DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort: Which One To Use?

Remember when it took five cables, a bulky adapter, and a carefully placed piece of duct tape to connect that encyclopedia-sized laptop of yours to the television? Luckily, those days are long gone, with things like DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort brining some much needed simplicity to our audiovisual lives. However, having all that choice doesn't make for an easy decision, and it can be hard to tell what best meets your needs.

Luckily, our tireless army of web-trained monkeys have scoured the deepest depths of home theater hell to give you the lowdown on what all these standards mean. There's lots of similarities, but enough differences too, so whether you're working on your laptop or gaming on the big screen, we'll show you whether DVI, HDMI or DisplayPort is best for you.

Most of you should no doubt be familiar with DVI by now. One of the older digital standards around today, Digital Visual Interface has been used for years in desktop monitors, graphics cards, and even newer HDTVs. The format's digital capabilities gave it a nice step up over the analog VGA ports of old, and made it possible to pump out crystal-clear video at 1080p to computer screens and TVs everywhere. 

However, those modest features weren't good enough for everyone, and that's where HDMI comes in. As the successor to DVI, High Definition Multimedia Interface, introduced a big new feature — audio. While DVI was incapable of carrying an audio stream, HDMI has no issues transmitting such data, with anywhere from two to 7.1 channels of Dolby or DTS audio supported by the standard. In fact, all that extra bandwidth isn't just limited to audio, with higher resolution video, and even 3D content potentially transmittable over HDMI.

Luckily, the video streams of HDMI and DVI have remained identical; HDMI is compatible with older, legacy devices, making it easy to hook up a DVI-capable machine to an HDMI monitor or television. In fact, modern computer screens have begun to include the newer ports instead, packaging a DVI adapter for older machines. This is actually an improvement, because it gives certain laptops or computers the ability to take advantage of the audio stream too. 

But then there's DisplayPort. You might remember we've talked about this relatively new format in the past, most recently in our discussion on Apple's n ewly revamped Mac Mini. DisplayPort was first incorporated into the 2008 batch of unibody MacBooks, and has been cropping up in other laptops, monitors and graphics cards ever since. Much like HDMI, DisplayPort has the ability to transmit both audio and video over the same connection. However, there are some important distinctions that set the two apart.

So far, we've seen a big DisplayPort push in the computing market, but less to the home theater crowd. Part of the problem is that HDMI is actually capable of sending CEC — Consumer Electronics Control — signals. This might not seem like a big deal at first, but its the protocol that allows your PS3 to talk to your TV, or all your AV equipment to communicate. For home theater buffs who like to precisely control their device experience, HDMI comes out on top.
 
However, there's another reason that DisplayPort has favored PC users, and that's scalability. The auxiliary channel of a DisplayPort connection can be scaled to accept additional signals via USB. That means a single connection to your desktop monitor could also take care of a microphone and webcam as well — an attractive feature that's not as important in a home theater set up.

Knowing the strengths, weaknesses and scenarios for each, the real question is, which one is best for you?     
 
Images via Flickr users Andy Reitz, smilemark, and HDMII.