100 PCWorld DECEMBER 2019FEATURE HDMI VS. DISPLAYPORT
HDMI 2.1’s wider pipe allows higher-resolution
video and audio than previous versions.Given HDMI’s ubiquity, you might have forgot-
ten about the other digital audio/video stan-
dard: DisplayPort. Though you’ll find it along-
side HDMI on most late-model, high-end video
cards, as well as in Macs and laptops marketed
to business users, it rarely appears in Windows
PCs aimed at consumers. It’s also rare as hen’s
teeth in consumer electronics devices.
Both HDMI and DisplayPort can deliver
high-definition digital video and high-
resolution audio from a source device to a
display, so what’s the difference and why might
you want DisplayPort when HDMI is so
common? And what does a future with
burgeoning USB Type-C ports hold? We’ll
answer those questions and more; but first, the
tale of how the two standards came
to be, and which
entities control them.HDMI AND
DISPLAYPORT
ORIGINS
The HDMI (High Definition Multimedia
Interface) specification was conceived in
2002 by six consumer electronics giants:Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips, Silicon Image,
Sony, and Toshiba. Today, HDMI Licensing,
LLC (go.pcworld.com/hdm1), a wholly
owned subsidiary of Silicon Image, controls
the spec, but some 80-odd vendors are
members of the HDMI Forum. Member or
not, manufacturers must pay a royalty for
including HDMI in their products. They of
course, pass that cost along to you.
The DisplayPort (go.pcworld.com/dspt)
specification was developed by, and remains
under the control of VESA (the Video Electronics
Standards Association), a large consortium ofT
he HDMI audio/video interface standard is everywhere: TVs, set-top
boxes, media streamers, Blu-ray players, A/V receivers, gaming
consoles, camcorders, digital cameras, and even a few smartphones.
You’ll also find an HDMI output port in most consumer desktop and
laptop computers, as well as an input port on many all-in-one PCs, to enable a
gaming console or a set-top box may use its internal display.