HDMI is a terrible format and I wish it never existed

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

I need to vent, I’m furious with the current state of consumer video formats.

We all know about CD audio vs SACD, Betamax vs VHS and HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray. But I want to talk to you about HDMI vs DisplayPort.

I grew up in the 2000s - early 2010s. Throughout this time, the dominant video formats were analog composite or component video. Those who were lucky enough to have a decent CRT TV could also use S-Video or RGB SCART in Europe.

In the early 2010s HDMI became commonplace. To this day, it remains the dominant video format. But it kinda sucks…

My biggest gripe is the physical properties of the connector itself. HDMI is based off the DVI format, but it doesn’t use this connector and throws away all of its advantages. DVI connectors have a fixed, thumbscrew receptacle, but HDMI connectors don’t have this for “convenience”, and their connector depth is small. Over time, plugging and unplugging results in vertical pivoting, which eventually breaks the connector’s solder joints. This is why you see so many GPUs and PlayStation or Xbox consoles with failed HDMI ports on the second-hand market.

And then there’s HDCP. “High Definition Copy Protection”. It doesn’t realistically protect anything and it’s easily bypassed. The only thing it does is making legitimate splitting or extending HDMI signals unnecessarily difficult.

Maybe I’m pushing here, but the range of a HDMI cable is also poor if you want to use a remote display. Once you get to 7 meters or more, your results will vary. I personally struggle to get a reliable 1080i 50Hz signal above this distance. Like DVI, HDMI uses TMDS signalling, which becomes inefficient over long cable lengths.

Finally, licensing HDMI requires an expensive OEM license. The DisplayPort license is significantly cheaper for OEMs.

DisplayPort could (and should) have been the clear winner. The connector is better designed, with more depth and an optional locking connector design. The video format itself uses efficient packet-based signalling - I have been able to get DisplayPort running 1080p 60Hz reliably at 10 meters. And I’ve never had a DisplayPort connector physically fail. Unfortunately, DisplayPort also implements HDCP in certain scenarios, but other than that, it’s a much better video format IMO.

The only issue I have with DisplayPort is that it doesn’t support HDR, but I’m sure that will be addressed in future revisions.

So, why didn’t DisplayPort become the dominant video format?

 

[nivrip]

So, why didn’t DisplayPort become the dominant video format?

I guess that it's called commercialism. Big companies are not interested in individuals like us but only in themselves. They do things their way because it makes them more money. That's the way it is and will always be.

It was exactly the same in the Betamax v. VHS saga. Betamax gave a much better picture and the video cassettes were much more compact and easier to store. But, commercialism pushed and pushed and the inferior VHS became the standard.

In reality, we, as individuals, can never win.

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

I guess that it's called commercialism. Big companies are not interested in individuals like us but only in themselves. They do things their way because it makes them more money. That's the way it is and will always be.

Naturally, you’d expect the pro stuff to be unaffected by this. But I’ve seen Christie professional projectors that only have a single HDMI input. On this level, you’d expect DisplayPort, or even broadcast grade SDI inputs. They cost £20k+ and output around 40k lumens. For comparison, a consumer “high end” home cinema projector outputs around 4000-6000 lumens.

The AV team ran HDMI to Ethernet multiplex and then de-multiplex back to HDMI at the projector. All that, just to display 1080i 50Hz