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DisplayPort: VESA’s Standard Sparks HDMI Controversy

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) new roadmap for display connectivity convergence plans to provide seamless connectivity with new and existing TVs, monitors and projectors using a USB-sized DisplayPort connector. DisplayPort is designed to replace DVI, LVDS and eventually VGA, making digital display connections easier, more readily available and more functional.

“DisplayPort is not being positioned to compete with HDMI, but rather to complement it for PC and PC-based products,” says a VESA newsletter…but not everybody is buying it.

Joseph Lee, HDMI’s “technology evangelist,” was quoted as saying, “It’s like saying 1394 is compatible with USB.”

HP’s Bob Myers, chairman of VESA’s board, insists, “They are aimed at different audiences … We see the two coexisting.”

A Dell spokesperson told a US trade paper, “The difference is that HDMI was designed purely as an HDTV interface.” He says HDMI has a “pretty limited focus” and “the PC world needs a replacement for VGA.”

HDMI Licensing’s marketing VP Steve Venuti argues, “DisplayPort is functionally the same technology as HDMI.”  

Venuti adds “clearly what we see in the future is more convergence between the PC and HDMI.” He anticipates HDMI would implement some steps towards that end at some point this. There are no DisplayPort products on the market yet and HDMI is projecting more than 1 billion [HDMI compatible] products on the market by 2010.

VESA is not licensing its format but rather making it freely available to anyone who would like to develop new generations of products that comply with the standard.

For more info, visit here.

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