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HDMI still has both vertical and horizontal "blanking", although efforts are under way to reduce it: https://blogs.synopsys.com/vip-central/2021/06/24/reduced-bl...

In any case, you want to know when the frame has been scanned out so you can swap the buffer to the next frame.

I suspect it's just the name that stuck for the double/triple buffer for signal synch'ing and avoid tearing.

To the video hardware, LCDs are raster displays, and receive information in line scans and frames over time just like CRTs, even if it's a digital signal. You can have V-sync on or off (complete with screen tearing) just the same.