One of the capabilities that USB-C has are the so-called Alt Mode that, among other things, allow video to be transmitted. However, one of these modes has not been used and therefore they have announced the end of their life. We are talking about HDMI Alt Mode , which consists of combining USB-C and HDMI. What has caused its conclusion as a standard?
Many of the laptops that have appeared in recent years have a somewhat special USB Type-C port. We are referring to the USB-C Alt DP ports, which use the bandwidth of these peripheral ports not only to transmit data, but also to power an external monitor and send the video signal to it through the DisplayPort protocol. . Well, for monitors and televisions with HDMI output there was a cable called HDMI Alt Mode. Which no longer has a future and we do not say it, but those who have created said standard.
The death of HDMI Alt Mode
If there is a connection that we are not going to get tired of seeing in the coming years, it is that of USB type C, since it not only has the utility of being able to transmit data, but it can also be used to charge devices with power no longer of two figures, but even three figures. At the same time, this has allowed the existence of USB Alt-DP cables to be able to transmit video. The fact is that a USB-C port is more useful than one that is micro-HDMI or mini-HDMI.
Well, because the use of the USB-C connection has been adopted as a standard in mobile phones, the consortium in charge of standardizing HDMI in 2016 proposed a type of cable that consists of one end being type C, but On the other hand, the other end is a conventional HDMI output in order to be able to broadcast video.
Why have I happened?
Well, this had been stuck in the use of HDMI 2.0, which is normal if we take into account that USB4 can grant 40 Gbps at most, and in many interfaces it remains at 32 Gbps. So it is impossible to use it for version 2.1 of the video broadcast standard that reaches up to 48 Gbps. However, with the change in standards, now any HDMI 2.0 cable onwards is considered as such, making extra technologies optional.
This in turn opened the door to HDMI Alt DP for a viable upgrade, however they have already announced that they are not going to upgrade it and therefore it stays as it is. So it will not have updates and the problem is that it is a type of cable that very few people have come to use. The reason for this is simple, it is a type of cable that was not designed to power the monitor, instead, the USB-C Alt-DP itself. The fact that portable screens require an external power supply has been one of the reasons that have led to their widespread disuse.
It was a cable that nobody used
However, there are a number of key points that explain the end of HDMI Alt DP and for this we have to situate ourselves with respect to the hardware. It turns out that most display controllers for game consoles and PC graphics cards are DisplayPort. How is that possible if my PS5 or Xbox Series have HDMI output? Well, due to the fact that there is a small chip in charge of converting the DisplayPort signal to HDMI.
The reality is that it is much simpler to convert a DisplayPort signal to HDMI, in addition, that the display driver is common for all hardware of a brand and a generation. It doesn’t make sense to design one for every video signal standard. Let’s not forget that HDMI Alt DP requires the device to support serial mode in order to work and there are few that do. What’s more, the vast majority of devices require a Dock for precisely this reason. When it would be cheaper for the manufacturer to use an HDMI Alt cable and include it as standard with the device.