To be fair, scart was less of a standard for display, and more a pinout to carry most of that stuff. Scart is the least problematic of those in the list.
And largely the others weren’t so much competing as they addressed failures in those before it. RF had limited bandwidth and required a carrier. Composite was the same as RF, but better due to not needing the carrier. S-video is the same with the color information separated for a clearer image. Component is better still by further separating color signals.
The issue with HDMI and displayport is that they are largely the same thing.
Good point on Scart. DVI(-I/-D) would have been a better example than that.
I agree that each was an incremental improvement, but with how long it took for each of them to establish dominance and supersede the older standard, they might as well have been competing.
I still remember buying my kid a Wii, and you had a pick of composite, component, or S-Video. And that was nearly half a decade after HDMI was created…
The issue with HDMI and displayport is that they are largely the same thing.
Unfortunately, yeah. If it were up to me, though, HDMI would be phased out. With the exception of Audio Return Channel, DisplayPort can do everything consumer HDMI can do with higher bandwidth and without being encumbered by royalties.
If it were up to me, though, HDMI would be phased out.
I agree. But sadly, the media market has standardized on it so it’s here for a while. So for as long as there are TVs, we will have HDMI until they move to a new one.
To be “charitable” to HDMI, in its 23-year lifespan, it’s only seen 6 major and 4 minor revisions. The minor revisions are way too frequent, but at least the newer cables are compatible with devices using the older HDMI standard.
To be uncharitable to HDMI cable manufacturers, the shitty ones are causing major problems for consumers, exasperating the problem of HDMI being inconsistently functional:
The maximum length of an HDMI 2.0 cable is 50 feet before signal degradation starts to cause problems in high bandwidth applications. You can find 100ft “HDMI 2.0” cables all over Amazon, and I guarantee they won’t be able to do 4k120hz or 8k30hz without issues.
HDMI pin 18 is +5V power, which is barely ever used in cases where someone is connecting a source device directly to a sink device. Some manufacturers try to save on material costs by not including a wire for it and not mentioning that little omission. DisplayPort has the same issue. Guess what happens to devices when using a cable with the power pin connected and no protection for backfeeding? (Hint: an RMA. On that note, fuck Dell.)
Manufacturers selling cables without actually labeling the cable itself with the specification version. We all have a drawer of old HDMI cables, most of them won’t work for an 8K TV, and half of those you’ll only find out through trial and error.
I actually don’t have as much of an issue with the mini/micro variants of the connectors themselves. It’s pretty easy to find a passive adapter in most cases, and they mostly work fine as long as you aren’t trying to feed 4K over long distances or high refresh rates through them.
Fuck. And we were finally down to just two standards…
Back to the days of S-Video, YPbPr Composite, Component, Scart, and RF, I suppose.
To be fair, scart was less of a standard for display, and more a pinout to carry most of that stuff. Scart is the least problematic of those in the list.
And largely the others weren’t so much competing as they addressed failures in those before it. RF had limited bandwidth and required a carrier. Composite was the same as RF, but better due to not needing the carrier. S-video is the same with the color information separated for a clearer image. Component is better still by further separating color signals.
The issue with HDMI and displayport is that they are largely the same thing.
Good point on Scart. DVI(-I/-D) would have been a better example than that.
I agree that each was an incremental improvement, but with how long it took for each of them to establish dominance and supersede the older standard, they might as well have been competing.
I still remember buying my kid a Wii, and you had a pick of composite, component, or S-Video. And that was nearly half a decade after HDMI was created…
Unfortunately, yeah. If it were up to me, though, HDMI would be phased out. With the exception of Audio Return Channel, DisplayPort can do everything consumer HDMI can do with higher bandwidth and without being encumbered by royalties.
I agree. But sadly, the media market has standardized on it so it’s here for a while. So for as long as there are TVs, we will have HDMI until they move to a new one.
I dunno man, hdmi has 400 different cable standards and then microhdmi on top.
Don’t forget miniHDMI!
To be “charitable” to HDMI, in its 23-year lifespan, it’s only seen 6 major and 4 minor revisions. The minor revisions are way too frequent, but at least the newer cables are compatible with devices using the older HDMI standard.
To be uncharitable to HDMI cable manufacturers, the shitty ones are causing major problems for consumers, exasperating the problem of HDMI being inconsistently functional:
The maximum length of an HDMI 2.0 cable is 50 feet before signal degradation starts to cause problems in high bandwidth applications. You can find 100ft “HDMI 2.0” cables all over Amazon, and I guarantee they won’t be able to do 4k120hz or 8k30hz without issues.
HDMI pin 18 is +5V power, which is barely ever used in cases where someone is connecting a source device directly to a sink device. Some manufacturers try to save on material costs by not including a wire for it and not mentioning that little omission. DisplayPort has the same issue. Guess what happens to devices when using a cable with the power pin connected and no protection for backfeeding? (Hint: an RMA. On that note, fuck Dell.)
Manufacturers selling cables without actually labeling the cable itself with the specification version. We all have a drawer of old HDMI cables, most of them won’t work for an 8K TV, and half of those you’ll only find out through trial and error.
I actually don’t have as much of an issue with the mini/micro variants of the connectors themselves. It’s pretty easy to find a passive adapter in most cases, and they mostly work fine as long as you aren’t trying to feed 4K over long distances or high refresh rates through them.
I didn’t come here to be educated! I’m here to be unreasonable!