As I mentioned earlier, DVI and VGA are dying standards, but they still have some practical uses. DVI-I is good because it can support modern resolutions (1080P at 60Hz) and you can easily convert it to other connector types. Most analog connectors, such as VGA, require active adapters to convert to HDMI, but you don’t need that with DVI. a b "Digital Visual Interface Revision 1.0" (PDF). Digital Display Working Group. 2 April 1999 . Retrieved 31 January 2023.

Some DVD players, HDTV sets, and video projectors have DVI connectors that transmit an encrypted signal for copy protection using the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) protocol. Computers can be connected to HDTV sets over DVI, but the graphics card must support HDCP to play content protected by digital rights management (DRM). To ensure a basic level of interoperability, DVI compliant devices are required to support one baseline display mode, "low pixel format" (640×480 at 60Hz). In some cases, DVI can carry over audio when connected to a physical HDMI adapter. For more information about that, take a look at this article. If you have the option to use HDMI or another port liked Display Port, use those instead, DVI and VGA should only be used as a last resort because the quality isn’t the best. In December 2010, Intel, AMD, and several computer and display manufacturers announced they would stop supporting DVI-I, VGA and LVDS-technologies from 2013/2015, and instead speed up adoption of DisplayPort and HDMI. [18] [19] They also stated: "Legacy interfaces such as VGA, DVI and LVDS have not kept pace, and newer standards such as DisplayPort and HDMI clearly provide the best connectivity options moving forward. In our opinion, DisplayPort 1.2 is the future interface for PC monitors, along with HDMI 1.4a for TV connectivity". a b "VESA Standards". Video Electronics Standards Association. Archived from the original on January 17, 1999.DVI stands for Digital Visual Interface. It is a video display interface developed by Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The interface is used for connecting display devices to PC or smart unit and it was developed with the intention of creating a standard for transferring digital video content. The DVI connector is used to establish this interface.

a b Manchester, Gary (1999). The VESA Digital Flat Panel (DFP) Standard: A White Paper (PDF) (Report). VESA Marketing Committee. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 12, 2016. Kruegle, Herman (2006). "8". CCTV Surveillance: Analog and Digital Video Practices And Technology. Butterworth-Heinemann. p.268. ISBN 0-7506-7768-6. DVI-I Dual Link has a maximum resolution of 2560×1440 at 60 Hz. You can push it higher but you’ll have to lower the Hz rate to 30 which is a little clunky. When DVI was designed, most computer monitors were still of the cathode ray tube type that require analog video synchronization signals. The timing of the digital synchronization signals matches the equivalent analog ones, so the process of transforming DVI to and from an analog signal does not require extra (high-speed) memory, expensive at the time.

An earlier attempt to promulgate an updated standard to the analog VGA connector was made by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) in 1994 and 1995, with the Enhanced Video Connector (EVC), which was intended to consolidate cables between the computer and monitor. [3] [4] EVC used a 35-pin Molex MicroCross connector and carried analog video (input and output), analog stereo audio (input and output), and data (via USB and FireWire). At the same time, with the increasing availability of digital flat-panel displays, the priority shifted to digital video transmission, which would remove the extra analog/digital conversion steps required for VGA and EVC; [5] :5–6 the EVC connector was reused by VESA, [6] which released the P&D standard in 1997. [3] P&D offered single-link TMDS digital video with, as an option, analog video output and data (USB and FireWire), using a 35-pin MicroCross connector similar to EVC; the analog audio and video input lines from EVC were repurposed to carry digital video for P&D. [5] :4 [7] :§1.3.3 If a depth greater than 24 bits per pixel is desired, the least significant bits are sent on the second link.

VESA Plug and Display (P&D) Standard, Version 1" (PDF). Video Electronics Standards Association. June 11, 1997. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 4, 2003. In addition to digital, some DVI connectors also have pins that pass an analog signal, which can be used to connect an analog monitor. The analog pins are the four that surround the flat blade on a DVI-I or DVI-A connector. A VGA monitor, for example, can be connected to a video source with DVI-I through the use of a passive adapter. Since the analog pins are directly compatible with VGA signaling, passive adapters are simple and cheap to produce, providing a cost-effective solution to support VGA on DVI. The long flat pin on a DVI-I connector is wider than the same pin on a DVI-D connector, so even if the four analog pins were manually removed, it still wouldn't be possible to connect a male DVI-I to a female DVI-D. It is possible, however, to join a male DVI-D connector with a female DVI-I connector. [12] From a user's point of view, both connectors work in the same way: devices have female ports and the connector cables have male endpoints. The signal is transmitted from the source device via the port to the connector cable and the destination, which is a display device. Most modern graphics cards have abandoned VGA ports but they still have one or more DVI ports. It’s rumored these connectors will be abandoned soon too. DVI connectors use digital signals, and the DVI-I version has a couple of pins for analog signals, so you can easily convert to VGA with a simple port converter (more on that later).

How to Convert DVI to VGA

However, DVI-I and DVI-D are still found on monitors and computers. I won’t be talking about DVI-A in this article because it’s rarely used today. To promote interoperability between DVI-D and HDMI devices, HDMI source components and displays support DVI-D signalling. For example, an HDMI display can be driven by a DVI-D source because HDMI and DVI-D both define an overlapping minimum set of supported resolutions and frame buffer formats.

MicroCross DVI (Digital Visual Interface) Connector System" (PDF). Molex. November 1999 . Retrieved 31 January 2023.DVI is limited to the RGB color model while HDMI also supports YCbCr 4:4:4 and YCbCr 4:2:2 color spaces, which are generally not used for computer graphics. DVI stands for Digital Audio Interface and it was an attempt to create an industry standard for video connectors, a seat which HDMI has now filled. The technology is a little dated, but like VGA, it’s still common on computers, monitors, TVs, and other displays. Digital video pixel data is transported using multiple TMDS twisted pairs. At the electrical level, these pairs are highly resistant to electrical noise and other forms of analog distortion. You can also convert VGA to DVI because DVI supports analog signals too. Do remember that only DVI-I supports both analog and digital, DVI-D only works with digital, so you’ll need an active adapter to convert that to another type of connector. DisplayPort (a license-free standard proposed by VESA to succeed DVI that has optional DRM mechanisms) / Mini DisplayPort