After just recently announcing the DisplayPort 1.3 standard, VESA has today announced yet another major step forward for the entire electronics industry.

VESA, the governing body behind DisplayPort Alt actually has been working with the USB 3.0 promoter group to integrate the new DisplayPort Alt protocols into the new USB Type C connector due to be implemented in future computers and mobile devices. The brilliance of this partnership and announcement is that it combines the simplicity of USB Type C with the interoperability of DisplayPort across various standards and connectors. Remember, USB Type C is the USB IF’s own third standard connector (in addition to A and B) which allows for a perfectly reversible connector that is not only significantly smaller than the current USB connectors, but also orientation agnostic and capable of delivering up to 100 watts of power.

USB Type C Pin Out Diagram – Notice how its symmetrical and reversible

In simple terms, that means that you can have a 4K video signal transmitted over the very same cable that also powers your device and sends it other data. You could theoretically connect a Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) 4K display that has USB 3.1 ports and power over a single USB Type C connector, which would mean that most devices would only require a single USB Type C connector for all purposes. This usage model works only when a USB Type C connector is connected to another USB Type C connector, however there is still quite a bit of interoperatbility between previous USB connectors and standards with USB Type C and DisplayPort Alt mode.

Example Configurations of USB Type C with DisplayPort Alt Mode

Watch out Thunderbolt

With an industry standard USB Type C connector on both ends consumers can expect that their device will have up to USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) bandwidth, combined with up to 100 watts of power and DisplayPort audio and video signaling capability. This presents a direct challenge to Apple’s own Thunderbolt connector which is capable of both data and video like USB 3.1, but lacks power capabilities as well as the ability to send data, power and video at the same time. In fact, there have been rumors that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is actually behind pushing USB Type C and DisplayPort Alt due to the fact that its Thunderbolt cables still require Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) proprietary technology and don’t actually help improve bandwidth much greater than what USB 3.1 Gen 2 offers. A USB Type C cable with USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) is essentially just as capable as Thunderbolt is, as both standards only support 10 Gbps per cable.

Also, with DisplayPort Alt, a laptop or mobile device manufacturer doesn’t have to worry about what display a consumer might want to use because DisplayPort effectively supports all legacy standards in addition to DisplayPort (HDMI, DVI, VGA).

It also removes the problem that DisplayPort has been having with manufacturers, which is battling for connector space on PCBs and fitting into manufacturers’ progressively thinner and thinner designs. Now, everyone will want to have a USB Type C connector in their devices purely because of the fact that it fully support DisplayPort Alt mode which means that you can get full DisplayPort functionality through a USB cable and don’t need an additional connector (like you would with HDMI or standard DisplayPort connector). DisplayPort Alt mode essentially means that mobile device manufacturers can toss standards like HDMI and MHL to the wind and adopt a single cable for everything while still supporting legacy standards at the same time.

VESA is working with the USB IF to create a standard set of testing procedures for cables to certify them for DisplayPort Alt mode which will be signified by a simple DisplayPort logo on the USB cable, letting the consumer know that the cable is capable of DisplayPort Alt mode and therefore all of the things that come with that, including video signaling capabilities. The goal is to make this certification and testing procedure to be part of the USB Type C certification process so that manufacturers can easily adhere to it without needing additional equipment or testing procedures.

With this announcement, device manufacturers can now focus on a single connector standard and unify around it on a global scale. It will satisfy governments’ demands to have a single power connector across all mobile devices and it may even entice Apple to move away from their own proprietary lightning connector in order to make consumers’ lives easier and manufacturing costs lower. No more apologizing for not having a lightning connector or worrying about whether or not a friend might have a spare charger. It also will reduce the amount of connectors and cables that consumers may have to deal with in general as the industry moves towards a single standard connector for virtually everything ‘cabled’.

USB Type C and DisplayPort Alt mode are a match made in heaven and are a really great example of when companies (and standards organizations) work together to create industry standards that make technology better for everyone.

The post One Cable to Rule Them All: USB Type C With DisplayPort Alt Mode appeared first on VR World.

VESA officially announced the DisplayPort 1.3 Standard Monday, something long-time readers of Bright Side of News* may have already been familiar with.

Many months ago, there was talk about DisplayPort 1.3 exclusively on BSN*, those rumors pointed to 8K and 4K 3D. In terms of bandwidth, the 8.1 Gbps per channel was spot on as VESA’s new DisplayPort 1.3 bandwidth clocks in at exactly 32.4 Gbits/second. This is more than enough to support 4K video (as DisplayPort 1.2 already does this with much less bandwidth). However, the increase to 32.4 Gbps appears to be more of a future-proofing of DisplayPort 1.3 as it already incorporates 4K support as well as adaptive sync from the DisplayPort 1.2a standard that preceded it.

DisplayPort Bandwidth

The new DisplayPort 1.3 standard also brings HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 2.0 compatibility, enabling you to take a DisplayPort connector and make it into an HDMI 2.0 connector at will via an adapter. Thanks to the added bandwidth of the DisplayPort 1.3 standard, there is also the possibility of supporting 4K displays at 60 Hz and up to 24-bit color, and as if that all weren’t enough there are additional data channels available for USB 3.0 connectivity with Dockport. This means that we could expect to see USB 3.0 connectors on some 4K monitors using only a single data cable and a separate cable for power.

VESA is currently only talking about 5K resolution support like for the recently announced Dell 5K monitor with DisplayPort 1.3, which very likely means that we won’t see 4K3D and 8K support until DisplayPort 1.3a when VESA adopts their compression standard as part of DisplayPort. While there isn’t necessarily an exact timeframe for such an update, there’s a very good chance that the industry could see it follow shortly after DisplayPort 1.3’s announcement today. It is a little disappointing that the compression standard didn’t make it into DisplayPort 1.3, but there could have been a timing issue that caused a delay that wouldn’t have enabled DisplayPort 1.3 to have the necessary compression to support 8K resolution.

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As many of you may already know, AMD has proposed a standard unofficially dubbed FreeSync as a way to allow monitors to sync with graphics cards in a way that allows them not to render half frames and to sync the refresh rate of the monitor with the frame rate of the GPU. This standard is designed to be a ‘free’ alternative to Nvidia’s announced G-Sync which will only work with Nvidia’s own GPUs and monitor hardware. AMD’s solution is designed to be more ‘open’ and ‘free’ meaning that you don’t have to necessarily commit to a specific brand of graphics card or monitor. While I haven’t seen FreeSync, I have seen G-Sync and I can tell you that the experience without a doubt elevates the quality of gaming without a doubt in my mind.

Now, there has recently been a rumor circulating around the press for the past few days about the fact that AMD’s dubbed FreeSync standard has been ratified by VESA and will become part of the DisplayPort standard. We did some digging around and managed to get some pretty definitive answers about this new standard that will be part of DisplayPort 1.2a. We were told that while the name itself isn’t too bad, there is a strong likelihood that when the new standard is officially announced as part of DisplayPort  that it’ll lose its current name.  We were also told that there’s a strong likelihood that we could see it as soon as May, shortly before VESA makes another announcement.

That announcement will precede an even bigger one, in the announcement of DisplayPort 1.3. For those unfamiliar with DisplayPort 1.3, we wrote a pretty lengthy exclusive article back in December detailing all of the aspects of DisplayPort 1.3, however, once FreeSync gets integrated into 1.2a, that feature will also be added to 1.3 by default. I suspect that because of FreeSync, there may be a possibility that we could see DisplayPort 1.3 gaining faster adoption as a result of the fact that a generally lower refresh rate will allow for less power drawn by the display. In fact, one of the best applications for FreeSync in DisplayPort 1.2a and later standards will be the fact that monitors will spend less time refreshing and as a result drawing less power. Not to mention the overall experiential improvements. Additionally, it may be easier to implement things like 8K video over DisplayPort 1.3 if we know that initial testing can be done at lower refresh rates than 60 Hz. Hopefully they’ve resolved the cable bandwidth issue with DisplayPort 1.3, and if we find out anything new about FreeSync or DisplayPort 1.3, we’ll be sure to report it to you as soon as possible.

The expectation is that DisplayPort 1.3 will be announced sometime in late Q2 or early Q3, which leaves DisplayPort 1.2 to come anywhere between that time and now.

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