Is it time to reconsider DisplayPort?

The "war" between High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and DisplayPort was short-lived. HDMI quickly and ubiquitously emerged as the champion of next-generation audio/video connection interfaces, becoming a standard feature of modern televisions, media players, gaming consoles, and cameras.

On a single cable, HDMI can support multichannel digital audio as well as any television or personal computer (PC) video format, whether it is standard, enhanced, or high definition. This flexibility spurred its swift global adoption, and HDMI looks poised to become an effective and widespread connection interface for years to come.

In light of these developments, why are more than 180 computer and consumer electronics companies actively supporting DisplayPort, another audio/video interface standard? This roster of companies, including industry titans such as HP, Dell, Intel and AMD, has grown by more than 20% annually for the past four years. And despite HDMI's wave of popularity, DisplayPort support and development continues to gain momentum.

Three possibilities exist for this set of circumstances: the "war" is not over; there was never a competitive struggle in the first place; or perhaps each standard just needed to find its own niche.

Different paradigms, different applications
What many are now realizing is while DisplayPort and HDMI provide advanced audio/video interfaces, they possess key differences that are pushing them in somewhat divergent directions.

With its ability to support a variety of video and audio formats, HDMI has been broadly adopted for high-definition TV (HDTV) applications. This adoption has spawned HDMI support in the countless devices that connect to HDTVs. HDMI is not a panacea for all audio/video connections, however. Its use in PC technologies--high-performance PC displays, in particular--has increasingly been scrutinized due to three unequivocal factors: cost, bandwidth, and internal connectivity.

The licensing and royalty fees associated with HDMI make it prohibitive for many low-cost, high-volume technologies, such as PC displays. HDMI's external clock limits its bandwidth and performance scalability. And its primary focus on consumer electronics box-to-box connectivity is devoid of internal, chip-to-chip connections that reduce design complexity and cost.

As displays increasingly transition to higher performance flat panel and microelectronic technologies, an affordable, extensible, open industry standard digital interface is needed that can scale in performance as well.