DisplayPort 2.1b Arriving This Spring With DP80LL Cables

[Anon'ym']

For short distances one need other tech than fo kilometers grade data transfer. Much less power hungry. Using multiple fiber also allows to simplify everything.

Fiber was more robust and much cheaper then copper more then decade at minimum.
But really 3decades.

Its true for networking as well as for other things.

This high speed copper cables are not cheap in any way. As well as ICs that facilitate this transfer speeds.
And power hungry by design.

Mechanical design of connectors is solvable engineering problem.

I kind of shocked that in US and Europe provider's use coaxial cabling, they not reliable and equipment is expensive as gold.

In Ukraine everything is optical...

[Anon'ym']

Agreed. We did it with SPDIF in the 80s. The technology exists and it's not difficult.
I understand they want to preserve backward compatibility, but just give us an optical adapter then. So basically, we get 1m copper cables but for anything longer, you plug in an active adapter that perhaps uses standard SC fiber connectors. Perhaps they could even pull something off like SPDIF did where you can get both fiber and a 3.5mm jack in the same port, so you can use whichever technology suits you best.

Adapters may be a problem.

But backward compatibility is a cheap excuse...
Lets look on usb-type-c shinanigans. Not only its incompatible with everything before, but its incompatible inside its own domain. Like different power and data rating, some cables works only in one orientation etc. Its crazy.
If they made somehow similar optical connector in USB3 times (as they planned), then incompatibility would not even be such issue, because given you used somehow decent optic fiber(and you have no reasons not to, because it is sand cheap, you can pretty safely using this cables decades ahead only changing transceivers part)
And with copper you need completely different cables for high speed than for USB3/USB2 era.

And do you remember this finger thick USB3 cables, like for electrical heater?

Its also insane how they go with copper mostly for 10G and its so incredible bad. And user experience with cables is complete joke of an excuse, because one of 3 3G cables are failing on termination. And bending restrictions etc. Optical 10G cables has more bending tolerance than copper.

[Anon'ym']

Cable that, adapter on that...

Make an optical display port, whatever use the same SFP cage. It works for network and is fairly cheap and cable length is not an issue.

But we have to to dumb shit all the time do we?

SFP have different purposes, main problem for using it, say for display port, will be its physical dimensions(will need to find place for it on GPU pcb). Also, you will need to integrate lasers inside cable, what will be increase its price. For consumers we must use small and robust connector, something like USB-Type-C(in concept), and transceiver/receiver side make soldered on peripteral PCB. Also, now manufactures can intergrade photonics directly to IC chips, what will decrease price and power requirements even more.

[Anon'ym']

HDMI connectors are specified to be able to cope with 10,000 insertions/disconnection cycles. By contrast, typical optical connectors are rated for 500-1,000 cycles.

According to Bob Pariseau’s blog post, HDMI plugs and sockets are not immune to physical damage. Bent pins can occur, which can cause a socket to fail while another works fine for the same connection. It is advisable to handle HDMI plugs and sockets gently, ensuring they are oriented straight when inserting or removing them to avoid mechanical damage.

The HDMI Forum has introduced new standards aimed at improving robustness. For instance, HDMI 2.2, announced at CES 2025, maintains the same physical connector but includes stricter criteria regarding the cable’s ability to survive being bent around objects

AHAHAHAHAHA!

[Ferrum Master]

SFP have different purposes, main problem for using it, say for display port, will be its physical dimensions(will need to find place for it on GPU pcb). Also, you will need to integrate lasers inside cable, what will be increase its price. For consumers we must use small and robust connector, something like USB-Type-C(in concept), and transceiver/receiver side make soldered on peripteral PCB. Also, now manufactures can intergrade photonics directly to IC chips, what will decrease price and power requirements even more.

What in TYPE-C connector is robust? They break like toothpicks, barely work on longer cables and not enough pins actually.

Actually the device footprint is same as using DP to HDMI converter IC like PS5 to bypass legal HDMI mafia issues. Same with intel ARC GPUs. Basically people already do convert signal to their desired medium.

These cables are fragile, doing copper for these high speed links is pure insanity in my books either way.

[schmidtbag]

Adapters may be a problem.

Why? DP already supports 3 form factors (maybe even more but 3 is all I'm aware of) and if the adapter is plugged directly into the port then there shouldn't be any signal integrity issues.

Lets look on usb-type-c shinanigans. Not only its incompatible with everything before, but its incompatible inside its own domain. Like different power and data rating, some cables works only in one orientation etc. Its crazy.

That's actually not entirely true. Type-C electrically supports USB 2.0. So, the physical interface is different but adapters to change type C to whatever other version are cheap and work well, at least in my experience.

If they made somehow similar optical connector in USB3 times (as they planned), then incompatibility would not even be such issue, because given you used somehow decent optic fiber(and you have no reasons not to, because it is sand cheap, you can pretty safely using this cables decades ahead only changing transceivers part)
And with copper you need completely different cables for high speed than for USB3/USB2 era.

Well, if severing compatible with old protocols was legit and intentional then yeah, optical for data transfers would be great. They could still use copper for power delivery, so it's a win-win. But hey they didn't ask us right?

Its also insane how they go with copper mostly for 10G and its so incredible bad. And user experience with cables is complete joke of an excuse, because one of 3 3G cables are failing on termination. And bending restrictions etc. Optical 10G cables has more bending tolerance than copper.

Ooooh believe me, I've ranted so much about the stupidity of USB once it reached 3.2. I'm not in the mood to write an essay about it but what you say here is just the tip of the iceberg of what's wrong with the protocol.

[skeevy420]

Ooooh believe me, I've ranted so much about the stupidity of USB once it reached 3.2. I'm not in the mood to write an essay about it but what you say here is just the tip of the iceberg of what's wrong with the protocol.

Fuck I'm tired of USB C. Day before yesterday I thought I was having a PC issue when I realized that I was using a charging-only USB C cable. It's one thing having one cable to rule them all. It's a whole other ball of wax when the fucking cables themselves can be tailored into one thing to one the one and aren't labeled appropriately.

[schmidtbag]

Fuck I'm tired of USB C. Day before yesterday I thought I was having a PC issue when I realized that I was using a charging-only USB C cable. It's one thing having one cable to rule them all. It's a whole other ball of wax when the fucking cables themselves can be tailored into one thing to one the one and aren't labeled appropriately.

Yeah and I'm sure that charging-only cable can only handle 5v at maybe 3A? But, the "genius" of USB-C is that it can handle a up to 48V or 240W. So incredibly stupid.

[skeevy420]

Yeah and I'm sure that charging-only cable can only handle 5v at maybe 3A? But, the "genius" of USB-C is that it can handle a up to 48V or 240W. So incredibly stupid.

If we're lucky. It's one of the thinnest cables I have and I'm probably going to trash it since there's no point in it.

It's only stupid if you're the consumer. It's genius if you're the maker. You can ship a good enough cable with your product and sell the premium version separately. Having so much variance in the standard means we still have to use the cable the came in the box and that other cables may or may not be good enough regarding data and power transfer. The evil genius of it is people might think their expensive stuff is messed up because some janky, underspec cable isn't labeled well enough. "A cable is a cable is a cable, they're all the same thing" people fall for universal cables a lot. I don't really like either HDMI or DisplayPort for that same reason. I've had to use a magnifying glass to show why one HDMI cable worked and the other didn't. Cables shouldn't be that difficult.

We've circled back to the days of things having the same sized DC barrel plugs with different ratings. The more things change the more they stay the same.

[DumbFsck]

Mechanical design of connectors is solvable engineering problem.

While you ate correct, the "unsolvable" part of the problem is which tradeoffs are you willing to make.

Maybe if you want it to survive millions of insertions you have tradeoffs in size, weight, complexity.

If you want something smaller it may have to be robust. If you want something that can't fall off it might need more depth. Something simple to manufacture might not be robust nor small. Or whatever right, I'm just spit balling.

Gist of it is an old saying that "anyone can design a bridge that doesn't fall, an engineer's job is to design a bridge that " barely" doesn't fall when faced with critical loads. Or something like that.