Why only D-Sub/VGA?

[Biges]

Not a long time ago many cheaper LCDs had only VGA (D-Sub) input and sadly most new notebooks have also only VGA output.
It is quite strange, as it makes the signal go this way:

(Graphics card) Digital Signal -> D/A converter -> Analog Signal -> Cable -> Monitor VGA Input -> A/D converter -> Digital Signal

Instead of

(Graphics card) Digital Signal -> Cable -> Monitor DVI Input -> Digital Signal

So the qestion is why? It is hard to believe, that using additional A/D converter and signal adjustment electronics can make a monitor cheaper.

 

[brumwald]

In the old days they probably did it because few graphic card had DVI. Certainly since TFTs wasn't suitable for games/movies and most were bought for office-use (which had old and "crappy" graphic-cards.

Later though the lack of DVI was popular atleast here in europe because EU took 10% or something on monitors/TVs with digital inputs. That meant that all cheap monitors were VGA only.

But in the end it isn't that bad, on a good monitor and atleast with resolutions <= 1680x1050 you can't really notice any difference. Problem is though that monitors that do have DVI often have poor VGA inputs making a huge difference between the do. But a proper VGA input is good and I can't see any difference between DVI-D and VGA on my monitor.

DVI has a huge connector, thats probably why it isn't popular among laptops. And I prefer a VGA solution rather than what apple has for instance, a proprietary mini-DVI that requires adapters. Because lets face it, *all* devices take VGA, and theres no real drawback with it (except for what I mentioned above, and in that case you already have your desktop computer connected to DVI so it still doesn't really matter).

Theres a huge advantage with VGA on laptops though, as mentioned VGA is supported everywhere and the hole point with a laptop is that it is versatile. Man projectors and other stuff still only support VGA and I can't keep count of how many apple users and others that have skipped their powerpoint presentation just because they forgot their adapter (also it really sucks to have it with you all the time (again, whole point of a laptop is to be versatile (most cases anyway))).

 

[PyroHoltz]

A large number of notebooks are offering an HDMI output. Digital audio/video in one, relatively, small connector.

Now, just need to get support in all of the projectors and such to offer HDMI in.

One problem w/ the HDMI is that there isn't an analog feed carried in the standard much like most DVI connections.

 

[brumwald]

Yeah, and personally I think thats a step down. Unless it has both VGA and HDMI.

With HDMI you'd need an adapter to hook it up to anything but TVs, and it's not that common to connect your notebook to other peoples TVs, right? (and they don't often have a spare HDMI cable)
The whole point of favoring TVs over monitors on a laptop puzzles me a bit, HDMI is for the living-room really isn't intended for computers natively (although for marketing reasons it's unfortunately quite popular). I guess it's just the small connector and of course thats neat, but again - whats the benefit?
In that case a mini-DVI certainly is more appealing, in both cases you'd need an adapter but with DVI you can atleast get analogue and connect it to *everything*,

 

[SH1]

Digital is optimal, but, yeah, I guess compatibility wins if there is only one connector...

At least the base station should have digital and they've gotten pretty small now.