VESA DisplayPort Spec Increases Bandwidth to 32Gbps for 5K Displays
Posted on September 15, 2014
The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), responsible for developing and maintaining many of our video interface standards, today announced an overhaul on its DisplayPort 1.2a interface. The newest version of the interface will enable 32.4Gbps link bandwidth – a substantial increase over the existing 17.28Gbps bandwidth – and boasts readiness for the impending 5K displays.
DisplayPort 1.3 has four total lanes, with the update increasing lane bandwidth to 8.1Gbps (8.1 x 4 = 32.4Gbps) before accounting for overhead. The combined link rate after subtracting overhead for transport sits at around 25.92Gbps. To put into perspective just how much bandwidth that is, our 1080p YouTube renderings tend to sit at around 20Mbps, which are built to accommodate most internet download rates. With 25.92Gbps, users will be able to support higher resolution (5K and 4K) displays without any degradation due to bandwidth.
The company ambitiously noted that DisplayPort 1.3 hopes to build for 8K x 4K television displays in the future:
"DisplayPort 1.3 continues to support video conversion to VGA, DVI and HDMI. DisplayPort 1.3 adds support for HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 2.0 with CEC (Consumer Electronics Control), which enhances DisplayPorts utility for television applications, including 4K video with copy protection. The new standard adds support for the 4:2:0 pixel structure, a video format commonly used on consumer digital television interfaces, which enables support for future 8K x 4K displays."
As for the frequency, DisplayPort 1.3 aims to support single 4K (UHD) displays at 60Hz with 24-bit color over two lanes, using the other two lanes for data transfer (USB) and audio.
- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.