The HDMI interface for high resolution picture and sound has now, after managing to spread on the home electronics market, also started to get a foothold on the PC market as several graphics card manufacturers are releasing HDMI models of their cards. Despite this far from everyone are pleased with HDMI and as we’ve earlier reported Intel has started to propagate for a new interface called UDI (Unified Display Interface). This interface is identical to HDMI except that it can’t handle sound signals. But this is a minor limitations for most graphics card manufacturers considering UDI is completely free of charge.
HDMI in turn costs a whole lot to use and graphics card manufacturers have to pay fees to include HDCP support with its HDMI-capable graphics cards. Even if the licensing fee for HDMI will be lowered from 15 000 USD per year to 10 000 USD per year after november 2006 many manufacturers are still whining over the high costs the new interface brings. This has opened the door for the UDI interface, which on paper that looks to be a cheaper and better optimized version of HDMI. What we lack is presence on the market and it is going to be interesting to see if we will get yet another video signal interface on the market.
