Big three PC firms give backing to Displayport Mista VistaBy INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 03 May 2006, 15:18HP, DELL and Lenovo said they are backing the Displayport 1.0 digital display interface standard created by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It will compete with HDMI.Displayport provides a common signalling approach for internal and external displays applicable to PCs, monitors, TV displays and projectors.Displayport will also provide legacy compatibility with DVI 1.0. It's been designed for higher display resolutions and colour depths for Microsoft Vista, when that arrives and will also be low cost, according to one of the backers, Dell.What's the advantage for us? According to VESA, it display stuff that's not possible with DVI or HDMI, and will also avoid the overhead of signal translation from one display format to another. Peter Gamby, senior analyst at Meko, which closely tracks the display and graphics market, said: "We're broadly in favour of this move by VESA on the development of the digital interface. If it gets the backing of the likes of Dell, Lenovo and HP, we're going to get the standard whether we like it or not, but at least it will come at little or no cost premium."He added that the licensing model will be different to HDMI, which is also an attraction. "One of the driving forces behind DisplayPort is the desire to have the features of HDMI without having to pay the company licence fees. None of the VESA members that we contacted about the new connector would confirm this, but they wouldn't deny it either," he said. VESA itself believes that the PC industry needs a ubiquitous digital interface with optional copy protection but at minimal cost.For notebooks, it will mean a smaller and lower pin count cable which will transmit data through the hinge. µL'INQ
