https://hackaday.com/2023/07/11/displayport-a-better-video-i...
There are a couple of video cameras and viewfinders (particularly from BlackMagic) that have emerged in the last couple of years using DP.
The HDMI versioning chaos did not help.
The worst is still USB 3.1 Gen 2.1 Hyper Giga Super Speed Mark II
Even us tech people find it difficult. Small rant - I have the M1 Max MacBook which comes with “USB4”. I remember at some point getting a SanDisk external “USB4” ssd which claimed 20Gb/s, you would think it should all work together. But no, apparently the ssd needed 3.2 2x2 support, which the Mac doesn’t implement, since it’s apparently only a optional part of USB4 spec…
One other funny thing - Apple’s page for “Identify the ports on your Mac” has 5 separate entries that are all USB-C shape. https://support.apple.com/en-us/109523
But I've never actually read a Thunderbolt spec, so I can't be sure exactly what disqualifies those "Thunderbolt / USB 4" from being advertised with a more recent Thunderbolt version number.
No one would listen. You wont even find people supporting these scenerio as a problem on HN. Before 2022, 99.9999% of HN and generally all tech comments somehow thought it will all be Thunderbolt speced.
What makes it even worst is that Apple falls into the same trap as the rest of Internet / Tech / HN. I can almost guarantee this wont happen under Steve Jobs.
Unfortunately that battle is long lost. The world will have to suffer enough pain before it can learn and do something.
DisplayPort, for most intents and purposes, has lost the format war. You buy a laptop - it’s HDMI on the side, not DisplayPort. You buy a monitor - DisplayPort is never an exclusive port on any model, but HDMI is.
USB-C -> HDMI is usually expensive because nearly nobody uses HDMI as alt-mode outside few old devices so you end up with frustrated users who try to buy cheaper converter and find out it does not work.
HDMI is also for various reasons very tightly bound with home entertainment ecosystem because the DRM is mandatory while it's optional in DisplayPort.
Meanwhile DisplayPort has effectively won the format war for computer displays, and on all newer display connectors.
Not on this planet - for the highest end displays, maybe. Almost every small business and government office I see is still using VGA.
That said, HDMI 1.0 being DVI-D in different connector means conversion to VGA is very easy, as DVI-D stream is essentially VGA data minus DAC step (including vsync blanking and overscan).
It's a similar port selection on even the highest end monitors: 40 Gigabit/s HDMI 2.1, or 26 Gigabit DP1.4. I'm unable to find a single DP2.0 monitor.
https://linustechtips.com/topic/729232-guide-to-display-cabl...
I'm personally on a 1440p240hz monitor. With HDR, this barely squeaks over DP1.4's bandwidth.
The display device provides DisplayID block id 0x28 "Tiled Display Technology" with description of tiling, which is then used on GPU side to properly configure framebuffer -> DP sources mappings so that from userland you see one display.
The DisplayID block also explicitly supports things like declaring bevels etc. if necessary.
I dont know where you are from but all Government Office and SME I have been to ( and I have been to a lot ) all have HDMI for their TV since at least 2020. They may have VGA lying around but they are not used. In fact the last time I went to an office that doesn't have HDMI port and only VGA was roughly 2016 or 2018.
I know a fair share of rancid conference rooms where the cabling is still 20 years old...
True, we will never see them on the TV, but on the computer it is all DisplayPort.
Edit: And a MacBook Air would have just the two DisplayPort on the left with no HDMI, plus headphone jack on the right.
The laptops USB-C ports probably speak DisplayPort though. There was another USB-C alt mode which carried HDMI instead but that spec was abandoned, DisplayPort is the de facto standard USB-C video protocol now.
Being able to put video, audio, power, and USB connectivity over one relatively common connector seems like the obvious choice.
I buy a laptop - it's USB only. No HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, headphone jack or anything else. When was the last time you bought one?
I buy a desktop graphics card. 1 HDMI - for compatibility, you know - and 3 DisplayPort. The HDMI is port number 2.
Last time I used a projector it was DisplayPort or VGA. I brought brought both kinds of adapters just in case.
My newest monitor has power input, DisplayPort and VGA. No HDMI.
So it has no video output?
But one of the neat things about DisplayPort is that it's a a packetized protocol, that many streams can go over. Which is why there can be multiple daisy chained monitors!
So hypothetically the computer could stream out all manners of high bandwidth data. It's been neat to see a USB4 adaption, where DisplayPort tunnels USB4 for data coming from the computer, and the aux channel is used as the 480mbit return channel.
I don't really have any knowledge of why the aux channel is regarded as not capable of multi gbit/s, and maybe that's not even true.
Given what a terrible inflexible trash porting of the past HDMI is though, sure makes me wish folks would do more with all the possibilities DisplayPort has. And it makes me really really wish consumer electronics would please please please offer some DisplayPort. Given that usb-c mandates DisplayPort as a required alternate mode video system, maybe possibly hopefully this will be some leverage that starts prying these HDMI rent seeker's stranglehold open.
Unfortunately working out a set of norms and expectations that are useful to users is harder than just making bits go over wires.