HDMI connection matters or not?

[joethemole34]

I'm in the market for a new panel, and have been looking at the Dell 2412M given its positive reviews. But I'm a bit hesitant given that it lacks HDMI cabling. Is there a picture quality difference between a monitor with HDMI and without? I use the monitor for graphic design and watching movies.

Thanks

 

[GreenGoose]

There will be no difference at all between HDMI and DVI-D in terms of picture quality. The DVI-D is HDCP compliant so their will be no issues with your movies.

 

[joethemole]

Thanks; so does HDMI have any advantage over DVI besides combining audio and video input into one cable?

 

[Medion]

There are some pros and cons to HDMI.

Pros:
-video and audio in one cable

Cons:
-Even though HDMI can do up to 4k resolution, modern monitors and GPUs combined limit this res to 1080p/1200. Not sure which end is doing it. Whatever the artificial limit, you won't be able to drive 1440p/1600p on HDMI with current options.
-Some monitors like to pretend that they are TVs and add some processing to HDMI as opposed to VGA/DVI. This introduces input lag and will alter the picture. If you have a monitor that has both DVI and HDMI, and the picture looks different when alternating connections, this could be the culprit.
-Nvidia GPUs detect some monitors as HDTVs when connected via HDMI. This limits black levels from the standard 0-255 to 16-235, causing a washed out image. You can either limit the black levels on the monitor to compensate, or use a "hacked" driver to fix this. Nvidia ignores any questions on this, so I don't see them fixing it anytime soon if ever.

 

[infospace]

Thanks; so does HDMI have any advantage over DVI besides combining audio and video input into one cable?>>>

When they say hdmi transfers sound, do they mean to the speakers on the monitor?

 

[Medion]

Thanks; so does HDMI have any advantage over DVI besides combining audio and video input into one cable?>>>

Not really.

When they say hdmi transfers sound, do they mean to the speakers on the monitor?

It passes the digital signal. The monitor then receives it and uses an internal DAC to convert the digital signal to an analog audio signal. This is then passed to the internal monitor speakers, or to any external speakers that you have hooked up.

So basically, if you plug your PC into your monitor via HDMI, audio will play over your monitor speakers. You could then do as I did and remove your onboard audio drivers (and disable mobo audio in the bios).

 

[infospace]

Medion, thanks for your input. I was a little confused thinking it probably controls the sound to the speakers attached to my sound card.

 

[evilsofa]

-Even though HDMI can do up to 4k resolution, modern monitors and GPUs combined limit this res to 1080p/1200. Not sure which end is doing it. Whatever the artificial limit, you won't be able to drive 1440p/1600p on HDMI with current options.

The latest forms of HDMI (1.4a and later) can do 4096x2160 - but only at 24Hz; at least they can do 2560x1600 at 60Hz and (or so I hear, in theory) 1920x1080 at 120Hz. But both the video card and the display must have 340Mhz HDMI 1.4a link chipsets. The AMD 7970 and Nvidia GTX 680 have that. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, no display manufacturer has chosen to make a TV or monitor with them. Should they ever choose do that, there will certainly be a megathread here about it. So the HDMI limit is definitely on the display side, not the GPU side.

Meanwhile, both the Nvidia GTX 680 and AMD 7970 have Displayport 1.2, which is supposed to support 4096x2160 at 60Hz. Actually testing this runs, once again, into the lack of displays that will actually do this to test with. A recent article did a shootout between the GTX 680 and AMD 7970 for 4k support:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2012/6/18/the-4k-graphics-card-shootout.aspx

And even though they had a 4k monitor, it required two DVI or two DP cables so they couldn't actually test whether a single DP 1.2 cable would do 4096x2160 at 60Hz.