DVI Connector Guide

What is DVI?

Digital Visual Interface. DVI is a connection standard that defines the digital interface between digital devices. For devices that support DVI, a digital to digital connection can be made that eliminates the conversion to analog and thereby delivers an uncompressed digital signal to the display. The latter version uses HDCP copy protection to prevent unauthorized copying.

In addition to being used as the standard computer interface, the DVI standard was, for a short while, the digital transfer method of choice for HDTV, EDTV, Plasma Display, and other ultra-high-end video displays for TV, movies, and DVDs. Likewise, even a few top-end DVD players have featured DVI outputs in addition to the high-quality analog Component Video. The digital market is now swinging towards the HDMI interface for high-definition media delivery, and DVI is being again constrained to the computer market.

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DVI-I Single-link Connector

DVI-I Cables are integrated cables which are capable of transmitting either a digital-to-digital signal or an analog-to-analog signal. This makes it a more versatile cable, being usable in either digital or analog situations.  This DVI-I Single-link connector is similar to the dual-link DVI-I, but it carries only a single TMDS link.

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DVI-I Dual-link Connector

DVI-I Cables are integrated cables which are capable of transmitting either a digital-to-digital signal or an analog-to-analog signal. This makes it a more versatile cable, being usable in either digital or analog situations. This DVI-I Dual LInk Connector appears almost identical to the dual-link DVI-D connector except that it has an additional four pins that surround the flat offset ground bar. This is because the DVI-I interface was designed to carry both digital and analog signals. However, most DVI displays and video sources are DVI-D, and the female ports do not contain sockets to accept the four extra analog pins. As a result, DVI-I cables are limited to a narrow range of applications such as certain KVM switches. Also note that the offset ground bar on a DVI-I plug is larger than the one on a DVI-D plug. This means that a DVI-I connector cannot fit into a DVI-D socket simply by removing the four analog pins.

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DVI-D Single-link Connector

DVI-D Cables are are used for direct digital connections between source video (namely, video cards) and digital LCD (or rare CRT) monitors. This provides a faster, higher-quality image than with analog, due to the nature of the digital format. All video cards initially produce a digital video signal, which is converted into analog at the VGA output. The analog signal travels to the monitor and is re-converted back into a digital signal. DVI-D eliminates the analog conversion process and improves the connection between source and display.  This DVI-D single-link connector has 18 pins. The male plug has them arranged in two groups of nine pins, with the flat ground bar off to one side. A single-link interface provides one TMDS link.

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DVI-D Dual-link Connector

are used for direct digital connections between source video (namely, video cards) and digital LCD (or rare CRT) monitors. This provides a faster, higher-quality image than with analog, due to the nature of the digital format. All video cards initially produce a digital video signal, which is converted into analog at the VGA output. The analog signal travels to the monitor and is re-converted back into a digital signal. DVI-D eliminates the analog conversion process and improves the connection between source and display.  This DVI-D Dual link connector contains 24 pins, arranged in three horizontal rows of eight pins. To the side of this grouping of 24 pins is a wide, flat pin called a ground bar. A dual-link interface provides two TMDS links, or groups of data ��channels�� that can carry more than 10 Gbps of digital video information. A dual-link cable is backwards-compatible with single-link applications. The majority of DVI applications will use this DVI-D dual-link cable connection.

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DVI-A Connector

DVI-A Cables are used to carry a DVI signal to an analog display, such as a CRT monitor or an HDTV. Although some signal quality is lost from the digital to analog conversion, it still transmits a higher quality picture than standard VGA. This DVI-A is not an ��official�� standard according to the DDWG. Nevertheless, it is a connector type that allows a VGA device to connect to a DVI-I interface. For instance, the DVI output on a computer��s video card may be DVI-I and thus capable of supporting both digital and analog signals. In order to connect a VGA monitor, a cable or adapter with a DVI-A plug can be used to make the connection. A DVI-A connection has only the pins that carry analog signals loaded into the body of the connector.

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