies!)

Actually the Dual Link DVI should be able to carry twice the pixels of regular DVI, so we might be seeing a even bigger display coming as the 30" Cinema carries a max res. of only 2560 x 1600.

What's 1080i HD got? 1900 x 1000 or something at 50-60 inches? *Puke*

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[Stormwatch]

30"? You think that's a big screen? Bah! Now THIS is a big screen.

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[santaliqueur]

no, that's 24 normal screens.

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[crerwin]

We Mac users call it Dual Link DVI

No, the entire industry as well as the Digital Display Working Group, of which Apple is not a part, calls it (their design) Dual-link DVI. It is used any monitor with a resolution above 1920x1200 and I think it's been available on nVidia and ATI cards for a few generations.

No, Apple does not invent as much stuff as you'd like to think.

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[idesofmarch]

Thank you sir for submitting that kick-ass link.

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Instead you see the abomination of people sitting in front of 2 smaller monitors. "

Eh? Sorry but a 1920x1080 monitor (or even around 2500 horizontal pixels x whatever) does not come close to my 2 1600x1200 monitors. And having a single monitor that wide would just be ridiculous for full-screen apps of any kind (video especially). People who want something that looks pretty can keep their 30" displays at low-res (always has to be perfect 16x9 so always low vertical res in comparison). I for one will keep my 3200x2400 in 2 digestible pieces thanks.

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean your 3200x1200... if you want 3200x2400, you need four 1600x1200 screens in two rows to form a square.

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[akac]

True, but like USB, them mouse, and the 3.5'' disk drive and other standard equipment - nobody even supported Dual Link DVI until Apple did.

Apple does not invent all that much hardware wise.

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[Alan Partridge]

The current 30" displays are 2560x1600 and, believe me, they are FAR better than 2 1600x1200s side-by-side.

When you have a 30", the term 'desktop' suddenly makes sense.

Re:Copied Apple again!!

[kimvette]

Actually there are often times where using dual monitors vs. one single large panel.

Take debugging for example; even on a large screen it's often hard to debug a program, especially if you have modal dialogs, and coding PHP or even plain HTML is just a lot easier when the screens are independent (you can be SURE that any debuggers you have will remain in view and that screen won't be taken over by a rogue window or dialogue), and ditto for working with graphics and video. I welcome the new DVI standard but only because I refuse to ditch my high-resolution CRTs for low-resolution (1920x1200) LCD monitors. When LCD resolutions match CRTs without tying up multiple monitor ports, I'll switch in a flash. I will STILL want to run two independent monitors in that case.

Fiber connections

[mnmn]

There are no details in the article, but I'm hoping for an optic-based connection. This can remove the length restrictions and electric interference. Not to mention the cable will be much cheaper.

Re:Fiber connections

[setirw]

The high end AV corporation Goldmund offers an optical DVI cable: See this page.

Argh... now I sound like a Madison Avenue spokesperson...

Re:Fiber connections

[PayPaI]

The Goldmund Powercord uses specially made high-speed cable, shielded and protected against HF pollution. The selection of connectors has been made on criteria of semi-conductor effect cancellation to avoid impedance accidents as in the Lineal cable. The Goldmund Powercord Standard model is the fastest and may be used even for Power amplifiers. The Special version uses twice the quantity of wires in a cross section to minimize inductance and should be used only for very high power applications.

Awesome.

Re:Fiber connections

[SuperQ]

the only problem with optical connections.. the bandwidth required for 1600x1200@60Hz, and 32bit color raw data is 3.5Gbps.. A basic Gbic is $75, if you could 4 of those to make a one-way display connection, it'd add $300 to the connection.. copper is used because high bandwidth for short distances is cheap.

Re:Fiber connections

[Punboy]

Funny... I read 1.65Gbps...

From http://www.bnoack.com/index.html?http&&&www.bnoack .com/data/DVI-conn.html

Data is transmitted by the transition minimized differential signaling (TMDS) protocol. The DVI specification calls for at least one TMDS link which includes three data channels (RGB) and one clock control channel.
DVI Specification 1.0: a TMDS link may operate at up to 165MHz. A single 10-bit TMDS link offers 1.65Gbps of bandwidth. This bandwidth is sufficient for a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution refreshed at 60Hz on a digital display.

Did it occur to you that it may use hardware lossless compression? 3.5Gigabits can easily be compressed to 1.65gbps losslessly.

Re:Fiber connections

[evilviper]

Did it occur to you that it may use hardware lossless compression? 3.5Gigabits can easily be compressed to 1.65gbps losslessly.

Compression means an extra step, which means long delays; increased latency, not to mention more expense on the card and screens.

I sincerely doubt they're using compression of any kind.

Re:Fiber connections

[egarland]

Did it occur to you that it may use hardware lossless compression?

There is no compression in the DVI spec. Compression wouldn't be practical at that kind of speed.

There are typically 3 of those 165MHz channels (R G and B) running at 8 bits per clock. 165 x 8 x 3 = 3960 million bits/s = 3.6Gb/s (in 1024s).

Re:Fiber connections

[Anonymous Coward]

3.5Gigabits can easily be compressed to 1.65gbps losslessly.

It is not at all easy, in fact it is impossible.

Re:Fiber connections

[Incadenza]

Awesome.

Yeah, really makes you believe the claims for all their other super duper cables.

Re:Fiber connections

[TheNumberless]

3.5Gigabits can easily be compressed to 1.65gbps losslessly.

That depends on the entropy in the signal. It's not a guarantee.

little hint in TFA...

[zogger]

It looks more like they are planning some craptacular (via a scam chip buried someplace in the machine) way to make it impossible to view their (someone "their's") expensive "intellectual property" unless it is in the approved format of the week. Crack one level, you still have to view it, only to meet the new craptacular connection and monitor, tough noogies again. Call it defense of profits in depth, hard wired. Hit 'em in the hardware, hit 'em in the software, double nail them with laws, eventually they have 99% of the people buffaloed into economic submission..

Of course, that is a real wild guess....I am just a skeptic by nature when it comes to this sort of thing - "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 7,963 times, shame on me" deal.. "New and Improved" - from big industry sources, most always translates as "a new conjob they have come up with and an improved way to keep sucking dollars out of your wallet"

Re:little hint in TFA...

[drivekiller]

Yes, but is this such a big deal? Corporate product needs passive receivers; real culture invites active participation. When corporate media is controlled end-to-end, it will die because it will never be a part of the culture in any meaningful way. You see it on tv and then it goes away, an endless stream of effectively identical units whose sole purpose is to put eyes in front of commercials. Just tune out. You'll be so much happier.

Re:little hint in TFA...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Crack one level, you still have to view it, only to meet the new craptacular connection and monitor, tough noogies again. Call it defense of profits in depth, hard wired.

I can crack all levels of the encryption with a little research, the right person, and a blowtorch.

Re:little hint in TFA...

[zogger]

*snort*! heh

Re:little hint in TFA...

[killjoe]

I think people have got this all wrong. The goal is not to prevent you from watching something, it's to force you to watch something. Just like the DVDs you can't forward through. This is designed so that people can pop up ads and you won't be able to get rid of them. You will be forced to watch ads when you are using office because office will be given away for free. You will be forced to watch adds when you use windows or IE.

When the hardware manufacturers disallow open source software from running on their bioses you too will have to watch ads like every other shmuck.

Enjoy your ad free browsing (thank you firefox) while you can.

DRM, the pot with gold at the end of the rainbow

[Anonymous Coward]

And three new companies puts their reputation on the line to get a piece of the huge DRM cake that lies ahead. The companies that owns the DRM patents that will be dominant in the future are to reap big profits from it. That's why everyone (Microsoft, Apple et al) has been busy in introducing DRM standards.

Screwing it up again?!?

[egarland]

DVI was braindead from the start. The protocol limited connections to 1600x1200 (1920x1200 if you pushed it). Their solution to higher resolutions is dual link which suffered from a chicken and egg problem. With no monitors supporting it no video cards bothered to add support. With no video cards to drive them, nobody bothered creating monitors that would take advantage of dual link. Most video cards still don't bother to support it.

LCD technology scales up much more cost effectively than CRT did so with the advent of LCD, the economics of big screen displays were about to get much better. At the time LCDs started becoming popular, I was working on a 21" CRT at 1600x1200. Unfortunately, because of the limitations of single link DVI, while 24, 26 and 28" monitors may have been cost effective to create, interfacing them with a computer was impractical. Instead you see the abomination of people sitting in front of 2 smaller monitors. Apple finally broke the chicken and egg problem with their 30" Apple Cinema display. They built dual link into their entire product line in preparation for it's launch. Dell now sells a 30" LCD for PCs as well and finally the latest generation of ultra-high end video cards now mostly support dual link. With this hurdle overcome, DVI is finally set to become a good digital display standard.

From what I understand this new standard will be incapable of driving monitors at resolutions above what these 30" displays can do now. That's nice but DVI is there and prepared to surpass that. Why create a new standard that limits display size to a resolution that was reached a year before the standard is even released, especially when dual link support is finally taking hold and the original limitations of DVI are starting to melt away. While I would like to see DVI replaced with something smaller and more capable, this new standard seems even more short sighted as the original DVI standard to me (since they don't even provide a path to higher resolutions).

Make it support up to 42" displays (20gb/s) and you've got a standard that makes sense. Otherwise.. lets just stick with DVI.

Re:Screwing it up again?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

DVI was braindead from the start. The protocol limited connections to 1600x1200 (1920x1200 if you pushed it).

Actually, no. Even 1600x1200 is just beyond the original bandwidth limit.

Instead you see the abomination of people sitting in front of 2 smaller monitors.

Bah, I prefer having 3 monitors at 1600x1200... The abomination is not having a choice.

Re:Screwing it up again?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong on several counts:

• DVI bandwidth is not what limits display sizes. It is the physical manufacturing process for displays. The number of pixel defects is proportional to the area of the display and density of pixels. See the LCD display Wikipedia entry.
• Apple was not the first to develop large LCD displays, IBM was. IBM sold the T220 before Apple's 30" Cinema Display. Again, see the IBM T220 Wikipedia entry. Note that it required two video cards with two single-link DVI connectors each (and special hardware+drivers to synchronize them all). This is because video card manufacturers had not started making dual-link cards yet. Unfortunately for IBM, the T220 was not a large display, just extraordinarily dense (~200 dpi). It looked nice but you couldn't use all that resolution because the pixels were so small. Once again, Apple got the customer experience part right.

The DVI specification was well-planned to allow the additional bandwidth of a second link that many years in advance of both video cards and monitors that would require them. Do you realize how amazing it is to have hardware vendors ship connectors with pins no one will use for years? These people live on wafer-thin margins and shave cents off manufacturing costs wherever they can. Be happy that we got so far before the H****wood crowd started forcing DRM into everything.

Re:Screwing it up again?!?

[MojoStan]

Apple finally broke the chicken and egg problem with their 30" Apple Cinema display. They built dual link into their entire product line in preparation for it's launch.

WTF? I remember when the 30" Cinema Display was launched (June 2004) and they certainly did not build dual-link DVI into their entire product line "in preparation for it's launch." MacCentral's coverage of the WWDC 2004 keynote explains it best:

Jobs also introduced a new 30-inch display. The $3,299 display sports 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution, and works only in the Power Mac G5. It requires a new Nvidia GeForce graphics card in order to work, a $599 card that features dual-link DVI interfaces.

That Nvidia card was the first "non-workstation" card (GeForce brand) I can remember that supported dual-link DVI. However, workstation cards (like the Quadro FX 3000) have supported dual-link DVI since at least July 2003. I think the only reason Apple used a "GeForce" card was because they did not support any "workstation" cards at the time (they do now).

...and finally the latest generation of ultra-high end video cards now mostly support dual link.

Gigabyte's GV-RX16P256DE-RH (Radeon X1600 Pro) supports dual-link DVI and costs about $105 at Newegg. Mainstream workstation cards (Nvidia Quadro, ATI FireGL, etc) have supported dual-link DVI longer than "consumer" cards like GeForce and Radeon.

From what I understand this new standard will be incapable of driving monitors at resolutions above what these 30" displays can do now. That's nice but DVI is there and prepared to surpass that. Why create a new standard that limits display size to a resolution that was reached a year before the standard is even released, especially when dual link support is finally taking hold and the original limitations of DVI are starting to melt away.

As I said in another comment, VESA claims that DisplayPort's bandwidth is "future extensible" while DVI's bandwidth is maxed out at 9.9 Gbps per dual-link port. However, what they claim and what they implement might be different. Here's VESA's comparison chart anyway:

DisplayPort, LVDS, DVI, and HDMI comparison

Re:Screwing it up again?!?

[petermgreen]

The number of pixel defects is proportional to the area of the display and density of pixels.

on the other hand the greater the pixel density the less noticable dead pixels will be.

when we reach 300dpi or so i suspect most people will stop caring about dead pixels as they will be invisible anyway. Unfortunately this will require a paradigm shift in software development. Traditionally UI elements have been measured in pixels because the pixel size has been what limits how small you can make stuff and keep it readable, high DPI will change that big time and once again apple will probablly lead that revoloution (remember the talk of changing webkit so 1 css pixel=2x2 real pixels a while back?) just like they did with dual link DVI.

Re:Screwing it up again?!?

[egarland]

Good response. I was not aware that Apple had released the display with so little support. They have, however, added support dual link to most of their current hardware, correct?

Gigabyte's GV-RX16P256DE-RH (Radeon X1600 Pro) supports dual-link DVI and costs about $105 at Newegg.

Correct.. Support for dual link is starting to work it's way into the mainstream. The chicken and egg problem of the original DVI standard is over.

As I said in another comment, VESA claims that DisplayPort's bandwidth is "future extensible" while DVI's bandwidth is maxed out at 9.9 Gbps per dual-link port.

The claim that DVI is maxed out at 9.9 GB/s yes DisplayPort is "future extensible" is fanboy talk. DisplayPort has no support for higher bandwidth. The DVI spec, however, allows for bandwidth up to whatever the cable supports in dual link mode. The 9.9 GB/s is based on the 165 MHz clock limit on single DVI that all cables must at least support. Dual link DVI is actually more extensible than DisplayPort since you can increase bandwidth and stay inside the spec. Also, with 6 data channels instead of 4 it should scale up higher with the same quality cables. It's a pretty meaningless advantage but the argument that DisplayPort is more extensible doesn't hold water.

Still, my point is not that DisplayPort isn't better. If today were 10 years ago and these two were competing to become the display standard this seems like it should win out. The fact is it's not 10 years ago and we all have DVI eqiupment. DispalyPort needs to be not just "better" than DVI, it needs to be enough better to justify creating yet another standard for hooking displays up to equipment. We already have a TON of them in active use. It's getting stupid.

To list a few in active use:

75 ohm coax (channel 3/4)
Stanard RCA jack NTSC video
S-Video
Component (R G B RCA jacks)
VGA
DVI (DVI-I, Dual Link, DVI-A, etc)
HDMI

Many people have all of these interfaces on different equipment in their homes now, and they are are trying to add 1 more. This is NUTS. Theres no reason to create a new standard and a new connector type just to allow the content companies to put hardware DRM into the display data streams.

To have 2 of each of the above (except the coax) would require 12 connectors on a TV. It's getting to the point where you'll need a protcol converter to get your TV to talk to your devices (and even that will probably be impossible with the new DRM crippled interfaces.)

It took the industry a long time to get DVI right, but they are doing it now. There's no need for this.

digital interfaces

[convolvatron]

it is odd. i used to think this was an important area. however, now with everyone converging towards ansynchronous transaction packets spread over lvds pairs it just doesn't matter any more. peers even discover the best rate and width. you may as well run HT or PCI-E to the monitor at this point, anything else is just arbitrary market segmentation.

(it use to be that the rates required to draw a screen and the general purpose bus bandwisth were off by 3 magnitues...they are now on parity. machines have changed, people haven't very much)

Re:digital interfaces

[Fulcrum of Evil]

(it use to be that the rates required to draw a screen and the general purpose bus bandwisth were off by 3 magnitues...they are now on parity. machines have changed, people haven't very much)

How is that relevant? No PC today can sustain a GB/s stream to the display. The limiting factor is usually the texels/s and, for the high-res stuff, bandwidth to the display, which hasn't been tied to bus bandwidth for 5 or more years.

Re:digital interfaces

[woolio]

you may as well run HT or PCI-E to the monitor at this point

Maybe in a laptop, but certainly not in a desktop.

Implementing a high-speed databus on a motherboard (such as PCI-E), is easy, since the distances are very short and the "wires" are the traces on the motherboard. It is a very controlled environment.

But you just can't take that same thing and run it down a 3 foot cable to a monitor.. In the GHZ range, the losses in a 3 foot cable would be severe, not to mention the inductive effects of the cable, (which would vary depending on its position and orientation [coiled, curved, or straight]).

Perhaps if we go back to the ol' days where the monitor and the motherboard were housed in the same box, then it would work...

but...

[kahrytan]

The question is, Will it work with Linux?

Re:but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably two months before NetBSD supports it, then it gets ported to FreeBSD 4 months after, whilst OpenBSD also ports it 18 months later and creating the OpenDisplayport project ;)

Someone check my math, but...

[Zadaz]

If it supports double the bandwidth, doesn't that only support 50% larger displays?

In which case it's already almost obsolete, given I can't even run my 23" at full resolution within legal DVI specs. This would barely run Apple's existing 30" display.

Guess we know at least one reason Apple didn't sign on.

Re: Dell, HP, Lenovo Announce New Display Protocol

[despik]

"Asatanaanadanaarandad"? I don't know what occult incantation is that, but it certainly sounds satanic.

Screwing it up again?!?-Location.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Make it support up to 42" displays (20gb/s) and you've got a standard that makes sense. Otherwise.. lets just stick with DVI."

Maybe, or just put the video card behind the display screen, and have a firewire connection to the computer.

Re:Screwing it up again?!?-Location.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no clue.

Re:Screwing it up again?!?-Location.

[toddestan]

Maybe, or just put the video card behind the display screen, and have a firewire connection to the computer.

Have you looked at the specs for PCI-Express and AGP? The bandwidth between the video card and the rest of the computer is measured in GB/s. Firewire isn't nearly that fast. Even Firewire 800 would have trouble keeping up with an old PCI video card (at 133MB/s IIRC). Sure you might get away with it for Powerpoint at 42", but games would unplayable. Video would be impossible unless you did all the decoding on the video card itself.

Re:Screwing it up again?!?-Location.

[petermgreen]

that may work for video (assuming the hardware could do the decompression or the video was relatively low quality, e.g. 640*480*32*30=294,912,000bps=within normal firewire's abilities just about) and for your GUI desktop but for gaming i doubt firewire would be sufficiant. even firewire 800 (which is still pretty rare) is slower than standard PCI!

point is unless you are doing fairly low load operations only you really don't save anything by piping graphics card level commands over the bus rather than pumping a framebuffer over the bus. Youd need a specialist bus either way.

Industry patience is over

[BadassJesus]

SiliconImage's proprietary goldmine called "DVI" is aging, no one really wants to pay another license ransom to SiliconImage anymore. And of course, no support for resolutions over 1920x1440 in DVI really inks the R.I.P.

2x Bandwidth is a magnitude too small

[Anonymous Coward]

Why must all of these protocols being developed settle for only a 2x gain in bandwidth? Does that not seem shortsighted to anyone else? Why don't they just stop being lame about it and go for 100x or 1000x? The 2x gain in bandwith will need to be superceeded in a few years anyways, I don't see the point.

It's the same with wireless b and g protocols, why only go to 54mbps, why not go for gigabit right away?

I realize there are technical hurdles to overcome, but why not aim for something that won't have to be replaced every couple years? (other than maybe the silly need to make people buy things every time someone has a whim to make some marginally better protocol).

Re:2x Bandwidth is a magnitude too small

[Khyber]

The reason we can't have gigabit wireless is due to limitations put upon us by current hardware "innovation" (e.g. comanies ripping each other off and claiming an improvement when it's more likely a simple speed upgrade and not something entirely new and revolutionary from a previous design,) and we have this airwave-governng body called the FCC that needs to rationa out the bandwidth ovr the airwaves. I don't think I need to say more on this answer.

Great new DRM'ed connnection interfaces...

[plasmacutter]

quoth the very tired tagline.. "whoever wins, we lose"

now you may mod me into oblivion =/

Dell ... = Tell ATI & nVidia to create it

[r_jensen11]

Dell, HP, Lenovo, et Co. won't do anything other than tell ATI and nVidia "Hey, do this, or else we'll switch to integrated Intel graphics."

Fuck this shit! Put a bullet in that mod's head

[Ohreally_factor]

OK, if there was a mod -1, pun, that would be cool. But what's with the troll bullshit? The mod is obviously and sadly unaware of geek culture. Is there a way we can restrict moderation to people that have an IQ above room temperature or that have graduated middle school? I know this falls far short of my original proposal of publicly identifying moderators so that the bad ones can be dispatched to help thin the gene pool.

Re:Fuck this shit! Put a bullet in that mod's head

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 35, grew up in the US, and I had to Google "Geddy" and "Peart" just to figure out what the fsck you were talking about. Our favorite bands are not automatically fixtures of geek culture. I can't expect everyone to recognize Weird Al or They Might Be Giants lyrics, and their geek quotients are far more blatant. Actually the only Rush fan I knew in high school was kind of a stoner...

Re:Fuck this shit! Put a bullet in that mod's head

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't expect the mods to have the same presence of mind that you do to actually, i don't know, USE THE INTERNET to look things like that up? It's not like it wasn't bleedin' ovbious that the poster wasn't just throwing out some garbage - it is rather plain that misspelling was intentional.

What's more, a quick 2-second search of the profile shows TWO recently accepted postings and an abnormally high number of 'Funny' comments in the past 24... so the guy obviously isn't some sort of career troll.

Speaking as a mod myself (though not at the moment), I sort of expect some basic level of competence from the others. What the moderator should do is post something in this thread (non-anonymously), which will cancel out the moderation. And everybody else should immediately meta-moderate and rate the moderation unfair.

Re:Fuck this shit! Put a bullet in that mod's head

[Anonymous Coward]

If the meaning of a comment isn't self-evident to the bulk of the readership, it doesn't contribute to the discussion, regardless of who wrote it. This one took a Web search to distinguish it from gibberish, and even after that it doesn't have much of a point to make.

tune out to stay sane

[zogger]

Pretty much already done did that. I don't get any new media discs,well, a very few, I restrict my purchases now to used primarily or the severely marked down bargain bins, and those are around maybe 4 units per annum I give my GF as cheap gifts (she likes movies way more than I do). I only watch a very few selected shows on TV, and even those most irregularly, primarily I catch the local weather, and watch a few selected olympic sports when they come around and an occassional nature special or news special. In other words, not enough commercials exposure to matter really. Maybe catch around 4 movies a year on tape, usually just rainy day watch something I already have. Music-meh, stopped going to concerts around the time ticket prices were headed towards ten bucks a show, which will really date me now. Recorded music, about the same as vids now, maybe half a dozen a year used CDs, a little OTA fm music in the car. Downloads-zero, either vids or music, none. I read news and opinion on the net, and the rest of the time my "culture" consists of being outside and doing outside stuff, either working or playing around with my hobbies.

I am more concerned over the political ramifications of locked down hardware and software. I don't like them taking away the gadgeteer's factor, the tinkerer's drive, making being curious and innovative a *crime*. trashing your "fair use" as a regular joe to take a wrench to your machine and make it "yours". I don't code myself but I totally "get" what drives open source coders, and agree with it. I build my own systems from normal parts, and I am not looking forward to having to jump through engineering hoops to maintain parity with whatever "openness" we have in hardware now, and be looking over my shoulder the whole time. I don't like the fact that big media and big news is falling into fewer and fewer hands, and that government is now in the stealth news business as official..well, brainwashing is the word, as official brainwashing policy.

And so on. Even though an individual may be able to counter this or that threat to his freedom through personal leet skills, we all have to work together, pool resources, be relentless, and try to respect and help the other guy maintain HIS freedoms as well. We will either all win or all lose in this game, so it is better, IMO, to always fall on the side of openness and freedom. If that changes some "business models" in society, I don't care, society still marches on, and some business models might be needing some changing anyway. There is no "right" to perpetual profits at the expense of other's freedoms, and limiting technological advances to only certain very wealthy segments of society who can control the actual law making process or who set up cartels to force you into accepting what you know is counterproductive for the advancement of Humans is..well, it's just not very cool. "Treacherous Computing" is very well named in this respect. Just say NO.

who can afford 42"

[cheekyboy]

If you can afford 42" then you can afford a special 'card' that has that special 'new-standard' thats rare.

Why bother making a standard support something that only 1% of people willuse when they can just buy that extra $150 card
that supports the 3000x2000 42" res using some uber custom special dual/tripple dvi hybrid.

Re:who can afford 42"

[egarland]

Why bother making a standard support something that only 1% of people will use when they can just buy that extra $150 card
that supports the 3000x2000 42" res using some uber custom special dual/tripple dvi hybrid.

The problem is if a monitor requires a special custom video card and cable you have the chicken and egg problem again. The barrier to creating monitors bigger than 30" will be so high they won't be created at any price point unless/until there is a huge demand. Also, since such a system wouldn't be interoperable with most video cards on the market it's a bad purchasing option for most people and I wouldn't want to buy one.

The problem isn't the 1% that want to run a 32" monitor now, it's the 10% that would get one in 5 years if there were any on the market, but won't be.

And again.. why replace a standard with a new incompatible one that's less flexible and capable? If they were proposing this as the original DVI it sounds like it would have been a great standard, but we already have DVI.

Re:who can afford 42"

[deque_alpha]

Don't short-sighted. That sort of thinking is exactly why this sort of problem exists. If they build scalability and support for silly high-end impractical things into the more pedestrian standard, it creates the forces neccesary for those silly high-end things to take hold, become popular, and then finally become affordable for normal people. Being involved in computers enough to be reading /., you should know better than to assume that just because something is expensive and "fringy" today that it will be that way for long.

Incompatible,Content protected

[Anonymous Coward]

From everything I have seen, as it stands now
Displayport is compatible with No prior standard.

It does carry audio,and no royalties will be due
to anyone but the Big Deal is Big Business.It supports bidirectional "optional" encryption protection schemes. And No prior standard is supported.

Simply replace everything you own, from the content to the machine.
And... Your display will now have to approve of your content.
Another added level of complexity designed to make things not work, which will likely result in things that do not work.
This is called either Trusted or Protected.
Be very afraid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort
"DisplayPort" Could Introduce Protected Displays"
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1813963 ,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

DisplayPort: Because what we really needed was
  another connector
http://www.hdbeat.com/2006/05/03/displayport-becau se-what-we-really-needed-was-another-connector/

You Know

[Sationus]

No, I did not read this, the thought of a new display, hurts my head... esp since I just got 2 7800GT's w/ a Dell 24 Inch LCD... Hardware companies need and should stop crap like this, if they knew (and I am sure they did) that they where going to release again another new type of computer part, then they should not sell the old or at least tell you when you buy the part(s) I know this is wishful on my end, but d...... come on now... I would have waited for the newer stuff, but now I am not going to be able to buy it.... I am just over it...

Just a thought

----

Bored? Play a game at http://www.arcadejunkie.com/

----

Try a New way to search at http://www.u1i.com/

Dell doesnt have 50% of market share

[cheekyboy]

While maintaining its No. 1 position worldwide, Dell's share fell to 16.5 percent from 16.9 percent in the same period last year, Gartner Inc. said. Nevertheless, Dell shipped 10.2 percent more PCs worldwide in the first quarter than a year ago.

Worldwide shipments totaled 57 million units, a 13.1 percent increase from a year ago. Most regions performed as expected, except for the U.S. PC market, which exceeded projections due to strong home desktop demand, Gartner said. Lower prices drove U.S. demand.

Next...

[Dreadflint]

Coming Up Next Week... the creatively named Douledisplayport "Hey. Look at my Double D Monitor!"

problem is not with the display size

[man_ls]

The problem isn't with the display size.

The problem is the fact that I can only have one display accelerated at a time. I purchased a second graphics card with its own accelerator to run my second display, thinking that this would get around the limitation -- but low and behold, on my P4-820 with 2GB of RAM, and an X800 XL + 9250, I still can't watch a DVD and play a DirectX game at the same time in full-motion. Or really do anything.

For a lot of people, the path to better computing is to add monitors -- it allows you to logically partition your work area spatially to a greater degree than just one monitor does. But if you can't do accelerated tasks on both monitors, you effectively only have 1 in a lot of situations.

That just doesn't cut it for me. Software rendering of DVDs, TV, videos, etc. all on my 2ndary display is not acceptable. But there's nothing I can do about it.

Re:problem is not with the display size

[A Life in Hell]

There are a few ways around this, btw. Firstly, a single card with multiple outputs will generally support full acceleration on all heads. Obviously, this is a solution which requires more money though.

Beyond that, on the unix side of the coin there is DMX, which allows (through glxproxy) accelerated 3d/video overlay (although not mpeg acceleration, i believe) on all heads. Your mention of directx indicates that this is not for you, however my point is that the solutions to these problems are out there, whether your particular combination of driver+os supports them or not.

(To be fair, I have four heads, but I usually only have video on two of them at a given time, and web browsers and code windows on the other two - so I lack your requirement for 3d+video+whatever on all heads... I'd still be productive if I only have one video head)

Re:problem is not with the display size

[Charcharodon]

I hope you find this usefull. Take a look at the Nvidia 7800 series. I have the 7800GS and it does support aceleration on both monitors at the same time.

Games or programs that will run in a windowed mode work the best, both in windowed and full screen mode. If they wont then they probably wont play nice. Currently I watch a DVD on one while playing a game on the other. It is hot swapable, in other words you can drag you program from one monitor to the other on the fly without it crashing. You do need to have a dual-core/multi-CPU system for this to work in addition to the card, else you won't have the resources to properly multi-task.

I'm not a loyal fan to either ATI or Nvidia, I swap companies depending on the current price point and technology level. Dual monitor acceleration and wide screen support won Nvidia my money this time around.

My rig Dell 24" wide screen LCD Viewsonic 17" LCD Nvidia Gigabyte 7800GS 256mb AMD x2 3800 dual core Kingston 2gb pc3200 Creative XFi sound card ASROCK dual APG/PCI-express mb Zalman reserator water cooling system Western Digital x2 74gb 10000rpm Raptor Raid 0 Maxtor 250gb SATA 2

Re:problem is not with the display size

[Com2Kid]

That is a Windows thing most likely. (Unless you are using *nix, in which case it is a "magic line in some config file" thing)

Windows uses a magic color for its hardware accelerated overlay.

You can actually set this color on the fly, rather fun. :-D WinAmp takes advantage of this, if you ever want the background of a Word file you are working on to be a bit more interesting, set the overlay color to White.

Any ways.

Notice that I said "a magic color".

Singular.

DOH.

Some companies (Nvidia, ATI) have developed workarounds for this, but you may or may not have 100% compatibility with existing software. I cannot say for sure how their implementations work (though it only takes about half a brain cell to make a damn good guess).

I believe Microsoft is fixing this issue in Vista, and will support multiple hardware accelerated overlays, even on a single screen.

Re:problem is not with the display size

[KangKong]

More of a directX problem I think, don't think directX is able to draw on anything but the first card and device. Can't play directx games if I have my tv-out as the primary device, took a while to figure out.

Ion

[Anonymous Coward]

For a lot of people, the path to better computing is to add monitors -- it allows you to logically partition your work area spatially to a greater degree than just one monitor does.

Try using Ion3, it partitions your screen quite nicely really with just one monitor.

Why at all a display specific bus?

[drolli]

Wouldn't it make more sense to make a "standard bus", which supports isochronous transfers? Maybe over optical fiber? Do displays really need DRM schemes made only for displays?

Re:Why at all a display specific bus?

[tomstdenis]

No and for a good reason. Displays need in order of priority

1. Bandwidth
2. Realtime response
3. Low latency

They're also unidirectional.

PCI-E would give #1 but not #2 or #3.

So it makes sense that a digital bus specifically optimized for the nature of the traffic be designed.

Tom

Re:Why at all a display specific bus?

[drolli]

> 1. Bandwidth

Does not depend on the specific implementation of the protocol.

> 2. Realtime response
> 3. Low latency

Actuall having these as separate points means that you did not think about what "real time response" means.

I only ask: should it uptdate more often than 60 time a second? So you know that USB has, for example things which are called "isochronous endpoints". Why not to define a bus, which has higher bandwidth (e.g. parallel), but still has "isochronous endpoints".

> So it makes sense that a digital bus specifically optimized for the nature of the traffic be designed.

I don't get the point. A bus definition does not necessarily require symmetric bandwidths...... actually it does not require to specify any bandwidth.

What's the problem with playing a DVD in software?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't take that much CPU power on a modern machine. If you're really worried about your framerate then get a dual-core CPU and it won't affect the game at all.

If you were playing HDTV in software I'd understand the problem, but playing standard-def video nowadays is computationally trivial.

One more alternative: get a junker PC with DVD drive / DVD player with MPEG4 support + a vga converter, hook that up to the second monitor with a KVW switch. Bit of an expensive ($150?), overkill solution, but I'm talking to a guy with an X800...

Royalties

[markus_baertschi]

From what I understand the mayor difference between Displayport and HDMI is money. If you build a HDMI port, then you must shell out some money for royalties, patents, etc. Displayport is a royalty-free solution. This allows its usage even in low-cost devices.

A second interesting feature is that it is designed to be used also for internal connections between the motherboard/graphics chip of a laptop and the LCD. The internal and external signals look the same. The external port will be identical to the internal port, but with a connector.

Markus

Re:DRM, the pot with gold at the end of the rainbo

[Anonymous Coward]

Redundant? It may be short, but it's still a bullseye. Insightful would be more like it. Mod parent up!

That the screens can display it is fine....

[Kjella]

But where's the content? Replacing NTSC/PAL with HDTV has been a slooooooooooooooooooooooooow process. For normal TV viewing distances (30-40" on at 8-10 feet), 1080p is fairly close to the limits of human perception. The only time you're likely to notice a real difference is if you're sitting at monitor distance, or a video wall giving you a cinema-like experience because it covers much more of your field of vision. I've looked at HDTV projectors, and if 3840x2160 (2x1080p) projectors exist, the price tag is so huge you can forget about it. Even 1080p is way out of bounds for most people, only 720p projectors are reasonable. Given the price tag of 70-100" LCD/plasma screens, reasonably priced video walls with higher resolution to boot aren't coming either.

Yes, so you can have reasonably priced monitors like Apple's and Dell's 30" LCDs. What can you display on them? I mean except for the geeky "have ten windows of various crap in a giant workspace" thing. No commercially available vids (even if we assume HD DVD and Blu-Ray has hit the market) are in that resolution. No home/prosumer camera (DV or even HDV) can record in that resolution. The only way you could possibly see native above-and-beyond HDTV content is to have a 35mm film camera, then digitize it at that resolution. Never mind that if the conditions and equipment is anything but optimal, you're not likely to see much else than noise and film grain.

Where's the market? There's a tiny market in print shops (which instead care a lot about color quality, another hard demand on top of everything else), medical facilities and other "special" shops, but in the worst case they can use two dual-link cables. That should cover 3840x2160 (2x1080p) which is roughly what a 20-20 eye can percieve at monitor distance. Yes, I do mean it when I say "3840x2160 should be enough for everyone". I think it's far more likely they'll use a standard GFX card designed for dual monitors and some driver magic instead of making their own "Quad-link DVI".

Re:That the screens can display it is fine....

[gatzke]

I will almost buy in to your idea that quad 1080p would suffice for everything. (And I think 2x 1080p is actually 4x the information).

I have a 30 inch dell LCD coming, 2560x1600, which is close to your 3840x2160 limit. I will see if it is the ultimate or close to it.

And they are putting 1080p DLP into high end samsung, so 1080p projectors should be coming down in the next few years. I can't wait. I have put off home HD, just wait a decade or two and they finally get it sorted.

Re:That the screens can display it is fine....

[setirw]

Prices will almost certainly come down for such screens. The first LCD displays were also very expensive.

What can you display on them?

I don't know about you, but I use 2048x1536 as if it were high-res 1024x768. I set my display adaptor to render text at 135dpi, and increased Windows's font size throughout.

Based on a previous Slashdot article that I can't seem to locate, more and more developers are advocating a switch to vector, rather than bitmapped graphics for UI elements.

For me, at least, the higher the DPI, the better. I still hate reading large amounts of text on a computer display because individual pixels are much larger than molecules of pigment.

Re:That the screens can display it is fine....

[HTH NE1]

That should cover 3840x2160 (2x1080p)

That's 4x or ^2. By doubling both dimensions you square the area.

Large displays are needed when non-linear-editing HD video at full resolution. Not only do you need to see the clip you're adding and the resulting sequence, you need room for the timeline. And maybe you're mixing in 720p or 480p footage.

Re:Memory

[hackwrench]

That doesn't mean that we actually remember now what various people called various things back then.

double the bandwidth

[nurb432]

and twice the DRM.

Oh, and lets get the consumer to buy more stuff for no reason other then we want the money.

Re:double the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how consumerism works, and our country is really used to it.

access to premium content

[nurb432]

And in a few years that becomes: " content we ( the industry/government) deem acceptable for you to view "

Pointless aspects-Karma.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The harder you make breaking the restrictions, the more face hackers gain from doing so."

And how does an anonymous hacker "gain" face?

Re:Pointless aspects-Karma.

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

They don't have to be anonymous, they just have to live in a country like Sweden beyond the reach of the DMCA and similar corrupt laws purchased by the content cartel.

Re:Pointless aspects-Karma.

[ultranova]

And how does an anonymous hacker "gain" face?

Do you know what my name is ?

Do you know if I'm the same guy who talked about hackers gaining face above ?

Pseudonyms aren't anything new. You arrange an alternative identity for yourself, separate from your "mundane" identity. No one would suspect that mild-mannered Clark Sixpack is really Sup3rh4xor, the caped Internet superhero, fighting against the evil forces of Rex DRM and his RIAACorp, and having an online affair with Lois Line, who is a 40-year old beerbellied man pretending to be a 20-year old hot girl.

What is new is that nowadays, with advanced asymmetrical crypto, you can digitally sign your messages with private key, proving that they are sent by the same person (or someone who you've entrusted the key to), without any fear that the handwriting could be tracked back to you (as long as you take care to hide your private key).

For all of you who dreamed being masked superheroes when you were growing up... Start studying technology. This is your chance. The world needs you to fight off Digital Dark Age the DRM will bring; whether you will answer the challence or not is up to you. But if you don't, remember that you could have prevented it, when you are fortysomething and the world is going to Hell around you.

Break the DRM and fight for FREEDOM !!!

Re:Pointless aspects-Karma.

[kimvette]

There are quite a few who are quite public about whom they are. Take the owner of thepiratebay for example - he's hardly anonymous and he's pretty blatent about taunting Microsoft, Sony, Apple, and the like. Even so only a tiny minority will turn to those sources - the vast masses of "consumers" will just buy whatever the media companies dish out, even if it is downsampled, and what's more, they'll LIKE it.

Changing the size of icons and text

[tepples]

Some PC graphics cards (particularly older ones) won't do 3D unless fullscreened.

And such video cards can't do DisplayPort.

Many games don't run at acceptable frame rates at the desktop resolution, and play much better at lower ones

We've had that problem since the first emulators came out. A lot of classic video game platforms' video ran at 320x240 or even smaller. If your monitor cannot pixel-double 1024x768 to 2048x1536 without artifacts, then it is defective.

Some people spent a ginormous sum of money on their 22" CRT that can do 2048x1536 and would like to view their porn at its fullest level of detail on a single screen, but don't want the icons to be 1/32nd of an inch across.

First try increasing the DPI to match that of the monitor. In Win2k it's Control Panel > Display > Advanced > General > Display > Font Size. If that doesn't change the icon size, do Control Panel > Display > Appearance > Item > Icon. Windows XP reshuffles a few things, but for the most part, the process is similar.

The display resolution (obviously) defines both the maximum application owned screen real-estate and also defines the scale of images on the screen; it's important to have the ability to change it.

One already can. Or are you claiming that this creates problems with some defective Windows applications whose authors paid no attention to accessibility?

stating the obvious...

[adolf]

I notice that you use the terms "DVI" and "Dual-link DVI" interchangably, yet you freely admit that they're diffrerent animals.

Nevertheless, you seem to be happy with Dual-link DVI, but you want 20gb/s worth of bandwidth.

How about Dual-link Displayport?

Re:stating the obvious...

[egarland]

How about Dual-link Displayport?

It doesn't exist.

Re:stating the obvious...

[adolf]

Neither does Dual-link DVI, most of the time.

What's your point?

Re:stating the obvious...

[egarland]

Neither does Dual-link DVI, most of the time.

A standard doesn't exist or not exist "most of the time". It either does or doesn't.

Your equipment may not implement it but the standard still exists and there is equpiment on the market that implements it (finally).

Why are computer manufacturers so ready to jump in

[dpilot]

Because unlike the NRA, computer manufacturers have absolutely no clout with Congress, and the ??AA does. If guns were subject to controls like those proposed for computing equipment, they'd give up and go out of business.

As long as you don't actually kill someone, it sure looks to me as if the penalty is less for actually misbehaving with a gun than it is being accused of "illegal downloading" with a computer.

That's why.

The real question to ask is why America is perfectly happy and ready to throw away its technology industry for STUPID actions which will only save its entertainment industry in the short term.

the real world limits of libertarianism

[Anonymous Coward]

These media conglomerates, with their hands in every standards pie and with deals between every hardware manufacturer, demonstrate the real world limits of libertarian ideology. Libertarianism, like communism, expects everyone to behave in a specific way (in their case, buying products that benefit them the most) when in reality human beings are not nearly that predictable and will sometimes act bafflingly against their own interests. In addition, the idea that corporations will only re-act to consumer demand without effort to shape it is extremely naive. In the real world, threats to the income of a corporation will first be met with protectionism and propaganda, not competition. We see this over and over and over again in different markets where a specific "leader" uses non-competetive means as a first resort to limiting the ability of others to threaten their position.

No.

[woolio]

Doubling the bandwidth only allows the display to increase by about sqrt(2) in resolution.

For larger displays, they just need something much better.. Also, relatively few businesses and home users are going to be using 3200x2400 displays... (I suppose some graphics artists might, but they ain't exactly the majority).

I suspect DRM is a bigger factor.

I guess I still don't understand...

[acq3]

What's wrong with fibre ethernet?

Lenova is evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Lenova is chinese company. The chinese cheat, steal, & steal.

Keyword is "optional"

[glacote02]

This is tremendous news for the end-users.

Remember dvd-zoning. One manufacturer let the genie out of the bottle by allowing multi-zone reading through a "not obvious but not too complex" key combination. Increased sales. Now everybody does it.

The majors need to control each and every manufacturer on the planet. It suffice that one of them wants to follow the technological progress instead of the RIAA 10k fillings to defeat their strategy of bundling anti-consumers DRM with high definition. Only one.

They will most likely fail to do so - this announcement is one example of it. That's unless Congress enacts some xxAA-friendly law. But actually it would be more efficient for everybody that they call it what it is (a tax on the consumer) and levy it as such.

questions you know the answer to

[Anonymous Coward]

First I asked myself "why are they doing this"? Then I realised that I knew the answer... digital restrictions management and increased sales in the "old == bad, new == good" market. Then I realised that it will most likely work as many people will go along like the lemmings they are.

If you need me I'll be crying in the corner...

bleh.

[DoctorDyna]

The sad truth is the article doesn't say "Should they introduce a new standard" it's "They are introducing a new standard.

As I see it, everybody will eventually have to start using it, everything else will, someday, become obsolete into oblivion.

The sad part is the whole DRM and TPM and everything else that goes along with it. Sooner or later, I hope these fuckwits big-brother themselves out of a job, and Microsoft big-brothers itself out of business.