DailyTech - DisplayPort to Support Fiber Optic Cables

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Hardware DisplayPort to Support Fiber Optic Cables
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - April 18, 2007 5:10 PM

46 comment(s) - last by namechamps.. on Apr 21 at 1:37 AM

DisplayPort takes a big step forward to being the next major High-bandwidth, high-speed display standard

Digital display standards are anything but stabilized right now, with a total of three standards vying for the spot as the main one in the industry. DisplayPort, HDMI and UDI have all been formed and designed with the intention of replacing all current display standards. The most popular standard being used right now is DVI. The ancient VGA DB-15 standard, which is second in popularity, is still being used in a large number of applications.

The industry's video display standards group, VESA, recently approved DisplayPort 1.1 as an industry standard, marking a significant milestone for the interest group and all the companies involved. Now, a company called Luxtera has received the go-ahead from VESA to develop DisplayPort technologies using CMOS photonics. Luxtera is hoping that its development into the DisplayPort standard will help replace copper cables with optical ones as the medium for transferring high-bandwidth digital video signals. According to the press release:

The DisplayPort task force and subgroups, led by Luxtera and other member companies, unanimously approved the addition of Hybrid Devices to the specification as a standard alternative solution to copper cables. High performance optical video interconnect based on Luxtera’s CMOS Photonics technology is now possible with the addition of Hybrid Devices to the standard resulting in an improved visual user experience.

According to Luxtera, no other video standard offers the advantages of DisplayPort. Luxtera is confident that without its participation, DisplayPort would still only be limited to a slower copper standard. Eileen Robarge, group leader for the Luxtera DisplayPort task force said that optical technology will be the future of display interconnects.

"Optical technology, particularly single mode technology, can most effectively address the longer reach market needs for digital signage, projectors, imaging, quiet office and digital home and support much higher performance picture quality for the end user at both short and longer distances," said Robarge.

As of right now, all current mainstream video standards use copper-based connections. UDI is currently on the drawing boards and is posed to replace DVI and VGA at the same time according to Silicon Image. An important fact to note is that Silicon Image sits on the boards of both the HDMI and UDI interest groups and previously indicated that HDMI and UDI are not meant to compete with each other -- both technologies however have many overlapping underlying technologies.

With full support from VESA as well as a host of major industry leaders, DisplayPort appears to be heading to the finish line first as the next major computer display standard. With Luxtera developing a fiber optic version of DisplayPort, more industry interest will surely follow.

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I feel LOW TECH

By Niv KA on 4/18/2007 6:26:29 PM , Rating: 2

I feel as if I am using SUPER OUTDATED TECHNOLOGY.

I still use VGA... and maybe its just because I am too lazy to go get a new screen that supports DVI,but it makes mee feel like I am using outdated tech that soon will be 2 generations old (in terms of display ports...)

Can anyone give my the noticeable advantages in DVI over VGA? I do feel the need for a new screen... (my new C2D beast is still stuck with my old 15" LCD that I have been using for already 4 PCs, so an upgrade might be coming up)

RE: I feel LOW TECH

By phatboye on 4/18/2007 6:35:29 PM , Rating: 5

If you are OK with your screen then don't upgrade. Stop tying to keep up with the Jones. Who cares if you are two generations behind just be satisfied with what you've got.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By mendocinosummit on 4/18/2007 7:14:34 PM , Rating: 2

Until you sit in front of a 200 to 220 dollar 20.1 inch wide screen LCD with DVI. Then you think, shit wouldn't that be nice to have. I wouldn't have to move scroll as much and I will never have to scroll left and right again. My movies and TV shows (which are almost always wide screen) would be a lot bigger. Damn, I wonder if my grandma needs a new screen for her 1998 HP.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By GlassHouse69 on 4/18/2007 7:56:52 PM , Rating: 2

eh.

i sit in front of an 800 dollar mitsubishi crt, 22 inches. I'm exceedingly happy ;)

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Hydrofirex on 4/18/2007 9:09:55 PM , Rating: 1

Yeah, and I'm sitting in front of a wide screen 20.1" $500 dollar LCD that is in every way superior to my Trinitron CRT I ditched it for.

Trust me, the required quality panels are just becoming mainstream, but flat panel displays are finally ready to replace the venerable CRT in almost every application imaginable.

You can have you're 22 inch monster. I promise you there is no non-professional level task My NEC is bested at by a CRT (Yes, even hard-core gaming) - Not one I've ever seen. Just wait for the next gen panels.... and good luck if you ever have to move that thing.

HfX

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Zurtex on 4/19/2007 10:45:47 AM , Rating: 2

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I've yet to see a TFT which doesn't make DIVX, XVID or low bit-rate H.264 movies look horrible compared to my CRT, far far more pronounced blockyness, which to my understanding is just inherent in the way TFT monitor technology is built.

Also when I'm playing games, I like colours, I find that TFTs just don't tend to match up in that area, particularly considering I bought my 19" CRT 1600 x 1200 for £90 (about $150 at the time of purchase, thought that's about $180 these days).

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Araemo on 4/19/2007 12:01:37 PM , Rating: 2

Check out the NEC 20WMGX2

I believe it's the one the GP is talking about for a bit over $500. It's only 20.1" widescreen, but it actually outperforms some CRTs for color reproduction, and has a (rated) 6ms (gtg?) response time. It's one of the best monitors out there, and the cheapest available AS-IPS panel monitor. I just hope I can buy one before they discontinue it. Contrary to what he says, I don't think AS-IPS is ever going to go mainstream, they seem to discontinue the cheaper products as they get older, and keep moving it up into higher-margin applications. This makes me think AS-IPS is just too expensive to be a mainstream technology. Maybe some day after patents expire it'll become common..

CRTs definitely do colors better, when they're new.. but they tend to get dim with age(LCDs do the same), and my current 19" CRT (Purchased 5+ years ago for ~$450) is starting to go. I would really like to replace it with a bigger LCD that is just as good if not better than my CRT was when it was new.. and for about the same price, I MIGHT be able to do that. (And what refresh rate do you run your 1600x1200 CRT at? I think I would need 1600x1200 to be 85hz or higher.. with LCDs I don't have to worry about that.)

So yes, for the time being, I expect extremely hard-core design types who NEED exact colors will stick to the tried-and-true CRTs for the time being, but LCDs have finally gotten close enough. (Again, the 20WMGX2 has an almost perfect color curve after calibration, and a damn good one from the factory. See forums.anandtech's LCD buyer's guide thread for good links to reviews and information)

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By idconstruct on 4/19/2007 3:53:41 PM , Rating: 2

Dell 2407wfp ftw!

http://picasaweb.google.com/idConstruct/MyDell2407...

Thats a temporary location btw... my room is being recarpeted

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Runiteshark on 4/19/2007 2:23:53 PM , Rating: 2

Pretty sure my CRT can outdo any resolution on a sub $4000 LCD monitor.

Yep, It "Normally" does 2048x1536 @ 85hz, but I have no problems pushing it to 3200x2400 @71hz. And its either I get a few crappy LCDs (that you say totally dominate a CRT) to make up the real estate I loose, and have to put up with lower DPI, Or I can just collect the nice CRTs that people like you throw out, or want to sell for $30.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By tjr508 on 4/18/2007 11:46:56 PM , Rating: 2

I'm sitting in front of a crt QXGA monster myself and I like it better than anything else I have ever seen.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Laughing all the way 2220 on 4/19/2007 2:19:24 PM , Rating: 2

I tried both connections using the same video card and same lcd monitor. My video card has both connections and the monitor supports both. Switching from one to the other shows DVI is brighter to the point of washing out the colors. I have to turn the brightness down to get a decent picture. The VGA port showed the picture just fine without a need to adjust so much. Games still look fine- Oblivion, NWN 2, F.E.A.R, Quake 4, and WOW. For my NEC 19" everything is fine. Just because the industry wants to come out with a new standard every 2 years for everything under the sun doesn't mean that you have to buy it. I still haven't bought Hi Def. I've seen my uncle's Mitsu at 1080P and yeah it looks damn good but not enough for me to fork out 2 large. If what you have works good then why upgrade if it's going to change in a year and a half. Same thing with Vista and Microsoft's newest slated to come out in 2009.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By techfuzz on 4/18/2007 10:15:34 PM , Rating: 2

I have a 5 year old 19" CRT at home and 1 year old 20.1" LCD at work. An LCD at home would be nice, but I certainly don't feel like I have to replace the CRT just because I also use an LCD.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By defter on 4/19/2007 6:13:43 AM , Rating: 2

Expect 200-220 dollar LCD monitors are crap. They cannot even display 256 shades of a single color (they are limited to 64 shades, 6bit/color). Then you need to take into account other things, like the inability to display black, low contrast ratio, poor response time and so on.

Now it is very difficult to find medium quality (8bit color) LCD displays that costs less than $400. Good LCD displays (8bit colors, high contrast ratio, low light leakage) cost much more than $500.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Moishe on 4/19/2007 9:19:01 AM , Rating: 1

What are you smoking?

Even if the screen is using 6 bit color *the avg person* is not going to look at the screen while they're doing average PC use and notice. True color is nice and we all agree that it's better, but lets not walk around saying that everyone *needs* it.

Screens use frame rate control methods and/or dithering to smooth out the color reproduction and it really works to hide the underlying problem. In most cases you're not going to use a cheap LCD and see a difference unless you're a videophile or doing important work.... but IF you are one of these folks who can see and must have true color than you most likely already know it.

This is just like how most people don't give a rat's behind if a sound card has 192kHz, 24bit and some amazing freq. response. Not that it's not technically better but I, for one, cannot tell the difference between a high or medium quality sound card. It may be because the other components won't allow the quality to shine, but we're talking about spending our dollars wisely so that we can get most of the way there without spending the extra dough.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Zurtex on 4/19/2007 10:41:31 AM , Rating: 2

I don't disagree, the average person doesn't need it. But the average person doesn't really need a machine that does billions of calculations per second, they still have one.

I have a 19" CRT at 1600 x 1200 and I'm not letting go of it and moving to the TFT era till I see something with better colours and an equivalent pixel pitch. Though I do love using wide-screen monitors, movies look worse on them than on my CRT so the extra display area doesn't quite feel worth it at the moment.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Moishe on 4/19/2007 12:24:50 PM , Rating: 1

You're an enthusiast (which is why you'd wait for a nice high quality LCD) and my point is still valid.
If the guy spending the money can't tell it's better or if the "betterness" of it doesn't actually help him, then it's NOT better in any tangible way that matters *for him*. Spending money on a Ferrari to get to the store and back is a bit of a waste, especially if you're on a budget.

Take avg Joe on the street and ask him if LCDs are as good as CRTs. He won't have the slightest clue about color depth or pixels. Why? Because he doesn't know and doesn't care to know and because he probably can't tell the difference. On top of that you've got stores flooded with LCDs at a reasonable price with very nice clarity and brightness.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Runiteshark on 4/19/2007 2:25:33 PM , Rating: 2

Disagreed, I bought an Acer laptop that had a 6 bit panel it it was so glaringly obvious that the color reproduction totally sucked on it. Even small gradients looked like crap.

I had an Inspiron 9300 awile back and it did just fine.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Niv KA on 4/19/2007 6:24:00 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Damn, I wonder if my grandma needs a new screen for her 1998 HP.

Well, grandma has a 1993 homebuilt (by my father, back then...) Pentium(1)(something "S")133Mhz (I believe... I used it maybe 5 times, she used it 0...). I don't think she needs a new screen...

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Zurtex on 4/19/2007 10:46:18 AM , Rating: 2

My Gran plays MMORPGs, building a new gaming computer for her this summer :D

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By UNCjigga on 4/19/2007 1:17:49 PM , Rating: 2

Damn, that would be the life. Retired, living off a pension and your kids' money, and nothing to do but play computer games (and some Wii for exercise--according to DailyTech old folks like the Wii!) Now I can't wait until I'm 65! ;)

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By DallasTexas on 4/18/2007 7:17:58 PM , Rating: 1

If you have a relatively modern graphics card or graphics enabled motherboard, the VGA signal is actually quite clean. Graphics industry started to implement very good digital to analog circuitry about three years ago that display on LCD screens quite well. However, DVI still provides better clarity. I can assure you that DVI and HDMI will be around for a long time regardless of the success of display port.

I'm actually more concerned about your use of a 15 inch display :-) Once you move to 19 inch or or larger, you'll discover a whole new world! I use two 26 inch displays side-by-side for my work, and yet the new 30 inch offerings with extra high resolution have me wanting! I'm sure you can buy a 19 inch display for around a $100 or so. I agree $100 may still be a lot of money but there are quite a few buyers seduced by the low-cost offerings out there 20 inches and above.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Niv KA on 4/19/2007 6:16:35 AM , Rating: 2

The weird thing is that I have been planning to go 21" for 2 years now. I just always find myself saying : I'll just delay the screen upgrade for next time and this time get a C2D E6400 instead of a E6300 or something like that...

And my graphics card is a 7600GT (DVI-VGA adapter) so the display quality is good (then again I haven't really used DVI except when fixing other people's PCs) so I haven't seen a huge advantage in DVI. Is there some advantage that I will be able to see? And can you really buy 19" screens for ~100$? When I go 19" or 21" I want it to be a high quality screen too... My current one is a noname (Literally, there is no brand name at all) screen which I got from a family member when he visited Taiwan, so the viewing angles aren't good when there is light, and it is only 1024*768. Another problem is that I live in Europe (mainland) and don't have Newegg or all those.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By DallasTexas on 4/19/2007 8:22:48 AM , Rating: 1

Here in the US, you can get a 19 inch LCD today for $144 retail (NewEgg, for instance) with 8ms response. You can go cheaper for a low end LCD and I have seen them <$100 on eBay. This is because many people are upgrading and dumping their old ones.

The need for wanting a large screen really depends what you want. If you want to view several open applications at the same time, multiple documents side-by-side, etc, a large viewing area is a tremendous advantage. For gaming and watching video, for instance, you also want fast pixel on-off rate (response). Often, these are trade-offs. The rest of the specifications have to do with resolution, color saturation, back light uniformity, connector types and other specs.

It seems to me the sweet spot of the market right now is around 21 inch. You can get higher resolution than what you have now. Never mind the new display port specification. It is needed when your display is very high resolution like the new high-resolution 30 inch models that need two (dual link) DVI inputs to drive them. This is because DVI can only put out so much bandwidth on each port. Display port fixes that and should be able to drive incredibly high resolution displays that will be coming out in the future.

regards from Dallas, Texas !

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By smilingcrow on 4/18/2007 7:33:36 PM , Rating: 3

I think D-Sub is the least of your problems; 15" screen! someone beam this man into the 21st century.
I'd much rather an entry level CPU with a decent screen (1680x1050) than the other way round.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Niv KA on 4/19/2007 6:19:23 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
I'd much rather an entry level CPU with a decent screen (1680x1050) than the other way round.

So your saying the minimum for decent is 1680*1050... I am wishing for a 1280*1024...

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Moishe on 4/19/2007 9:02:42 AM , Rating: 2

no... 1280x720 should be minimum, it's a nice resolution that anyone can run. If you buy a 19" widescreen it will probably be native 1440x900, which is nice too...

Basically it sounds like you need to just spend a little bit and get a nice basic 19" LCD screen. It's not a lot of money but you will be amazed at the difference. There is no need to blow a lot of money or get the best unless you have a legitimate "need" for it or unless you have money to spare.

I have a 720p projector (110") and a 1440x900 LCD (19") that I play all my games on (at 1280x720). Even though my C2D system will play just fine at higher res, using a native resolution makes a nicer image and I'm not such a graphics junkie that I have to be running the best, highest res.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By Moishe on 4/19/2007 8:53:05 AM , Rating: 2

For 50% of my computer work at home I use a nice soyo 19" widescreen LCD that I got for $129. DVI with a nice screen is really very nice and it's not overly expensive to find a decent cheap LCD. Don't upgrade if you're happy, but if you've got $200 you can very definitely find a nice screen that will be an improvement for years to come.

People always want to skimp on the screen, but it's one of the main components that you can really use to make a different experience.

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RE: I feel LOW TECH

By GoatMonkey on 4/19/2007 9:05:48 AM , Rating: 2

I have a Samsung 21.3" LCD panel that takes either DVI or VGA input. I've tried both, and honestly I can't tell the difference. Your bigger issue is stepping up from 15", that's like a little porthole.

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talk about expensive cables...

By Quiksel on 4/18/2007 5:37:17 PM , Rating: 2

These new fangled fiber optic display cables will surely put Monster out of business in short order! Why buy a $100 Monster cable when you have to buy a $200 Display cable!!

;)

/but seriously
Am I reading this right? Fiber optics for our display cables? Sounds like lots of malfuntioning wires in the future. An IT NIGHTMARE! :(

RE: talk about expensive cables...

By RMTimeKill on 4/18/2007 6:57:53 PM , Rating: 2

People have been using optical cables in network environments for years, the majority fiber optic malfunction is typically caused by a Janitor being where he’s not supposed to be, mopping the floor and whacking the fiber cables with his mop handle and snapping them (that sucked to fix... thank god for having a fusion splicer) and by large back hoes not paying attention to where they are digging... People have been using fiber optic cables in home audio for just about as long, again with out much malfunction from the cable it’s self. Most "malfunction" is human error, yes the "glass cable" is flexible but you certainly cannot tie it in knots!!

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RE: talk about expensive cables...

By HappyCracker on 4/18/2007 7:15:04 PM , Rating: 2

I don't know how people have not destroyed their home optical cables. Then again, I've had a raised floor tile land on a regular zip-cord fiber cable and it still work. I wonder if the amount of jacketing saves the standard home user?

Home audio stuff is pretty stationary but people mess around with their computers all the time. I see a lot of room for these things to become damaged myself.

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RE: talk about expensive cables...

By qwerty1 on 4/18/2007 8:41:41 PM , Rating: 2

Monster is already pushing out 10' fiber optic cables at $30 a pop. My concern would be the additional cost we have to incur to connect stuff together. I for one certainly don't want to pay an extra $20-40 for connecting my screen to my computer.

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As long as

By Quryous on 4/18/2007 6:01:28 PM , Rating: 2

As long as ANY system that is used does away with the scourge of DRM it is fine with me. That alone will drop the price of everything.

RE: As long as

By thebrown13 on 4/18/2007 6:11:16 PM , Rating: 2

Dead horse.

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RE: As long as

By Some1ne on 4/18/2007 7:21:39 PM , Rating: 2

Not quite. The horse dies at the same time as DRM. Until then it must be flogged without mercy. Poor horse.

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RE: As long as

By mkrech on 4/19/2007 12:48:44 PM , Rating: 2

very good point

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Cable length

By Micronite on 4/18/2007 5:34:21 PM , Rating: 3

I've been hoping someone would do this. The one problem with copper cables is that you can't get much length from them without significant degradation at higher bandwidth transmissions.
Right now if you want to drive several TV's in your home from a central system, they've got to be close or you've got to run coax. It will be nice if this can solve that problem.

RE: Cable length

By GlassHouse69 on 4/18/2007 8:03:08 PM , Rating: 2

yeah, the fibre optic is the way to go. no need for better cables, just make the cheapest possible cable and it will work for all cases in the same manner. true digital is neat.

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RE: Cable length

By Ajax9000 on 4/18/2007 8:58:00 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I've been hoping someone would do this. ...

Same here! I made similar comments last year (last comment @ http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4814 ).

Hopefully standardization will end the farce we see with DVI where propritary optical solutions start at about ~USD$400.

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What's wrong with DVI???

By defter on 4/19/2007 6:16:50 AM , Rating: 2

Don't tell me it's the lack of audio... Why would I want to transfer audio to my monitor or to my brand new TV??? (Note: If can afford >$1000 brand new TV, I can also afford spending few hundred dollars on amplifier and some speakers to replace crappy builtin TV speakers, thus the video player needs to have digital audio output so I can connect it to my amplifier....)

RE: What's wrong with DVI???

By GoatMonkey on 4/19/2007 9:08:41 AM , Rating: 2

Including audio and video in one cable could potentially cut down some cable clutter depending on how you set it up. Other than that, I agree, we really don't need all of these different "standards".

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RE: What's wrong with DVI???

By namechamps on 4/21/2007 1:33:31 AM , Rating: 2

Well current digital out (spdif, coax) doesn't have enough bandwidth for multichannel PCM or HD Audio (TrueHD, DTS-MA, DD+, etc).

HDMI or any single cable solution doesn't need to go only to your TV. Image a setup in a few years with an HD STB, HD DVD player, HTPC, and HD gaming system all have one output cable HDMI running into an HDMI receiver which has 4 inputs & 1 output. The single output HDMI cable is run to the monitor.

5 cables handled HD audio & video for both the receiver and display for 4 sources.

Now HDMI receivers are still expensive but this year onkyo is comming out with a $299 receiver. Within 2-3 years most receivers, displays, and outputs will support HDMI.

So why do we need another standard again?

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stop all these useless money grabbing tech

By rainyday on 4/19/2007 10:07:13 PM , Rating: 2

Since when good old VGA became a problem??
Giv me 1 good reason.
why do we have to pay 4 all these new ports we dont need and want.

RE: stop all these useless money grabbing tech

By namechamps on 4/21/2007 1:37:05 AM , Rating: 2

Since the video card is digital and the display is digital that kinda make VGA useless today. Now for CRT I can see keeping VGA compatibility around. Most companies have stopped making CRTs. I would say by 2010 or so you will not be able to buy a CRT. So why would we keep VGA? So we can go Digital on video card to analog across cable them back to digital to display output. Eventually we will see digital only video cards as the % of market using VGA drops to 0.

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Not a question of low tech

By LiquidIce1337 on 4/19/2007 9:45:04 AM , Rating: 2

In my honest opinion, I think you should spring for an LCD. I mean if your not doing anything that requires almost perfect coloring because of what the final product will look like, than a big LCD won't hurt you. I remember when I wanted a 17 inch CRT and it was such a huge decision between that and a 15" and some more ram, back in my 486 days. I sprung for the 17"... My reasoning.. think about what you use so much more, you have to look at the monitor all day. I'm not going to see memory, sure I'll see a little performance but Memory you upgrade more commonly, a screen was something you settled on and purchased because they were expensive back then (some still are now) but LCD's are cheap. The LCD war right now for lowest pricest is perfect right now to buy one! I say treat yourself and get like a 20inch widescreen or more.. believe me you will not be dissapointed!

resolution hungry.

By drunkenmastermind on 4/19/2007 11:00:41 AM , Rating: 2

Had a 19" CRT dumped it for a 24" Dell. I just can't get enough res :) lets face it the digital world just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Digital images 5, 10, 15+ megapixels. HD content etc. Our monitors are our windows into the digital realm. enjoy! :)