this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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Console manufacturers all just need to switch to displayport to encourage tv manufacturers to do the same. No one's going to not buy a ps6 or steam machine because they have to use a little dp-hdmi adapter, but they might be a little more likely to choose a tv that doesn't need an adapter over one that does
What about shipping an adaptor? DP to HDMI for the transition?
Can dp even translate to HDMI with a "dumb" adapter?
DP can do HDMI natively.
HDMI needs an active adapter to support DP.
yes, i have a dp to hdmi 2.1 cable that cost like 35€. it works fine except each time i get up from my chair the screen flashes white. and no VRR.
Wha... how? What?
ESD. the air is extremely dry here
Whoa
Put a ferrite core (or ferrite bead) around your cable to lessen the impact ESD has on your video output.
good tip, I'll try that!
There are a lot of passive adapters out there that seem like black magic at first.
Obviously has drawbacks, but you can also do displayport/hdmi to VGA passively.
That is not passive, they have to "translate".
Oh, you may have got me.
By passive, I was trying to say that no external power/additional connection/etc is required. But, the port is technically powered and that is enough to make it not passive.
I have a 25ft HDMI cable that works fine for everything except sometimes when I open a new tab in Firefox, the screen temporarily goes blank/no-signal for a couple seconds. Also sometimes when the dryer turns on.
my friend has had this issue for years, when he turns on a fan his monitor turns off for a second
Yes, DP converts to HDMI natively. But because HDMI has so much proprietary BS built in, going from HDMI to DP requires an active adapter which strips out the proprietary BS.
Yes.
I have a secondary monitor running on a unpowered, dumb (and cheap), DP to HDMI driver right now
~~Can't be a passive adapter or else that would mean DisplayPort and HDMI have to protocol compatible. If they were then we wouldn't have this issue.~~ Apparently I was wrong.
Nope. DisplayPort can adapt to HDMI or DVI passively. It won’t support the proprietary bullshit like HDCP, but it will be able to display video just fine. Pin 13 on DP is specifically used to detect adapters, so the output device can automatically change to using an HDMI protocol if it detects an HDMI adapter. This technically requires a dual-mode DP port to automatically adapt, but the vast majority of DP connectors produced in the past several years are dual-mode.
But going the other direction (HDMI to DP) requires an active adapter, to strip out all of the proprietary HDMI-only bullshit.
Technically no, it has to specifically have Dual-Mode support (DP++). In practice most of them do, at least in the consumer space.
If it doesn't then you need an active adapter.
Phone companies succeeded in killing 3.5mm audio port with that strategy. So why not, for once, use it for a good cause?
Good point!
I agree with the sentiment but we're dealing with a chicken and egg problem. If no TVs have DisplayPort, who would buy a console that can't be used with their TV?
TVs are starting to come with DisplayPort already in the form of USB-C alt mode.
Not really. Both could start shipping both connectors, except if I'm unaware of some licensing issue over that?
If I'm a TV manufacturer, I have less incentive to have both connector types because it increases cost and complexity while only appealing to a very small subset of users. It will take leadership at those companies to take a bit of a leap of faith that the effort is valuable as a long term plan because it will take other manufacturers to make the ecosystem. Couple that with the fact that leadership at companies tend to not be enthusiasts or technically inclined and it makes it difficult, but not impossible. I really hope we can move electronics towards DisplayPort just so it's an open standard instead of the HDMI for-profit model.
Ah, the Apple strategy of forcing a standard.
EDIT: By that I mean when Apple started putting USB (1.0) on their Macs back in the day to encourage more USB accessories. Not their proprietary (what was the old iPod connector called?) or lightning BS.
You’re thinking of firewire, and that was not proprietary. Sony came up with that. I had a mini disc player with a firewire port. And thunderbolt, which is what they use now, is an evolution on firewire made by Apple, Sony, and Intel.
Both firewire and thunderbolt are superior to USB.
Got a Firewire port on my PS2. The only thing I've ever owned with Firewire and I never even used it.
I have an old iMac that I use as a Plex server, and it has a firewire 800 port and a thunderbolt 1 port, both of which I use for a couple of very old external drive enclosures. Sure as hell beats USB 2.0.
I always wanted a way to use that jack, still have no clue what it was for
I believe it was only utilized by Gran Turismo 3 for connecting two systems to play against each other. Nobody else developed for it.
I was thinking of the 30 Pin Dock Connector, which was proprietary, but it looks like it used both FireWire and USB protocols.
Apple was known for helping propagate FireWire too.
Leave it to me to only consider the male end of the connector 😜
The first time I ever used a firewire port, I thought it was black magic compared to usb. It was INSANELY faster and super consistent speed. It was the same level of wow as the first time I used an SSD vs HDD.
Compared to the top speed of USB 2.0, firewire 400 was actually faster in that regard (due to a consistent transfer rate rather than a variable one), and I’ll explain where the true performance came in to play, and how thunderbolt also has this amazing feature:
When usb connections begin to data transfer, they started at 0 Kb and slowly speed up to the maximum transfer rate. Then it slows down before completion. FireWire (and is successor, Thunderbolt) maintain a consistent data transfer speed. It begins at that transfer rate, and ends at that transfer rate. This is especially good if you’re moving around a large amount of small files.
Also, firewire 400 already beat out USB 2.0’s 382 Mb/s transfer rate. Firework 800 more than doubled it, and thunderbolt 1 started at 1.5 GB a second. We’re at thunderbolt 5 now, and I stopped keeping track of the data rates because they were so blazingly fast.
One drawback, however, is that firewire cables, and subsequently thunderbolt cables, are both extremely expensive and not very durable. They contain a lot more twisted copper wires, and tend to wear out faster. USB cables are nearly indestructible.
Additionally, firewire (and thunderbolt) are also a networking protocol. You can create an ad-hoc LAN just with firewire or thunderbolt cable cables. This is natively built into macOS, but, on Linux, it requires some sorcery to make it work. With a Mac, and an emergency, you can boot your Mac with a damaged hard to drive remote remotely from another functional Mac just by using a thunderbolt cable (or a firewire cable). It’s a neat trick, and has saved my ass more times than I can count.
One final awesome feature of thunderbolt 2+ is that a natively carries DisplayPort signals since switching to the USB 3 plug standard.
No, youngin’ they’re talking about USB. The original iMac was USB-only specifically to force the adoption of USB keyboards and mice.
This is what I was responding to. Also, they only sold that iMac for about a year, after which point iMacs came with FireWire ports.
And I’m in my 40s. I’m not a “youngin’”.