Dell's DisplayPort Folly
The PC giant is championing an interface we don't need and shouldn't
have to pay for.
Tom Mainelli, PC World
Thursday, February 07, 2008 2:00 PM PST
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,14...l?tk=nl_ptxcol
Dell is on a mission to prove it's a technology leader by making sure
that DisplayPort--the DVI replacement that it's pushing hard for the
industry to adopt--appears on your next notebook, PC, and monitor.
There's just one problem: We don't need DisplayPort. It currently
doesn't offer any real cost or performance benefits over the well-
established HDMI interface, which is appearing on a growing number of
products. DisplayPort's introduction is likely to cause confusion and
frustration for buyers seeking a monitor that will work with their
notebook or PC at home. Worse, Dell plans to eventually launch
DisplayPort-only monitors that will lack backward compatibility with
every single PC shipped to date. This is not technology leadership.
The DisplayPort Dilemma
In addition to writing GeekTech, I'm a research analyst for IDC
covering monitors and projectors, so I've watched DisplayPort's
evolution closely. Dell, HP, Samsung, and other monitor industry big
shots first started kicking around the idea that became DisplayPort in
2003--and back then it made sense. After all, the old analog VGA
interface was dead (although to this day it refuses to lie down) and
the DVI interface had become technologically moribund, unable to keep
up with the promise of next-generation, ultrahigh-resolution monitors.
DisplayPort would be the ultimate digital interface for PCs, and it
would be an open standard with no associated royalties, unlike the
then-new HDMI interface, which was starting to show up on televisions
(companies that implement HDMI today pay 4 cents per device plus a
$10,000-per-year fee).
If DisplayPort had launched then, we'd probably be merrily using it on
our PCs today. Instead, the standard took years to mature (as they
often do). In the meantime, high-definition TV sales took off, and so
did the acceptance of HDMI: Today that interface is on just about
every HDTV sold, and most people with any technical prowess know what
it is and how it works. After several tumultuous revisions, HDMI
reached version 1.3, which can support even today's highest-resolution
30-inch monitors. As a result, HDMI now ships on many PCs and monitors
from just about every major vendor, including Dell.
When HDMI became the de facto digital interface standard, development
of DisplayPort should have ceased. Alas, the wheels were already in
motion, and Dell--the standard's most vocal proponent--and VESA (the
Video Electronics Standards Association, brought in to administer the
specification) pushed forward, continuing development and issuing
specifications. Finally, in January this year Dell rolled out the
first-ever DisplayPort-enabled monitor, its 30-inch UltraSharp
3008WFP. Interestingly, the $1999 LCD also includes an HDMI port.
Why put an HDMI port on the company's first DisplayPort monitor?
Because even Dell's top DisplayPort evangelist, Bruce Montag, senior
technical staffer in the office of Dell's CTO and chairman of the
DisplayPort task force at VESA, acknowledges that HDMI is too well
established to omit. Though Dell plans to continue offering HDMI on
its consumer gear, it thinks DisplayPort makes more sense for future
business products.
I couldn't agree less. Why on earth should my work monitor, notebook,
or desktop have a different digital interface than my products at home
do? Every day I take my work notebook home, where I often connect it
to my consumer desktop monitor. Plus, small-business buyers mix and
match consumer and corporate hardware all the time.
DisplayPort backers like to point out that future implementations of
the interface could offer compatibility with HDMI, but such support is
optional, not required in the specification. In addition, it would
need an external dongle and chip sets that can interface with both
standards, since the two technologies work in fundamentally different
ways (unlike, say, HDMI and DVI). In the end, both the vendor--and the
consumer--would end up paying more for the luxury of using HDMI
through a DisplayPort connector. Wouldn't it be easier, and less
expensive, if everything used just HDMI?
Future Promises
Other arguments in favor of DisplayPort also fall apart upon closer
examination. For example, backers suggest that because DisplayPort is
royalty-free, the interface will be less expensive to implement. But
in reality there's no guarantee that contributors to the specification
won't ask for royalties later. Meanwhile, the up-front hardware costs
of supporting the new standard are undoubtedly higher than that of
HDMI--even considering HDMI's 4-cent royalty fees--since HDMI's parts
are already produced in high volume and enjoy economies of scale. And
for every monitor that a vendor such as Dell creates with both
DisplayPort and HDMI, the company must pay the hardware cost of
implementing both standards, plus the HDMI fees it originally sought
to avoid.
Engineers agree that DisplayPort's micropacket architecture is pretty
slick. It can drive multiple monitors using a daisy-chain
configuration, and it could enable future setups such as integrated
USB hubs and Webcams that run through a single DisplayPort cable.
However, a USB-based technology called DisplayLink already offers
multiple-monitor support. And the USB and Webcam features aren't
included in the current DisplayPort specification, which means owners
of first-generation products won't have access to them even if they
become available later. Anybody can promise future features.
Finally, Dell says DisplayPort will let the company build what it
calls direct-drive monitors, models that contain fewer internal
electronics, which could mean potentially lower prices and allow
thinner designs. That sounds great, too, until you realize that such a
"dumb" monitor could work only with DisplayPort-enabled PCs or
notebooks and not with the millions of laptops and desktops that exist
today.
DisplayPort was a good idea that missed its window of opportunity. By
forcing the issue, Dell and other DisplayPort backers are only going
to bewilder consumers. If you're in the market for a new laptop,
desktop, or monitor in the coming months, be sure to take a close look
at the connectors on the back. How irritated would you be to find that
the best connection on your new high-end monitor won't work with the
best connection on your high-end notebook?
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