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VGA and DVI Ports To Be Phased Out Over Next 5 Years
angry tapir writes "Legacy VGA and DVI display ports are likely to be phased out in PCs over the next five years, according to a study by NPD In-Stat. Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are ending chipset support for VGA by 2015. The VGA interface was originally introduced in 1986 and DVI was introduced in 1999."
it gives me crystal-clear digital connection to my monitor, and unlike HDMI, it works every time without fail.
The one that was introduced 13 years later is being phased out at the same time as the one that was introduced thirty-six years ago? How odd.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Millions of monitors (Hey, up until recently many cheaper LCD panels were VGA-Only) and more importantly many projectors will become useless. Projectors aren't your 150€ "special" at your local electronic store. Furthermore, if you've been thinking of buying a monitor now (for example, the 2560x1440 are finally getting into "acceptable" price range), think again... Your next computer might just not like it if it's DVI/VGA.
That said, I've seen the trend (with comsumers) to simply buy a smaller TV with HDMI/VGA and use that as a monitor. It's often cheaper than an equivalent monitor. Go figure...
Yet another adapter to carry around, *if* you can even use an adapter.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
So long, DVI... I never knew ya. I've never hooked up, or to my knowledge even used a monitor that was connected via DVI, and now it's being phased out.
It'd be nice if the summary mentioned what they'd be replaced with.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
..and the adapter makers all rejoice!
so we can have even MORE "mix and match, and omg, i cant find the right connector so i have to go to office depot and buy a converter, what the heck is with these stupid monitor manufacturers and their nonstandard parts" moments...
I suspect the driving force toward HDMI-only is anti piracy efforts in the form of mandatory HDCP on any new display hardware.
Guess I'd better get a few adapters...
We've still got serial ports. There are still motherboards with a parallel port, for goodness sake. VGA ain't going away anytime soon.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Oh that's right, the thing that needs to do cryptic handshaking to check you're not one'a dem filshee peerates before considering whether it'll function properly or not. And you thought you got to own that hardware when you paid for it.
I'm sorry, but that will not do. VGA and DVI remain hard requirements here for the foreseeable future.
Hopefully MS fixes its frosty piss issues with Displayport hotplug compatibility. We've got some 27" DP monitors here that will disconnect and rearrange all your windows every time the monitor goes to sleep. It's driving us nuts.
this space intentionally left blank
I had HDMI on my monitor, and on my PC. And it sucked.
I swapped back to DVI for reliability's sake.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
When will RCA jacks for video be placed? Until then all this is about nothing, you let one technology though that doesn't do DRM then the whole stack of cards falls.
While I like DVI and have a monitor that uses it, going HDMI only is not a big deal. HDMI is just DVI plus a little extra, for audio, and the cost of that "little extra" is already negligible.
This means that a DVI-DVI, HDMI-HDMI, and DVI-HDMI cable are the same price. I spent $5 on one a few years back.
No difference! Unbunch your panties
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Lets hope that whatever follows has the same longevity as VGA. In a world where we've invented USB 3 times (USB, mini USB and micro USB) with non-compatible connectors in just 11 years, the future does not look as good.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
One concern I have with HDMI are the connectors in PC's and how they are fairly easy to disconnect and damage. Also one of my HDMI cables became damaged because of a sharp angle. Sure there are adapters and alternative cables like these http://www.smarthome.com/81271/HDMI-Cable-with-Secure-Connection-Screw-in-Fastener-15-Feet/p.aspx , but they are not the standard. I've never really had a problem with screwing in VGA or DVI connectors except for the random stripped screw.
Namaste
VGA has already been phased out. It takes effort to find a graphics card that supports it nowadays. The only products that use it are either embedded or are designed to support legacy hardware (projectors, etc).
DVI, on the other hand, will probably be around for a long time, at least until replacemt has convincing reasons to cause people to switch. The blight of HDMI (inconsistent throughput for even the PALTRY 1080p in most cables) will certainly not replace the other two formats as long as their cost/length remains higher/comparable to DVI.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
HD BaseT? I was excited when I heard about it a while ago.
DVI is HDMI without sound and video cards are not the best for sound and PC displays do not have more then 2 speakers any ways.
Does any PC display with HDMI have some kind of DD pass though or 5.1 or more analog out?
This means I will have a motive to stick with old pc hardware even longer, to make use of my monitor
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
2012 - 1987 = 25.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
Ten years ago, there were enough other companies in the game that your chances of finding one supporting "legacy" interfaces was a lot better.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
VGA has been dead for some time - even the cheapest monitors are starting to use DVI, so in 5 years, I can see it totally dying out - I mean, sure, some people will still be using it with older machines and older monitors, but in new ones, yeah.
As to DVI? It's not a big loss to loose the ports. Even they start putting HDMI and DisplayPort everywhere, it takes a simple cable to go from HDMI to DVI or visa-versa. My monitors currently wiegh in at one with 1xDVI, 1xVGA, one with 1xDVI, 1xVGA, 1xS-Video, 1xComposite, 1xComponent, and one with 1xVGA, 2xDVI, 1xDP, 1xHDMI, 1xComponent, 1xComposite.
I think 5 years sounds like a reasonable timespan to see the newer ports become big. That said, I see a lot of HDMI adoptation, but most of the graphics cards are still DVI and HDMI - the only machine I have with DisplayPort out is my laptop. 5 years is a lot of new graphics cards however.
As to the replacements, I'm not going to complain. HDMI and DisplayPort are much nicer to plug/unplug than DVI cables - and no need to worry about dual-link or not. As to VGA - I havn't used it in a long time. Due to the HDMI/DVI compatibility, I don't really see this causing much hurt to anyone either.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Just the IDEA of having to use HDMI for all my video needs is sickening. I love the ability to move audio and video through one cable, but man. I can't think of a time that I used HDMI, with a computer, that didn't pose a little problem. Who am I to say though, I haven't used one in a few years. Maybe they have gotten a little better.
Until Columbia, Disney, Fox, Paramount, Universal, and Warner use whatever SOPA and PROTECTIP become to shut down the web sites and finances of the makers of such adapters.
dp ftw bitches!
I travel to give the occasional presentation and I think I've only seen one or two projectors in the past 5 years that had something other than a VGA input. This is probably why many business laptops still have VGA outputs at the expense of providing others like DisplayPort, DVI, or HDMI.
The other problem is that monitors and projectors long outlive their PC contemporaries. I've got a 20" Dell LCD that I purchased in 2003 that's still going strong today. It has VGA and DVI inputs, since only in the past few years have HDMI and DisplayPort become standard on monitors.
I'm rather partial to DisplayPort and Thunderbolt since the connectors are smaller and don't have pins that are easily bent, but these outputs aren't too common in laptops, unless you have a Mac.
You can cross connect them without issue. Now they each support features the others don't. HDMI can do audio, DVI can't, DVI can do analogue, HDMI can't (of course the ports can be made to work either way), but the video signal is the same electrically.
The real difference is just connector size. Also normal HDMI connectors don't do dual link, but that isn't such an issue these days as we can just use higher frequencies to get higher bandwidth.
It may be that many of you in the home market won't miss VGA, but in most corporate offices, VGA is the only common connection supported by the projectors in most conference rooms. While an adapter is an option, I suspect that laptops marketed to businesses will have VGA adapters for longer than the next five years as the refresh cycle for projectors is generally much longer than the refresh cycle for laptops.
projectors do have DVI but in lot's of places they are only cabled for VGA and even some switches / splitters are VGA only.
I've already phased VGA out of my computer setup. So, I have no problem with this going away. Much too analogue for my tastes. DVI, on the other hand, should stay for a while. Many new monitors still support it, but not HDMI or DisplayPort. Of course, it's always nice to force the consumer to buy a new monitor when the old one is just fine.
If HP and DELL get into the mix and put their minds to it there could be a serious lack of DVI and VGA. The masses don't build their own computers. They don't look at parts or connectors or think about how cumbersome HDMI can be. They buy what is on sale at Best Buy who prays to the retail gods that enough people buy a laptop bag and protection plan to go with their new computer.
If the big name manufacturers offer a better deal to retailers, not to mention more opportunity for upsell or higher margin cables, why would the retailers not take it? Who cares what the best option for the consumer is?
What are they planning to replace it with? Not Display Port I hope?
Unless you love the new "random dual-screen display", that is.
Plug 'n play on a monitor is a great idea, but terribly badly implemented so far...
In Windows XP, switch off your main monitor and the second one becomes main. Great!
Switch the first one back on and... the second one remains main!
Switch the second one off and... you've got no main monitor anymore!
I had dual Display Port for a week at work before I asked for DVI adapters, which makes my configuration work perfectly.
So no way I'm switching to that unless they improve the current implementation.
still trying to find a computer without the computrace:-) and you worry about this?
The BD-Video standard already specifies an Image Constraint Token or "blur bit" that will cause the scaler to downscale the image to EDTV resolution (480p, 540p, 576p) over analog or cleartext digital outputs such as VGA or "component" (YPbPr over RCA) output.
Looks like the phase-out already started. I set up a computer for my parents over the holidays and we had to drive all over to find one. Only one I found was an overpriced gold-plated Radio Shack model.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Now I can pull video cable up the back of a workstation without it catching on every god damned cable, wire, footstool and purse in the remote vicinity.
DVI is used heavily in commercial video because the connector was not designed by a retard, unlike HDMI. IT has capture screws so that the connection is secure.
hdmi and displayport are consumer craptastic ports that are 100% useless to commercial video world.
As soon as they do this, expect a surge in cheap converter cable production coming from the Far East.
The more you tighten your grip, etc. etc.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The blight of HDMI (inconsistent throughput for even the PALTRY 1080p in most cables)
A "standard" HDMI cable is guaranteed only up to about 1 Mpx per frame, or 720p. A "high-speed" HDMI cable can do four times that: 1080p 3D or 1440p.
Does any PC display with HDMI have some kind of DD pass though or 5.1 or more analog out?
The first result from Google home theater pc 5.1 was "How to Connect 5.1 Speakers to Your PC" by Gabriel Torres.
And people complain that the Raspberry Pi (which is not even out the door yet) doesn't support VGA... sheesh.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
DVI connectors stick out the back of PC's way further than HDMI or DisplayPort. I have lost count of the number of DVI connectors bent on my systems at work. The screws get bent and are a PITA to remove.
DisplayPort uses a push-to-release connector lock that works flawlessly. I have NEVER had an issue with DP or HDMI working.
DVI never really made the market penetration that VGA did. People still use VGA connections (they just don't know better), and leave the DVI connectors in the box.
All that being said, lets focus on one standard and use it. Besides, since they have stated a date to kill it by, then I expect it will be gone before then. Cell phone manufacturers standardized on Micro-USB for connectors, and that has worked out just fine. Every phone and tablet in my house can use the charger from any other phone or tablet.
FYI: All of you people who say the parallel port or serial ports are on you "New" motherboard, check out the actual production date of your board. Also, to the knucklehead who claims to have a GAME port on his mobo, I need pics. I haven't seen one of those outside of a junk box in years.
n/t
Shit summary never even giving a hint WHY, and what a shit article which only reasons it eludes to is thin laptops (whoppie shit laptops have had tv ports on them for over a decade, doesnt mean I am using an svideo or component monitor now) and that DVI has no upgrade path, which the very next sentence talks about a (minor) upgrade to DVI
Then after its advertisement for a thinkpad it says HDMI is less than ideal for PC use (so why would it replace real connectors on anything outside of subnotebooks that salesmen use for piecharts) and all of this doesn't matter anyway cause there are adapters available
pointless rambling SHIT
With everyone switching to tablets and the traditional PC market on the decline, there's no need to hook up a monitor.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
There are any number of scientific projects that require acquiring large amounts of audio and/or video data -- think speech research, anything in experimental psychology, many things medical, and so on. Back in the day, this work required really, really expensive studio-grade equipment or "rolling your own" by writing your own drivers for A/D and video capture cards. But our good friends at Sony made that stuff really cheap.
But why is that stuff cheap. As you say, the non-content industry violating use of the Sony gear is .1% of consumer use, and the number of experimental scientists using that gear in their work is .1 percent of .1 percent of that small number.
But the only reason this equipment is cheap and plentiful to the scientists is because of consumer demand -- if the scientists were the only market, the cost would be 10 to 100 fold more for the same gear, as it was back in the day. And the only reason Sony is that low on the cost curve is because of the demand for their recording products to violate the rights of the Content people.
Hence scientific research takes place by ripping off Mickey Mouse.
I'd rather that HDMI were phased out in favour of VGA and DVI!
First, they quit selling 16:10 panels because it's cheaper to make 16:9 panels.
Now, they're taking away DVI ports because fuck you that's why.
When are they just going to take away our monitors all together?
Before HDMI, DVI was the digital connector of choice for decently high resolution on computer monitors.
I need VGA or DVI support until my current LCD monitors fail or are surpassed by glasses free, no headache, uber 3D capability (yeah right). I imagine that many businesses and the government are in the same boat. If that support has to come via an external HDMI to DVI/VGA adapter, well, we've been there before (DVI to VGA).
Invenio via vel creo
My SATA connectors lock. You may have the ghetto version?
Since DVI-D is just HDMI minus the audio, you can get cheap passive HDMI-to-DVI adapters. They work fine for connecting DVI monitors to HDMI video sources, or vice versa. No quality loss.
Monoprice has cheap 1-foot HDMI pigtails for this purpose so that if the cable gets damaged you just replace it. You can also get HDMI male/female 90-degree and hinged adapters.
HDMI and DVI are electrically compatible, adapters are cheap.
I have an 8-year-old projector with only DVI that still works fine. I drive it from HDMI sources via a passive adapter.
I have the Dell U2711 that can go to 2560x1440, but only on the DVI port, when driven with HDMI the max resolution is 1920x1080.
This is from the same port on the video card with a DVI to HDMI converter. So a dual-link DVI is mandatory to get the higher resolution on this monitor.
...But my triple monitor Eyefinity setup won't work when using HDMI.
So I'm assuming that over the next 5 years, while this is phased out, monitors will be replacing their VGA/DVI ports with DisplayPort ports, so I don't need a £30 adapter to convert a miniDP port to a DVI port... right?
Maybe I'm being somewhat pessimistic, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.
Even better, you can still get motherboards with ISA slots on them...
My 3G-SDI doesn't care about your deprecated ports.
DisplayPort can be converted to HDMI or single-link DVI with a cheap, passive adapter.
You can also convert it to VGA or dual-link DVI using active adapters (they show up to the computer as DisplayPort devices).
The Future is Gigabit Ethernet (or better?). HDMI is only the current standard.
I've been looking at converters ever since the announcement of the Raspberry Pi. It looks like it's going to be nearly $100 just to use the old SVGA touch screen monitor that I picked up for free. Great! Now I can pay $100 for all the other monitors I want to continue using too?!? I think I know where they can stick those HDMI connectors. Of course that "it's smaller, thinner" comment at the beginning of the article probably sold the idea to a lot of readers.
Yep, I can see it now! In 5 years time, me, with a beat up trailer, cruising the burbs picking up free LCD displays before the rain hits!!!
I want to know how this is going to effect KVM switches. Do they support HDCP and will they increase in cost if they are required to for this? I haven't done any research on the topic so I really have no idea.
HDMI can't do 2560x1600 at all. If they want to phase out DVI, they need to replace it with something, and that isn't HDMI. FYI, HDCP works on both DVI (it worked here first) and HDMI. HDMI is just one channel of digital video, with audio added on (that is a plus) whereas DVI is two channels of digital video, plus a channel of analog video (we don't need this part anymore). If they could re-purpose the analog video wires to be digital audio, then we'd have the replacement, called DVI++ or DVI-v2 or DVI-ng or whatever you want to call it). They make DVI to HDMI cables, so there's never been an issue making a digital TV work as a monitor.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
let me be the first to welcome our wireless hdcp compliant overlords!
I can MAYBE see VGA disappearing, but DVI is going to be here for awhile longer.
Yet another hardly thought out "Oh my God the times are changin'" article.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
If it is AMD/Intel phasing it out, it sounds more like they're just no longer supporting it for the integrated graphics that are on the die. I highly doubt AMD's GPU division and Nvidia would remove it from the actual graphics cards, considering there are a ton of gamers who sink thousands of dollars into monitors.
I gave a talk in China last summer in Shanghai. All the projectors required VGA and no one running the conference had a DVI adaptor. They basically claimed DVI is not used in China !?!??!
I guess the days of using my 22" flat screen VGA-only CRT monitor are numbered...
There are STILL a limited number of industrial PC motherboards being made today that have ISA slots! This is because of a small niche market that requires them. These MB's are not cheap as they require custom ASIC's to be produced. The same thing will probably happen with VGA hardware.
Another step to take the personal out of the personal computer. - Or eventually kill it altogether. The beginning of the end.
"We will control your internets and computers!"
The issue might be DRM, it might be something else, but for me, I have a nice KVM I use. 4 PCs connect via VGA and PS/2. It all works and connected to my 3 monitor setup. Yes I can do this with a current HDMI splitter, but how is the keyboard and mouse copied over? I have to have one for video and one for the rest of the KV. I know they might have something else out there, and in 5 years it might be cheap enough, but the main question is WHY? My 24" monitors will still work (they have HDMI, I made sure of that when I got them) but why would others who were not as forward thinking have to throw away perfectly good monitors (yes there are converters, but most people don't think of that, they just go to best buy and talk to pimple boy #56). Oh well. Welcome to the world of content control.
It seems that some monitors+video-cards work differently with HDMI as well.
My laptop has a Radeon HD6370. When plugged into a 22" HP monitor via HDMI, it had weird overscan at 1080p issues I couldn't correct (stuff would be over the bounds of the screen or I'd get letterbox).
When I plugged into the same monitor's HDMI port using a DVI->HDMI adaptor, no overscan issues.
DisplayPort is compatible with DVI. You just need a passive cable to make the pinouts line up...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
+ uhf + vhf + crt + vhs + h2o + cash + any service without surrendering your maternal beaker's maiden name...
huh. the caps for the acronyms got me a warning:
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
well, good luck with that, too.
There is nothing to FEAR but NOTHING itself; and I fear there is a whole lot of nothing going on. --scorpivs
Go ahead, double dog dare ya! Double dog dare with a cherry on top!!! Hows that? The dare is to look up the specs for HDMI and DVI. HDMI is DVI with audio.
'likely' that a 5 year projection about the future of a PC related item, might possibly be right. were is the news?
There was an unknown error in the submission.
If it's just another port that combines audio then it's fine. But if they start combining all sorts of copy protection schemes it's going to be annoying. I'm not too worried about it because I think even if MS or Apple puts that on their machines there will be driver hacks. So it won't matter. But it will also be one more thing that can go wrong.
I also think businesses won't appreciate this... I don't know... I suppose HDMI to DVI converters might become really popular.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I have no problems with HDMI at its base. When I've actively used it, it's worked just fine, and as for HDCP, well... name a copy protection scheme that hasn't been chiseled open given a little time (if that's your thing, of course. It's not for me, but ymmv).
No, my problem is actually a more unique one, or at least I think so. I use my laptop now as my main PC since my desktop aged too much and became so slow it was no longer useful to me. The laptop I have features an HDMI port on it, as does the 22" monitor I have (a Hannspree). And for active use, this port works just fine and does everything it should. But since upgrading to Windows 7 on that laptop a couple of years ago, and updating the GPU drivers for it, the monitor won't go to sleep and stay asleep whenever the laptop goes to sleep or turns off. Once the laptop is asleep or is turned off, a couple of seconds later the screen shows a "NO SIGNAL" message right in the middle. When using VGA, this message goes off after a couple of seconds and the monitor itself then goes to sleep. While connected to HDMI, though, it never goes to sleep, even though the laptop is clearly asleep or off.
It's almost as if the HDMI cable is still getting power from the laptop somehow, and the monitor is detecting that, but the monitor is obviously not getting any video feed from the laptop because it's asleep. But the monitor chooses to stay awake anyhow. The only fix is to unplug the HDMI cable after I turn off the laptop but that's a bit of a kludge if you ask me.
At any rate, it's little bugs like these that I hope they work out. And maybe I just haven't gotten the right settings on the laptop to force the HDMI port to turn off when it goes to sleep.
I guess I'm buggered, then. The HDMI port on my Linux laptop doesn't work because of a bullshit hybrid graphics system which serves only to drain the battery. Not a problem I've ever encountered with VGA (which is driving my external monitor very happily as I type).
Just buy a DVI-SDI adapter and SDI Capture Card, instant HD recording by using Pro Video Standards, fight the bastards with there own tech!
They may have a HDMI / DVI projector but the cabling / switching system is likely VGA only and to go to HDMI / DVI you will new cables + may even a new switching system.
It's just like all the sports bars with HD tv but no HD channels as there old cables / switching systems in SD only.
For those of us who install A/V Systems, HDMI is a nightmare. Long gone are the days of terminating our own cables I suppose.
If you didn't know, HDMI cables must be bought pre-terminated from the factory due to the very specific characteristics. Field termination is practically impossible.
it's perfectly possible to make encryption the pirates can't crack. If it wasn't they'd be making a killing intercepting credit card transactions online. What can't be done is make encryption the pirates can't crack that runs on cheap blu-ray players. Yes, the PS3 can make bullet proof encryption, it's also $250 after 7 years of price cuts. Try doing that on a $50 blu-ray player and remember, the disk has to play on both your expensive G1 PS3 and your cheap G5 player.
Now, wait another 5 or 10 years for hardware to catch up and you can kiss piracy goodbye. Depending on your opinion this is good or bad.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Hah!
A few years ago, I hadn't dealt much w/DVI other than ordering a few matched PC+monitors for clients (matched, implying that I didn't really have to care about the various DVI versions). Then came the time I had to order a longer than normal DVI cable. I definitely did not look smart when I bought an incompatible cable. I can't recall the exact combination... I think the PC port had analog pins and the cable didn't, so they didn't fit together?
I'll be glad when DVI dies. I still recommend most VGA for most "regular" users. At least it's goof proof... and that's half the battle.
Most displays are digital now so having an aux VGA connector on a screen actually requires an analog to digital converter. That's extra circuitry. Then with multiple digital connectors you have extra processing logic for each and every signal. Multiple standards with multiple revisions.
It's better if display cards and monitors just have one type of input/output each and you use an external converter (the same electronics that would have been on the card and or in the displays). Fortunately with digital signals going into the future the build quality of the converter doesn't really affect anything other than if the works or not so converters can be cheap.
The one great thing about modern graphics cards is that they can drive more than one monitor. But I personally hate seeing VGA/DVI and now HDMI connectors on video cards. I want all just displayport or the latest connector. Must better to downgrade though an adapter you can choose.
I've skimmed the comments above but haven't noted anyone talking about a very specific issue that I've seen with HDMI vs. DVI or VGA.
From what I've seen with many consumer and professional displays trying both HDMI and either VGA or DVI connections methods, EDID [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_display_identification_data] rarely works consistently across all 3. Specifically, VGA and DVI will report correct *native* display resolutions and timings, where HDMI will often only report standard HDTV resolutions [720p, 1080i, 1080p] and a selection of apparently randomly-selected "Generic PnP display" timings.
My experience with most "HDTV" sets that aren't natively 720P or 1080P is that they'll not even report their native resolution over HDMI at all, or they'll report it with an absurd refresh rate like 47Hz [what I see repeatedly with 1360*768 displays]. Again, this is with displays which correctly report their capabilities when connected via DVI or VGA [with NVidia, AMD/ATI and Intel video cards, consistently, on multiple systems].
The loss of DVI [or VGA] with properly-working EDID is a real one, then, since so many displays incorrectly report their capabilities via HDMI, making them pretty much useless [unless, of course, you actually like the scaling artefacts introduced by the display].
One can hope, mind you, that displays manufacturers might start putting valid EDID data in the displays, which would fix at least half of the problem [the other half probably being lazy display driver creators].
r.e. VGA displays? knock yourself out: HDMI to VGA converter
DVI displays? knock yourself out: HDMI to DVI adapter
So does this phase-out mean I won't be able to use the 4 VGA CRTs and 1 DVI LCD I have accumulated over the years?
As for keeping CRT's around, I realize the better CRT's can have sweet color depth, nice refresh rates and are just swell when it comes to different resolutions. But I was happy to give away my heavy-ass large 21" CRT's to my friends and get a BIG chunk of my desktop back (this was about 10 years ago for me; I realize you're not there yet). :-)
Anyway, with converters you can keep your CRT's going for a long time. Enjoy.
What a waste of perfectly functional equipment.
There will be a market "of sorts" for this "functional equipment". But there is a reason we are seeing CRT monitors and televisions left out in the alley by the garbage cans.
:-)
:-)
At what point does it become unprofitable to sell them via ebay? (hint: if ship_cost > avg_sale_price then dumpster_time )
Looking ahead, how many DVI and VGA connectors will we see on tablets or ultrabooks (or smart phones for that matter); those ports are huge compared to mini-HDMI. Maybe you aren't part of the tablet/ultrabook/smartphone market. *shrug* Many people are.
(Looking somewhat further ahead, people will be asking why HDMI is going away in favor of direct retinal projection... anyway.)
But hey, if you want to talk about "wasting" perfectly functional equipment, let's talk about these:
DEC Writer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100use one of these and you get a CRT
Plotter
Telegraph Key Bonus points for extra retro.
Sure, somewhere on our planet, today, there are some people who use each of these things.
Just not most people.
Just like in 2022, you'll be one of a handful of CRT enthusiasts. *shrug* That is cool and all.
But asking "why waste perfectly good equipment?" That is like asking "why did our species move from stone-age to the bronze-age?"
*sigh* Somewhere, thousands of years ago, Ogg was asking "Why you waste such good rocks?!"
(So why was this "+5 Duh" parent post modded "+5 Informative?")
Who needs those ridiculous works of "art" anyway?
Seastead this.
With the millions (billions?) of active VGA-based equipment in corporate offices, one of two things will happen when purchasing new VGA-less hardware.
1) Install VGA PCI card, which can be sourced new for as little as 15 dollars.
2) Use adapter.
The actual switchover, even if the assembly lines shut down today, won't happen for at least 10-15 years when the remaining VGA devices quit functioning.