We’ve started the digital world with VGA and moved to DVI sockets, now to the current HDMI world. Why and how is HDMI winning? What kind of secrets we don’t know about? Let us first explain from the beginning. VGA The VGA connector introduced by IBM in 1987 and everyone should be familiar with it (most schools still use projectors that only support VGA connectors). You can also see VGA connectors on most of our desktops. The VGA connector is often referred to as the D-sub connector, in fact the D-Sub refers to all the trapezoidal internal pins with pins, not just a VGA! The biggest difference between VGA and DVI / HDMI is the analog signal transmission. (If you forgot and you are not sure what analog or digital means, please refer to this article.) Perhaps many people will think that VGA does not support high resolution but in fact VGA transmission cables can support up to 2560×1600P! However, VGA easily gets transmission interference by other signals, so in order to avoid video interference, keeping and viewing at 1920×1080P or below resolutions is more stable. Although in 2010 many manufacturers jointly decided to completely eliminate the VGA interface in 2015, thus the VGA connector has been removed as the newer laptops are getting thinner and thinner. There are still too many existing and professional devices using the VGA interface to output images, therefore the VGA era should not be completely over just yet. DVI In 1999, after VGA was introduced for 12 years and has been widely used; Intel, HP and COMPAQ jointly released DVI in order to replace VGA. DVI is most commonly divided into three types: DVI-A (analog), DVI-D (digital), DVI-I (mixed). DVI-D and DVI-I are divided into single channel and dual channel. In single channel, DVI can support 1920×1200@60 Hz, which is slightly higher than our usual 1920×1080@60 Hz. Therefore, the most common DVI screen is the DVI-D Single Link connector. In dual channel, DVI can support up to 2560×1600@60 Hz resolution, which is slightly higher than 2K (2560×1440 @ 60 Hz). Everything seems great, but why didn’t DVI take over the market? First, because the size of the DVI connector is too big, it is difficult to accommodate the smaller size notebooks; second, it was affected by the tariffs of various countries. From 2004, the European Union began to recognize DVI monitors as TVs, it increased from a 0% import tax on computer monitors to a 14% import tax on TVs; In 2006, Taiwan decided to have DVI monitor classified for TV tariffs. A 13% of goods tax plus 10% of the import tax, making a total of 23% tax. Therefore the manufacturing cost for DVI monitors became more expensive than a VGA monitor. Many manufactures went back to producing VGA LCD monitors while DVI interface can only be found in middle and high-end products. The DVI ear is bound to be limited,thus the VGA will not disappear anytime soon. HDMI In 2003, TOSHIBA, SONY, Panasonic and other home appliance manufacturers promoted HDMI, which was originally designed for TV, DVD and Blu-ray players. It is not only smaller in size and has the ability to transmit sound and video simultaneously, HDMI is also supported by leading film production companies such as 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Disney, Samsung Electronics, and other cable TV systems. There are many HDMI versions, and the most common ones are 1.4 and 2.0 and the 2.1 version was introduced back in 2017. The 1.4 version can support 1080P@120Hz; the 2.0 version can support 4K @50/60Hz and support 21:9 aspect ratio; 2.1 version can support 4K@120Hz and 8K@60Hz, its transmission bandwidth also increased significantly. It is worth mentioning that HDMI has added an Ethernet channel after version 1.4, but nowadays the average family will not apply this function and it will also depend on how HDMI is going to develop in the future! HDMI is better than DVI and HDCP is one of the reasons (Forget what HDCP is? Come see this article: URL) HDMI started supporting HDCP in 2003, but DVI joined later in 2007. This is why many movie companies support HDMI at an early stage. We hope you have a basic idea of these three types of connectors. In short, the advantages of HDMI are: the ability to transmit sound at the same time, small size, high quality, easy to plug, supports HDCP and so on. HDMI should have a stable and long-lasting position in the market, unless there is a new development of a new connector. We hope you like our simple version of HDMI introduction. Finally, if you want to learn more about technology, please join and like our Facebook Pengo page. We will have occasional activities! *2019/02/13