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HDMI pitches for PC vendor mind share

The battle to determine which PC display interconnect will dominate the market has begun in earnest. Yesterday, the organisation that licenses the HDMI port claimed more than 50 desktops, notebooks, motherboards, graphics cards and monitors are now shipping with its technology on board.

HDMI is a logical successor to the rather more bulky, lower bandwidth and audio-less DVI port that's currently found on most computers and monitors. The rival technology is DisplayPort, developed by VESA, the organisation behind the original VGA technology. Unlike HDMI, DisplayPort doesn't do audio, figuring if an absence of sound was no barrier to DVI, it won't be second time round.

Both HDMI and DisplayPort support the HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Copy Protecion) anti-rip technology and provide the bandwidth to support higher colour depths and larger colour spaces than previous display connection technologies.

Which technology a vendor supports will be determined by how they feel about whether displays need to be fed with sound data or not. Indeed, some observers suggest HDMI will become the standard for home and media-centric systems, while DisplayPort will find a home in business-oriented systems.

Room then for happy co-existence? HDMI Licensing's decision to shout about how many PC systems are now supporting its offering suggest it at least is willing to go on the offensive to win market and mind share.