Slashdot Mirror
Apple's Mini DisplayPort Officially Adopted By VESA
DJRumpy writes "The Video Electronics Standard Association officially issued its Mini DisplayPort standard Tuesday, based on the technology licensed from Apple. VESA said that all devices using the Mini DisplayPort connector must meet the specifications required by the DisplayPort 1.1a standard, and cables that support the standard must also meet specific electrical specifications. It's a formal confirmation of the news from earlier this year, when VESA announced the Mini DisplayPort connector would be included in the forthcoming DisplayPort 1.2 specification."
IIRC, HDMI's signaling is basically a single DVI link, and isn't rated to push anything past 1920x1200. Pretty much anything higher requires a dual-link DVI connection, which involves more complex cabling and signal routing on the board.
DisplayPort is a much smaller connector and has an overall smaller PCB footprint, as well as using a thinner cable. I suspect that if Intel doesn't manage to run it by the wayside in a year's time with Lights Peak, you -might- see video cards with combination Mini DisplayPort + HDMI outputs.
Multi-channel support. With DisplayPort, you can daisy-chain multiple displays on the one bus. It can also be used to transmit data signals of various types (which HDMI can do, but in a much more limited fashion). And the DisplayPort connectors are much better than the HDMI ones. It's just a thoroughly more modern standard.
... and then they built the supercollider.
DVI connectors are clunky and have that 18th century finger destroying screw-on mechanism. Anything with screws on computers should be abolished for good.
Typical response from you so-called "computer user" kids these days. Back in my day, everything had screws! From the case to the cards to the plugs and sometimes the boxes everything came in! And our fingers were perfectly good enough for the job! Even the ones that weren't thumbscrews! Any one of the old-timers could grind your mabmly-pambly little soft, precious, pampered thumbs to dust, bones and all, with nothing but our bare fingers, and we wouldn't even flinch!
Now get off my lawn! Durn whippersnappers...
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
HDMI is basically a single link DVI signal along with a digital audio stream. Both the audio and video gets their own pins and wires. But display port is a packet based system so audo, video and other signals can be multiplexed across the same set of wires. Display port 1.1 allows for eight 24 bit 192kHz digital audio channels. There can be 1, 2 or 4 digital lanes, similar to how PCI express works, more lanes = more bandwidth. The maximum bandwidth is over 8Gbps (3 meter cable limit)and there is also a 1mbps aux channel. A single display port cable can deliver a 2560x1600 60 Hz 30 bpp video signal. Dual link DVI port can do the same but it cant scale as well as display port will.
The HDMI connector is mechanically flimsy and can be easily damaged by the heavy shielded cables that hang from them of if yanked on. Display port is designed for those heavy cables and resists tugging and pulling that would otherwise damage an HDMI connector. Its also screw-less connector so no more fiddling with thumb screws.