DVI to HDMI - HDMI Basics Part 2

In the last post we discussed the benefits of HDMI and other basic information. Now we'd discuss some more details regarding the benefits of HDMI.

HDMI is mainly meant for transferring digital information like audio and video in an uncompressed format, and there would be no degradation of quality while that happens.

One important thing to note though is, that it is totally compatible in a backward way with dvi. So you would just require a dvi cable to connect and a dvi to hdmi adapter in between. This enables the device manufacturers to put in extra detail in the output given by the devices.

Previously in the earlier display devices, there used to be one way communication channel between the video source and the display device. But then with the advent of HDMI, there has been set up a two way communication channel between the two, and the the source of the video can now contact the display device, and then device can talk back to the source and try adjusting itself automatically based on the content being served by the source. This enables the device to identify whether a source is sending information at a 4:3 ratio or 16:9 ratio and then adjust itself to broadcast that resolution.

HDMI also keeps in mind the distances usually used for cables, and thus it can easily accommodated copper cables of length up to fifteen meters. And best part is, it doesn't even require amplifiers to amplify the signal. This is a lot better when compared to the dvi amplifier which need to be repeated every 5 meters.


Another great advantage of the HDMI cables is the fact that it is very easy to manufacture the HDMI cables. At higher resolutions you can easily make out the quality difference between a normal S-video and a HDMI brought in video. Even when you look at the corners of the text, it is very noticeable.

Very important advantage is the fact that, HDMI is a single cable, and thus reduces the hassle of connecting multiple cables at multiple spots. This also reduces the mess that is usually created behind the tv. This cable can be effectively used in dvi to hdmi connection.

DVI to HDMI : HDMI Basics Part 1

HDMI stands for the High Definition Multimedia Interface, and was initially developed and released in 2002 December. HDMI was mainly developed for carrying an uncompressed video and digital information over the same interconnect, and the first version was named HDMI ver 1.0. After two years of time, HDMI 1.1 was released in the year 2004 May, and was followed by 1.2 in 2005 Aug, and then finally 1.2a in the very year December.

The versions kept getting upgraded, although there weren't many changes done to the previous versions. In November 2006, HDMI 1.3a was released and again 1.3b was released in March, and in June 2009, HDMI was updated to 1.4 version. In 1.4 though, they added an Ethernet channel, and thus HDMI cable requires additional cable.

Even though HDMI came out in the year 2002, it took almost an year for device developers to fully accept the new cable technology and then adopt it int their device. Thus the first HDMI device started to appear in the year 2003. After the launch of first HDMI device, the HDMI has become vary famous, and has even lead to the cross cable supports like dvi to hdmi. Since then there has been a spike growth in the number of devices that have adopted the HDMI technology, and its almost estimated that there are already more than 200 million devices which are HDMI enabled.

Philips, Panasonic, Sony, Slilicone Image, Thmoson and Hitachi were the leading companies which first developed the HDMI standard. Soon the rest of the electronic device manufacturers followed. HDMI is made to be totally compliant with the High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection ( HDCP) which is mainly about providing copyright protection to the digital content. Many of the major movie producers like Disney, Warner Bros, Fox also support HDMI and so do the system operators such as EchoStar.

Benefits of HDMI

When you look at the composite tv cables you'd notice that there are two or more separate cables to connect the audio and video from the source to the destination. But in case of HDMI, the basic idea was to use a a single interconnection which could effectively carry both audio and video signals. And in this case, the data source can be anything like DVD player, A graphics card, set top box.

The first noticeable benefit of HDMI cables or DVI to HDMI cables is the fact that, they readily reduce the mess that is usually caused by the normal composite tv cables. These HDMI cables or dvi to hdmi cables look sleek and are short and are strong. Thus they can be tucked away behind the table.

DVI to HDMI - DVI Basics Part 2

DVI TO HDMI: Tech Spech of DVI

Among DVI to HDMI, DVI cable is capable of accommodating up to 2 transition minimized differential signaling ( TMDS ) links, the Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) services the VESA Display Data Channel (DDC), and also the blue, green and the red vertical and horizontal sync lines that belongs to an RGBHV video signal which is analog and is backward compatible with analog VESA video. In the DVI to Hdmi, when dvi is using TMDS, that can only mean that it is totally capable with both the DFP and the P&D standard is also compatible with HDMI.

DVI: Length and Bit Rate

Every link that is contained in the dvi is made up of 3 channels which carry data (RGB info) and is having a maximum of 165 Mhz Bandwidth, which in other words is equivalent to 165 million pixels per second. ; this equates to 165 million pixels per second, considering that its 8 bit per color, and 24 bit depth. The DC balancer minimizes the every incoming 8 bit color data word, and is transitioned into 10 bit word. And that means that every pixel is denoted by a sum of 30 bits. That means, among the dvi to hdmi, the dvi single cable is able to put up a throughput of 4.9 Gbps and when the case is of dual link dvi, then it is a maximum of 9.9 gbps.

The main thing about the DVI cable is the problem with the length. The DVI cable are usually very short, and the problem arises when you decide to do a dvi to hdmi transition or use it for your home theater system and want to connect the cable to a wall mounted projector or a far off tv.

If not DVI then what?

Usually people use twisted cable instead of coaxial, for video connection, but the same might degrade over the long distance and might introduce noise in the video and audio. Consider the dvi to hdmi thing for instance, your dvi cable is given a standard maximum length of 5 meters only. Now how long your cable is depends on what kind of bit rate you are expecting out of your dvi cable. The higher the bit rate, the shorter your cable has to be. There are manufacturers who claim up to 50 meter of dvi cable, but god knows at what bit rate!

Little more about DVI

As the dvi cable has a maximum bandwidth of 165 mhz, on a single link, it is capable of carrying 1080p HDTV signal at 60hz, within a single interface. Now the same is double in the dual link dvi. But you'd have to use a twisted dvi cable for the same purpose, and you would also be in need of additional pins to connect the additional dvi cable, as a second link. Before you jump over to dvi, better do a background check on the availability of the support for this cable in the present market and availability of support for the same upon the various devices.

DVI To HDMI - Everything you Need To Know About DVI - Part 1

In the last discussion we discussed briefly about DVI to HDMI intro and also briefly about DVI and HDMI. This post will be solely dedicated to discuss about DVI (we'll discuss dvi to hdmi very soon).

DVI is an abbreviation for Digital Video Interface.

DVI is used along with the flat LCD panels and monitors coupled with the latest graphics card to provide best of the video quality. And DVI acts as an interface to carry this high quality information. This came to an extent of replacing p&d plug and display standard. Graphics card manufacturers love DVI ports & also dvi to hdmi too, because they can output high quality video through the video cards. Thus most of the graphics card manufacturers provide a port for the DVI output, through which you can connect a cable to your display device and see the game or graphics application running.

Because of the success and quality of dvi output, many of the dvd player manufacturers started adopting the dvi output and many dvd players have an option for the dvi output. Even HDTVs used dvi as a means of information broadcast to telecast tv shows and movies. But recently TVs have shifted towards the HDMI and the computer industry still hugs the DVI, and thus dvi to hdmi is more of a fusion of both of these platforms.

DVI to HDMI : Types of DVI connections

Let us discuss something more about various types of dvi connections that are available. Presently there are 3 types of dvi connections that are available, namely, DVI-Digital, DVI-Analog, and DVI-Integrated. We'll discuss briefly about all three of these.

DVI-D cables are used to interconnect the LCD monitors and the source of the video like video cards, and this is a digital connection. Because the format of transmission is digital, it ensure a higher quality of image and is faster. Usually most of the video cards output in VGA, which needs to be converted to a digital format in order to be used for DVI, but using DVI-D this can be easily avoided and the conversion can be skipped. We'll discuss about how these can be used for dvi to hdmi.

DVI-A are the medium to transport signal to an analog display device such as a CRT monitor or may be a budget LCD display. Use of DVI-A can be found more in the place where signal needs to be taken to a VGA device, and in this case there is always a loss of quality. These can't be used for dvi to hdmi as there is loss of quality. This loss of quality is not because the video information is produced that way, but because of the conversion that takes place.

DVI-I cables are a combo type of cables which can do both the tasks performed by the above cables. These cables can either transmit an analog-to analog signal, or a digital to digital signal. Thus this cable can be used at multiple places and purposes as there is no bound for to be used for digital or analog. This can be used for dvi to hdmi conversion purposes.

There are few more things that you need to know about DVI itself before we jump on to discuss dvi to hdmi, thus we'll cover it in the next post.

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DVI To HDMI Introduction

Welcome to the world of DVI To HDMI. Before we go on to discuss everything there is to about dvi to hdmi, it is important for us to get formally introduced to the digital world of dvi and hdmis.

DVI to HDMI: What is DVI exactly?
Yes I understand it might seem ridiculous to you that I'm discussing about dvi here and giving such basic information about dvi to hdmi, but it is very important to understand about the pure basics to begin with.

DVI stands for Digital Visual Interface. This is an international standard interface design which is targetted towards providing absolutely high quality of pictures and videos on display devices, on the ones like flat panel lcd monitors and tvs. DVI was initially developed by an Industry Consortium named DDWG which stands for Digital Display Working Group (DDWG) in order to replace the VGA connector which was about to become the legacy analog technology. DVI mainly carries video data that is totally uncompressed and is of high quality. This should help us in big way to understand connection between dvi to hdmi.
A digital protocol is used by DVI interface (which shall be used for dvi to hdmi connection) devices in order to represent the intended illumination pixels using the binary data. One thing to note about DVI is the fact that interface has representation for every single pixel that has to be drawn on the display device. The distortion might naturally occur only because of electrical noise and other common for of distortion which are analog in nature.

DVI to HDMI: What is HDMI exactly?

We've discussed well about DVI, thus before we discuss about dvi to hdmi, its time for us to discuss about HDMI. HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface. As the name suggests, this too is a standard interface design used worldwide. This happens to be an interface for transmitting uncompressed video/audio information. This very well is becoming a digital alternative to many consumer analog devices such as D-Terminal, VGA etc. HDMI is capable of connecting set top boxes, HD DVD players, blu ray players to audio devices or computer monitors that are compatible.

What is shocking is HDMI can house 8 channels of audio upon just one cable on any tv or pc. Because the channel control is in the user hand, the end user has the ability or power to control multiple devices. It was in 2003 when HDMI came into production. Since then many electronics companies have been adopting HDMI specifications. There have been many version revisions in HDMI, which will be discussed in detail. Dvi to Hdmi is not a big deal as both are electrically compatible.