When digital TVs first became the rage, the one thing they all had in common was only an analog input. However, as I learned in the late 90’s in a Silicon Valley hotel lobby from my fellow analyst, Ken Werner, that limitation was put to rest with the introduction of DVI from Silicon Image. DVI, since morphed to the HDMI standard, is now widely licensed across consumer displays and is projected to ship in over 130M devices in 2007 from 500 companies that have adopted the standard.

John DiLoreto
Analyst and Editor for
Insight Media

A good start you’d think, in an age dominated by format confusion and interoperability challenges…

Unfortunately, thanks to the computer industry, consumers will face three display standards in 2007, and more in 2008.  Yesterday’s TechDaily reports that in addition to HDMI, computers will start to ship with DisplayPort and the Universal Display Interface (UDI) later this year.  

UDI is electrically compatible with DVI and HDMI, but with a reduced feature set and licensing fee.  DisplayPort is not compatible with any existing signaling format.

Primary concerns for these new standards are cost and interoperability.  HDMI with HDCP (copy protection) certification can be expensive and can cause delayed product release.  But at least the HDMI licensing fees are known and have been recently reduced to $0.04 per device with a minimal fee for the HDCP keys, if used.

Another HDMI advantage is that the DVI-based technology is already available in graphics processors.  According to Joe Lee, director of marketing for Silicon Image, "Card manufacturers now only have to consider ways of grabbing the sound output through the PCI Express bus and adding the cost of the physical connector."

Like the split with HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc optical media standards, there are two camps.  Supporting the DVI-derivatives (DVI-HDCP, HDMI, UDI) are consumer electronics companies Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips, Sony, Silicon Image, Thomson and Toshiba.

Supporting DisplayPort are AMD, Dell, Genesis Microchip, Hewlett-Packard, Molex, NVIDIA, Philips, Samsung and Tyco Electronics.  Why?

DisplayPort was initially heralded as a royalty-free technology, but by now is encumbered with over 200 patents.  According to VESA, the DisplayPort oversight committee, the IP holders are free to charge a "reasonable" fee for the technologies used in DisplayPort.

Besides this uncertainty, DisplayPort faces a catch-up battle.  Right now, the consumer electronics market is covered with HDMI-enabled products.  The technology, recently updated to version 1.3, supports higher resolution and a wider color gamut. 

The interoperability hurdle for DisplayPort is further complicated by the Display Port Content Protection (DPCP) scheme that some implementations use instead of HDCP.   Furthermore, it has not been disclosed yet as to whether or not DisplayPort implementers may be required to pay royalties for the HDCP and DPCP.

Whether DisplayPort will arise to complicate the consumer landscape remains to be seen.  However, when Ken and I next meet, I hope we can toast to what all digital displays have in common, an interoperable digital signaling standard.