HDMI Versus DVI
In order to make you understand what is better, HDMI or DVI, let's see first what they actually consist of. DVI comes from Digital Visual Interface and names the video connectivity standard that links your PC monitor or projector to the computer unit and, in addition, to High-Definition TVs, EDTVs and Plasma displays. It is used even by some DVD player models for providing high-quality imaging. DVI was the most advanced video transfer method before HDMI started to be available on the market, and features partial support for HDMI.
There are different DVI connections you've probably encountered in the specification lists of your home systems, starting with the DVI-Digital for linking video cards with LCD monitors for a high-quality image compared to analog. The DVI-Analog cables are used with analog displays like CRTs for connecting to VGA devices, while the DVI-Integrated brings both digital and analog support. The latter is the best, eliminating the need for VGA-to-DVI-D and DVI-D -to-VGA convertors.
I was telling you about the support for HDMI. Well, DVI-D and DVI-I come with Single-Link and Dual-Link connectors to send the Transition Minimized Differential Signaling data format, used also by HDMI. With dual link, the connection not only doubles the transmission power but also increases the signal quality, so if a DVI single link 60Hz LCD display renders 1920 x 1200 imaging, a DVI dual link reaches 2560 x 1600 resolution. Everything's fine, people used DVI for a long time and are all satisfied with it, but the problem is that the DVI connectivity doesn't support audio, just video transmission, and here comes the HDMI technology created to send high-quality 8-channel audio and high-definition video over a single cable.
What is HDMI actually? -The High-Definition Multimedia Interface transmits uncompressed digital signals and is the best solution available today to connect all high-end systems including Blu-ray players, computers and gaming consoles to PC monitors and High-Definition television panels, for a perfect image quality. Since 2002 when it was introduced, the HDMI standard has been improving after a few revisions, which lead at the HDMI 1.3b1 available today with sRGB color space standard, YCbCr RGB encoding, 8 channel LPCM/192 kHz/24-bit audio capability, Blu-ray Disc video and audio at full resolution, Consumer Electronic Control, DVD-Audio support, Super Audio CD support, Deep Color with very wide color gamut, xvYCC, Auto lip-sync, Dolby TrueHD bitstream capable, and DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream capable.
Depending on the materials used to build it, the 19-pin HDMI cable, which is much smaller than a DVI cable, can extend over 100 meters using fiber optic technology and extenders, or up to 15 meters when no booster or repeater is used, similar with DVI. There are 2 cable categories available. Category 1 is recommended for monitors and TV panels with this feature enabled, for 16:9 aspect ratio and 1920 x 1080 resolution of 2.07 million pixels. The HDMI Category 2 cable enables resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600 pixels at 16:10 aspect ratio on very large displays.
If you need to connect a DVI source to a TV display featuring HDMI connectivity you can do it easily after acquiring a DVI-to-HDMI cable with a DVI connector on one end and a HDMI connector on the other end. The price is acceptable, ranging between and 0 depending on the length, and this way you can get high-quality images but with no audio, so you'd still need to add an audio connector.
