It seems like everything you can connect to a TV or monitor has an HDMI port,
but somehow DisplayPort, which is largely able to just do the same thing,
has stuck around for years on our computers. So what's the point of having two connectors that
are seemingly interchangeable? Well, it turns out HDMI and DisplayPort were designed with different
uses in mind. HDMI hit the scene in 2003 and was mostly backed by companies involved in the home
theater side of consumer electronics. Think Panasonic, Philips, and Sony, for example.
Digital cable boxes, HDTVs, and DVD players were starting to take off, and Movie and TV Studios
worked with the companies that made these devices on a connection that supported
copy protection. DisplayPort, on the other hand, didn't come along until 2008 and was designed
specifically with computers in mind by Vesa, the same folks that standardized those mounting holes
so you could stick a big screen on your wall. Vesa members included big players in the PC
industry such as Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Apple. DisplayPort was meant to replace
older standards like VGA and DVI, and for the longest time, DisplayPort was ahead of HDMI in
terms of performance. For example, DisplayPort 1.2, which came out in 2010, supported 4K at 60Hz.
I mean, there are plenty of PCs that still struggle with gaming at that resolution and
Meanwhile, HDMI 1.4, which was the dominant standard back then, only supported 4K at 30Hz,
meaning anyone with a powerful GPU had to be careful which connector they were using.
Early versions of DisplayPort also supported features that HDMI lacked, like Vesa Adaptive Sync,
meaning it could work with AMD FreeSync more than two years before HDMI 2.1 brought official
support for variable refresh rates. But fast forward to 2022, and both HDMI and DisplayPort's
most recent revisions are seriously impressive. They each support all the major flavors of HDR,
loss of audio, and seriously sky high resolutions. HDMI 2.1 maxes out at 10K 120Hz, while DisplayPort
2.0 gives you 16K at 60Hz or 10K at 80Hz. Sure, I have a display like that. So are HDMI and DisplayPort
meaningfully differentiated anymore other than just the connector? They are, and we'll tell you
about that right after we tell you about our sponsor. If you want to use NVIDIA's full
implementation of G-Sync, you have to use DisplayPort as it doesn't work over HDMI for the time being.
DisplayPort also supports Vesa's new Adaptive Sync certification program, with the goal of
being to inform you quickly by the use of a spiffy logo, whether the monitor's variable refresh rate
technology will reliably work across a wide range of frame rates. But do keep in mind that
HDMI 2.1 supports VRR, so you should have at least some protection against screen tearing no matter
what you go with. Another key difference is that DisplayPort allows daisy chaining, meaning you can
connect multiple displays to just one port as long as those monitors have a pass-through port. This is
especially useful if you need to use several monitors at once for work or for something like
photo editing, but aren't rocking a fancy GPU with tons of ports. An HDMI port can't carry more
than one video signal, which means you need additional equipment for a multi-monitor setup
without DisplayPort. But one area where HDMI is more useful is ARC, which stands for Audio Return
Channel. If you have an HDMI display connected to a receiver, you can cut down on cable clutter
because ARC sends an audio signal back down the same HDMI cable. So if you got audio originating
from a Netflix app on your TV, it can piggyback on that one HDMI cable all the way down to your
speakers. And HDMI also allows you to adjust the volume with your display's remote if you're using
something like an HDMI soundbar. So both ports have their strengths, but you can see that they're
designed for different use cases despite the fact that they both carry insanely high-quality video
signals. Sure, it would be nice if we could use one port for absolutely everything, but what's
the fun in that? Huge thanks for watching. Hit like. Don't hit dislike. Check out our other videos.
Actually, I guess you can hit dislike. No one sees it anymore. Does it even matter?
Comment your video suggestions down below and just have a great day.