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HDMI vs. DP - is there a why?

dvsman

dvsman

2[H]4U
Joined
Dec 2, 2009
Messages
3,628
Skipping the fact that HDMI is historically a TV port and DP is a computer port, is there a licensing fees or physical reason why they don't just dump one and pick a winner like they did with Bluray / VHS. As a user I don't really care what port it is as long as it works for what I need (I'm about to move to 4K from my old trusty Dell 3011@2560x1600).

From your [H] technical perspectives, which is better? The latest HDMI or the latest DPort?
 
DP is the future for PC gaming. HDMI is added for expanded functionality for those who want a HTPC/DVR type setup, and those who want to use TV's in their monitor setup. Both have a purpose, and neither will be going anywhere anytime soon.
 
dvsman said:
Skipping the fact that HDMI is historically a TV port and DP is a computer port, is there a licensing fees or physical reason why they don't just dump one and pick a winner like they did with Bluray / VHS. As a user I don't really care what port it is as long as it works for what I need (I'm about to move to 4K from my old trusty Dell 3011@2560x1600).

From your [H] technical perspectives, which is better? The latest HDMI or the latest DPort?
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HDMI is licensed and you, as a manufacturer, must pay to implement it.

DP is open source and free.
 
My understanding is they both have royalties, but HDMI is formed by a conglomerate of manufacturers which essentially pay themselves to use it and pass the price on to the consumer, commonly called the "HDMI Tax". So essentially they control the port themselves (proprietary) and make money from HDMI with a higher buy-in rate for non-founding members.

It's a control & profit situation, some manufacturers make more money from HDMI and will push it more.
 
One of the big upsides to DisplayPort is that you can use dongles to output in all the other formats (VGA, DVI, HDMI). You can't do HDMI -> DisplayPort. There are currently no DP to HDMI 2.0 dongles, but I would expect them sooner or later.
 
Yakk said:
My understanding is they both have royalties, but HDMI is formed by a conglomerate of manufacturers which essentially pay themselves to use it and pass the price on to the consumer, commonly called the "HDMI Tax". So essentially they control the port themselves (proprietary) and make money from HDMI with a higher buy-in rate for non-founding members.

It's a control & profit situation, some manufacturers make more money from HDMI and will push it more.
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This guy speaks the truth. It's a power trip. Both DP and HDMI support the same features because both send similar data packets, meaning sound and video. So both are suited for home theatres, but HDMI wins out because of the corporations behind it, even though DisplayPort is superior in every way.

To say...
Rav3n said:
DP is the future for PC gaming. HDMI is added for expanded functionality for those who want a HTPC/DVR type setup, and those who want to use TV's in their monitor setup. Both have a purpose, and neither will be going anywhere anytime soon.
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... is drinking the Kool Aid and buying into the marketing BS.
 
When I was at AMD a couple years ago we had to pay a license fee per HDMI port and more Display Ports were free. Not sure if they had a private deal of if the license fee for DP from that page is new, looks like it might be.

Note the same pins were used to drive DVI/HDMI/DP on the chip. Same voltages but starting at the 8b/10b encoding they start getting unique but it's easy to switch on the chip between them. Some pins were DP only to ensure the HDMI didn't get enabled by mistake and lead to license fee pain.
 
Thanks for all the info guys. I knew there had to be reason behind these port have / have nots, especially seeing how everyone was getting all upset about the HDMI on the new AMD Fury cards.
 
Both connectors require you to pay licensing royalties. From the various wiki pages:

DisplayPort has a royalty rate of $0.20 per unit from patents licensed by the MPEG LA.The royalty applies to DisplayPort products that are manufactured or sold in countries that are covered by one or more of the patents in the MPEG LA license.The MPEG LA license includes DisplayPort patents from Hitachi Maxell, Philips, Silicon Image, and Sony.
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HDMI has an annual fee of $10,000 and a per unit royalty rate of between $0.15 to $0.04.
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One note the HDMI annual fee has gone up to $15,000/year according to the HDMI.org website, but the official website does not list the royalty rates so I don't know if they have gone up also.
 
LurkerLito said:
Both connectors require you to pay licensing royalties. From the various wiki pages:





One note the HDMI annual fee has gone up to $15,000/year according to the HDMI.org website, but the official website does not list the royalty rates so I don't know if they have gone up also.
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By reading it...it sounds like the DP royalties are not strictly for DP...they're CYA for patent rolls

Here's a list of the patents in the MPEG royalty agreement: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/DisplayPort/Documents/displayport-att1.pdf

Courtesy of Google here are the filings for some of those with the USPTO:
https://www.google.com/patents/US6963968
https://www.google.com/patents/US70...a=X&ei=NYuVVdStEIanyATjz4PYAQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA

Pretty arcane stuff that is tangential to the DP standard to avoid being sued by trolls if you ask me.
 
On a display i prefer HDMI:
I can connect devices with DVI, HDMI and DP to a display with HDMI input.
HDMI cables are available on thicker gauge and i can run longer cables over greater distances than DP.

On a device i prefer DP:
I can connect it to displays with VGA, DVI, HDMI and DP.
I can setup multi displays with daisy-chaining using a single DP output.
 
TVs will not drop HDMI because they have to remain compatible with older devices that supply video and newer ones in development.
They dont have much incentive to use DisplayPort.

Last years Panasonic 4K TVs had DP but this years dont.
It looks like they decided its not worth it.

DP can implement Gsync and Freesync because the clock can be synced to the graphics cards framerate.
HDMI cannot do this.
DP has higher bandwidth currently which is useful for linking multiple screens together and for 4K.
But nearly all 4K screens that have DP are too small to get the best from 4K. DP 1.3 can do 4K 120Hz and 4K 3D 60Hz.
HDMI is on huge 4K TVs but does not have the bandwidth for 4K 120Hz or 4K 3D 60Hz

So TVs will always have HDMI and until they get DP, or HDMI is modified, they wont ever have Gsync or Freesync.
Monitors that can make use of the bandwidth of DP are unfortunately too small to get the best from 4K.
The best of all worlds isnt here yet.
 
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Also missing the fact that HDMI ports are typically rated at higher voltages as its designed for home theater use which means you can run a way longer cable and get 4K60 @ 4:4:4 with no issues. DP is only spec'd to 9 feet for the typical 28awg cable at full bandwidth--try to run anything significantly longer and you have to drop $100+ for something like a DVIGear 24awg cable to properly get 4K60 through displayport on your typical monitor without flicking, white dots, or plain old no signal.

Run anything bandwidth intensive like 144Hz Gsync 1440P via DPI and your PC has to be practically tethered to your monitor. A pain for people used to running PCs/equipment in storage rooms or racks.
 
dragonageinquisition said:
Also missing the fact that HDMI ports are typically rated at higher voltages as its designed for home theater use which means you can run a way longer cable and get 4K60 @ 4:4:4 with no issues. DP is only spec'd to 9 feet for the typical 28awg cable at full bandwidth--try to run anything significantly longer and you have to drop $100+ for something like a DVIGear 24awg cable to properly get 4K60 through displayport on your typical monitor without flicking, white dots, or plain old no signal.

Run anything bandwidth intensive like 144Hz Gsync 1440P via DPI and your PC has to be practically tethered to your monitor. A pain for people used to running PCs/equipment in storage rooms or racks.
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Ironic...considering for a while HDMI had no more than 10ft of run either, as the morons who designed the standard had no error correction included...resulting in snow and then no signal quick.

Took 3 or 4 revisions of HDMI before they addressed that "feature".
 
IIRC, HDMI came first. DP was created primarily because the licensing fees for HDMI were too onerous. A secondary reason was that the HDMI consortium was dominated by consumer electronics firms, so PC makers had problems getting their needs addressed.
 
Does anybody know why TV manufacturers aren't implementing DP on their TV's? Kinda annoyed that Panasonic decided to drop DP from their 2015 sets, anybody know the reason behind this?
 
ChronoDetector said:
Does anybody know why TV manufacturers aren't implementing DP on their TV's? Kinda annoyed that Panasonic decided to drop DP from their 2015 sets, anybody know the reason behind this?
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Legacy hardware, combined with no other TV equipment offering it.
 
dragonageinquisition said:
Also missing the fact that HDMI ports are typically rated at higher voltages as its designed for home theater use which means you can run a way longer cable and get 4K60 @ 4:4:4 with no issues. DP is only spec'd to 9 feet...
Click to expand...

Good point. Hopefully that's something DP will improve on.
 
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