Video Cables Carry DisplayPort Cerification

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA claims that DP8K Certified DisplayPort cables—native DisplayPort cables that are guaranteed to support DisplayPort™ High Bit Rate 3 (HBR3)—are now available in the marketplace. HBR3 is the highest bit rate (8.1 Gigabits per second (Gbps) per lane) supported by DisplayPort standard version 1.4, and provides the speed required to drive 8K video resolution at 60 frames per second (fps) using a single cable, as well as multiple 4K displays. Key applications supported by HBR3 include high-performance gaming, augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) and television broadcasting. With HBR3 already available in a wide array of consumer products, including GPUs and monitors, the availability of cables that have been certified by VESA to support HBR3 provides a crucial final link to the ecosystem.

 

VESA is also currently engaged with its members in the development of the next DisplayPort standard generation, with plans to increase the data rate enabled by DisplayPort by two-fold and beyond. VESA plans to publish this update within the next 18 months. Further developments in display interfaces are needed to address future performance requirements of traditional displays, such as beyond 8K resolutions, as well as greater enhancement of the user experience with AR/VR displays, including 4K-and-beyond VR resolutions.

 

With DP8K Certified cables, devices with native DisplayPort connectors can reliably support 5K or 8K monitors, as well as high-performance 4K monitors. For USB Type-C (USB-C) to USB-C connections, this same level of performance is available with "SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps" cables, which support the HBR3 data rate for DisplayPort Alt Mode.

 

Even Higher Data Rates on the Horizon

 

With the wide field of view offered by AR/VR displays combined with motion, the virtual world is putting more demands on resolution, refresh rate and color depth. In addition, two displays are needed for AR/VR applications, one for each eye, which doubles the data rate demand. Higher data rates will also be needed to support increases in HDR performance and resolutions beyond 8K for traditional displays. VESA is continuing to work on DisplayPort to increase data-rates by two-fold and beyond to enable the higher performance requirements demanded by these applications.

 

In addition to pure display interfaces, VESA is also working to address the future needs of the mixed data-plus-video world of DisplayPort Alt Mode on the USB-C connector. USB-C now allows a single connector for USB data, video data and power, but for simultaneous support of SuperSpeed USB data (now running at 5 or 10 Gbps) and video, the USB-C signals need to be shared, which cuts the DisplayPort bit rate in half. Today, USB-C can support 4K at 60Hz performance utilizing the two lanes of USB-C in this configuration, or 4K HDR or 8K at 30Hz by adding compression. Increasing the DisplayPort data rates in the future will also expand video display capability of a single USB-C connector.

 

Should your head be spinning in a video/data frenzy, more information is available from VESA.