Do you remember UDI - or, Universal Display Interface. It's an alternative to HDMI geared towards the video card/computer monitor industry that does the same thing, including all of HDCP, as HDMI but it doesn't cost nearly as much. When a manufacturer sticks an HDMI port on their device, it costs them $10,000 in licensing fees and that was just lowered from $15,000. A good chunk of that changes goes to pay for the HDCP licensing, With UDI, a manufacturer doesn't have to pay for HDCP, but yet it can still do the same thing. Plus, UDI is capable with HDMI's connector and is capable of the same bandwidth. Will we see UDI in the mainstream anytime soon though? It's hard to say but we doubt it. HDMI is already making head-ways into the monitors and video cards industry. Once these companies invest into a certain standard, it can be hard to get them to look at anything else.

Ok fess up, who requested another digital interface for video and audio content? Since UDI, HDMI & DVI weren't complicated enough, VESA has come out with their own digital connector to replace VGA, DisplayPort. They originally announced it a year ago, but it is now ready to go, the only question is does anyone care?

This article from Digitimes breaks down the challenges DisplayPort faces and what (few) benefits it offers. Unlike DVI/HDMI/UDI, it isn't backwards compatible with anything. If you replace your PC, DVD player TV or monitor with a DisplayPort device you'll have to replace anything connected to it. It also has it's own content protection scheme, much like HDCP, but once again not compatible.

We don't really see this standard taking off with no backwards compatibility (however this release from Dell/HP/Lenovo indicates it is "possible" to have legacy compatibility with DVI 1.0) and both high definition DVD formats using a different copy protection format. With its only apparent advantage being a lack of licensing fees, is there a space for DisplayPort?

They're not stopping at version 1.2, HDMI's Licensing group today announced that they plan to add more features to the specification in the coming year, while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing devices (believe it when I see it).

In addition to the tighter relationship with PC's via the newly announced UDI connector, they expect to support greater color depths (30, 36 and 48 bit), higher speed connections, a new mini connector for cameras, a/v synchronization and new audio formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD.

In retrospect, it's really not fair that computer monitors are stuck with that old VGA connector while HDTV's get all the exciting new DVI and HDMI connectors, but never fear, as is seemingly all the rage lately, a consortium has been formed to develop a new spec and implement it. The new connector, UDI (Unified Display Interface) will be fully HDMI and HDCP compatible, because everyone knows how much you love DRM.

Intel, Apple, Samsung and SGI are among the companies heading up the initiative, with others like Microsoft and NVIDIA joining to pledge support, so you can expect this to be pretty standard on new computers buy this time next year. My question is why DVI wasn't good enough, it supports HDCP too, they mention lower cost in the article, but my gut tells me they're plugging some DRM holes and we get to pay for it by buying new equipment.