HDR can be described as the ratio between the lightest and darkest parts of an image. Typically, with standard dynamic range, you’re losing detail at either end of the light spectrum. Expose a scene for the shadow detail and you end up with blown-out highlights or expose for the highlights and you lose shadow detail. HDR allows a greater range of detail across the full light spectrum.
You’ve probably already come across HDR through photography. Most smartphones now have an HDR mode where they essentially take numerous images at different exposures and combine them. As HDR has become part of the Ultra HD standard, you can expect more Ultra HD Blu-ray content to take advantage. The likes of Amazon and Netflix stream HDR content, tool.
More often than not, if you’re connecting something to a television, HDMI will be your best, and likely only, bet. Most PC monitors will also include an HDMI input. The good news, where it comes to 1.4 versus 2, is that you don’t need to rush out and buy new cables. To take advantage of the 2.0 spec you just need both devices on each end of the cable to be 2-compatible. Any HDMI cable will do, and we’ve already seen that there’s no difference in HDMI cable quality.
The thing to look out for are the different HDMI connection sizes. Not only is there full-sized HDMI (Type A), but you can come across mini-HDMI (Type B) and micro-HDMI (Type C), too. These are commonly found on portable devices such as tablets, camcorders and action cameras, where their physically smaller connections are required. You can either buy HDMI-mini-HDMI/HDMI-Micro-HDMI cables or you can buy mini/micro-HDMI adaptors so you can use your full-size HDMI cables.
Not pertaining to the HDMI cable itself but, instead, the HDMI connection on your device or TV is something called HDCP or “High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection” to use its full name. The latest version of HDCP is HDCP 2.2, which is necessary for 4K content. HDCP essentially stops you from being able to connect a playback device, such as a Blu-ray player, to a recording device to make copies. This sort of copy protection has been around for decades.
You will likely find that your new Ultra HD/4K TV supports HDCP 2.2 on its HDMI port, but it’s not always for all of them. Some models will only support HDCP 2.2 for HDMI 1 and HDMI 2 inputs, so if you’re connecting a shiny new Ultra HD Blu-ray player, such as the Panasonic DMP-UB900 or Samsung UBD-K8500, make sure to use the correct HDMI input.
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Until HDMI 2.0 became a standard, DisplayPort had it beat when it came to high resolutions. DisplayPort 1.2 has long been able to carry 3,840 x 2,160-resolution video at 60fps (or a refresh rate of 60Hz) and is the most common DisplayPort specification on most consumer monitors and devices now. This has 17.28Gbits/sec of bandwidth.
A newer 1.3 and 1.4 version, that both have a maximum data rate of 25.92 Gbits/sec, are both becoming more widely available. With the increased bandwidth capabilities, it opens up the floodgates to higher resolutions such as 7,680 x 4,320 (8K).
DisplayPort 1-1.1a is able to output 144Hz at 1080p, while 1.2-1.2a can output 1440p at 144Hz, 1.3 outputs up to 120Hz at 4K, and 1.4 can output 144Hz at 4K using Display Stream Compression (DSC).
The main advantage of DisplayPort is the ability to output to multiple displays through Multi-Stream Transport (MST). You can do this by daisy-chaining compatible monitors over DisplayPort or by connecting a DisplayPort MST splitter to your single DisplayPort output on your PC or laptop. You have to work within the bandwidth limitations of whichever DisplayPort specification you’re using, such as two 1,920 x 1,080 monitors over 1.2 or two 3,840 x 2,160 displays over the DisplayPort 1.3+ specification. As such, DisplayPort is often a great choice for those looking to use multiple monitors.
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