The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has a new DisplayPort transfer protocol standard and it heralds great things to come.
Although we're just getting started to dive into the exciting pool of 4K, a far more impressive, faster and better 8K is already on the horizon. The latest DisplayPort update leverages the power of USB Type-C to tap its blazing-fast speeds, paving the way to 8K output at 60 frames-per-second (FPS) and 4K output at 120 FPS.
VESA is now offering the latest version of the DisplayPort transfer protocol roughly two years after the previous update. The previous version 1.3 released back in 2014 focused in great part on 4K, which was then starting to gain traction as the next big thing. The new version 1.4 now focuses more on tapping newer connection standards such as USB-C, as well as enabling lossless compression and high-quality streaming.
With the latest update, DisplayPort will be able to transfer a huge amount of information at once, setting up necessary provisions to push video output from a computer or a mobile device to an 8K screen via USB Type-C.
USB-C is still relatively new, but it should soon grace nearly any type of device, whether it's a PC or a mobile gadget such as a tablet or a smartphone. Higher-end devices are already employing the ultra-fast USB Type-C standard and more will join the fray. In this context, the implications are tremendous.
Your future smartphone, for instance, could easily stream 8K HDR video to an 8K resolution TV or display, all thanks to this new DisplayPort standard. Keep in mind, however, than the source device would have to be quite powerful itself to support such output. That's likely still years away, but the future looks promising.
Lastly, VESA also points out that the latest Display Stream Compression version 1.2 is now visually lossless.
"DSC version 1.2 transport enables up to 3:1 compression ratio and has been deemed, through VESA membership testing, to be visually lossless," says VESA. "Together with other new capabilities, this makes the latest version of DP ideally suited for implementation in high-end electronic products demanding premier sound and image quality."
