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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.
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I suspect the driving force toward HDMI-only is anti piracy efforts in the form of mandatory HDCP on any new display hardware.
We've still got serial ports. There are still motherboards with a parallel port, for goodness sake. VGA ain't going away anytime soon.
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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
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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.
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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.
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2012 - 1987 = 25.
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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.
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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.
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.
And with modern monitor shapes, it might even have as much as 600 vertical pixels!
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video cards are not the best for sound
What is nice with HDMI is that it is digital so the video card do not have to produce analog sound.
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.
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I don't know for those very high resolutions, but classic 1080p works fine over VGA. Back in the CRT days, I used a 1600x1200 monitor over VGA just fine too.
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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.
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.
And people complain that the Raspberry Pi (which is not even out the door yet) doesn't support VGA... sheesh.
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Electrically HDMI and DVI are equivilent, but HDMI has a smaller and more robust connector.
They don't have all the same pins. HDMI can carry audio while DVI can't, and DVI can carry analog video in addition to digital video while HDMI can only carry digital.
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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?
Video cards are as good for digital sound as anything. All they do is take the digital signal from your applications and send them digitally over HDMI. Barring driver bugs, it's just the same as any digital output on anything.
I think for DD pass-through a device has to support DD. I have my 360 connected to my TV and my TV connected to my surround sound and DD5.1 works fine. My TV doesn't support DTS though, so I have to connect my PS3 directly to my surround sound in order for that to work.
Nick
DisplayPort has a self-latching connection. In my experience, you'd be ripping out your graphics card before you disconnected it.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
The sync of an HDMI cable isn't fast -- it's slow. So if you swap to a HDCP protected stream and then off of it, the monitor will flicker or sometimes, not come back at all. Then you need to reboot.
Just basically, it sucks. Read about HDMI handshake issues and you'll see what I mean.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
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.
That was a Windows issue, not a Display Port issue. It work perfectly with up-to-date OS.
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).
I can MAYBE see VGA disappearing, but DVI is going to be here for awhile longer.
Nope - in the same way that the 3.5" floppy outlived the Zip drive, I'd wager that VGA will outlive DVI. As others have pointed out: there is a shedload of presentation kit in offices and conference suites that uses VGA, and very little that supports DVI. Consequently, lots of current laptops offer HDMI and VGA connections - its DVI that has been dropped. Ditto monitors: HDMI + VGA is quite common. My TV has HDMI and VGA inputs, not DVI (of course, DVI to HDMI is a simple adapter job).
When I travel with my MacBook its the MiniDisplayPort-to-VGA adapter I take, not the DVI one.
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