Last month, more than 115,000 people converged on Las Vegas to see and hear the latest developments in consumer electronics, in the annual pilgrimage known as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). More than 3000 exhibitors showcased the next era of innovation from transportation and mobility to digital health, sustainability, the metaverse and beyond. After a two-year pause due to the global COVID pandemic, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) was back at CES, where we showed off product demonstrations highlighting the unprecedented levels of performance for gaming, media playback and content creation enabled by VESA’s industry-leading video display standards.
Last year was a busy one for VESA, as we announced multiple new front-of-screen display performance logo programs and standards addressing different aspects of visual quality developed in cooperation with our more than 340 member companies. During this time, VESA also introduced the latest version of its DisplayPort standard, DisplayPort 2.1, which provides greater alignment with the USB Type-C connector and USB4, as well as adds new features that enable more efficient DisplayPort tunneling over USB4. In addition, VESA achieved several major DisplayPort milestones, including certification of the first video source and display devices supporting DisplayPort UHBR (Ultra-high Bit Rate) – the higher data link rates supported by the DisplayPort 2.1. These major developments, and more, were all on display at CES at the VESA demo suite at the Palazzo Hotel and Resort.
World’s First DisplayPort 2.1 Gaming Demo
World’s first DisplayPort 2.1 gaming demo featuring AMD Radeon™ RX 7900 XTX graphics card and Samsung 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 8K2K 240Hz monitor operating at UHBR13.5 link rate. Source: VESA.
Among these was the world’s first DisplayPort 2.1 gaming demo, featuring the AMD Radeon™ RX 7900 XTX graphics card with the new AMD Radiance Display™ Engine that supports DisplayPort 2.1, and Samsung’s new 57-inch Odyssey Neo G9 8K2K 240Hz monitor operating at the DisplayPort UHBR13.5 link rate. The UHBR13.5 link rate supports video data transmission up to 13.5 Gbps per lane, providing a maximum throughput of 54 Gbps across all four lanes. The increased bandwidth enabled by UHBR link rates defined by the DisplayPort 2.1 spec was clearly on display here, with the AMD and Samsung paired product demo showing an ultra-smooth, low-latency and high-refresh gaming experience.
Multi-stream Monitor Demo Powered by World’s First UHBR20 Source and Video Hub
Demonstration of the high resolution and refresh rate performance across multiple monitors enabled by DisplayPort 2.1 with UHBR20, powered by Intel’s latest 13th Generation Raptor Lake mobile processor and Synaptics VMM9430 MST hub. Source: VESA.
Also on display was the world’s first demonstration of video source and sink devices supporting the DisplayPort UHBR20 link rate (20 Gbps per lane), which drives a maximum throughput of a whopping 80 Gbps across four lanes! This demonstration was powered by Intel’s 13th Generation Raptor Lake mobile processor, newly launched at CES. The Intel processor was inside a Dell 5000 Latitude chassis in an experimental configuration, which was then connected via a VESA certified DP80 cable to a Synaptics VMM9430 multi-stream transport (MST) hub. The Synaptics hub was connected to three 4K 144Hz displays using a combination of full-sized DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort and USB Type-C (carrying DisplayPort Alt Mode) cables, demonstrating the ability of DisplayPort 2.1 with UHBR link rates to support not only the highest resolutions and refresh rates but also multiple monitors for gaming and business applications. Amazingly, the Synaptics hub can support up to four 4K 144Hz or two 8K/10K 60Hz displays when coupled with a DisplayPort 2.1 graphics source using VESA’s visually lossless Display Stream Compression (DSC) standard.
Razor-sharp Stutter-free Performance Highlights New VESA Standards
Additional product demonstrations at the VESA demo suite highlighted two new VESA standards: ClearMR, which provides consumers with a true quality metric for grading motion blur performance; and Adaptive-Sync Display, which allows consumers to easily compare variable refresh rate performance of displays supporting the VESA Adaptive-Sync protocol. First up was the LG UltraGear™ OLED 240Hz curved gaming monitor (45GR95QE), which is the first model to be certified to the highest ClearMR tier, ClearMR 13000. Also on display was the MSI Raider GE67 HX OLED 240Hz QHD gaming laptop, which has been certified to the ClearMR 9000 tier – the highest certification tier achieved by any laptop to date. Each ClearMR tier represent a range of blur performance based on the ratio of clear pixels versus blurry pixels as a percentage, so ClearMR 9000 is defined as a CMR range of 85-95 times (8500 to 9500 percent) more clear pixels than blurry pixels, while ClearMR 13000 is defined as 125-135 times (12500 to 13500 percent) more clear pixels than blurry pixels. That’s a lot of clear pixels!
LG UltraGear™ OLED 240Hz curved gaming monitor and MSI Raider GE67 HX OLED 240Hz QHD gaming laptop showing off smooth, jitter-free performance as measured by VESA’s ClearMR and Adaptive-Sync Display standards. Source: VESA.
Both displays have also been certified to the AdaptiveSync Display 240 performance tier. The performance tier value indicates the maximum video frame rate that is achievable for Adaptive-Sync operation tested at the display’s factory default settings at native resolution. In these two cases, that’s 240 Hz. In designing the Adaptive-Sync Display test specification and logo program, VESA explicitly set a high bar on performance criteria and testing methodology with more than 50 automated display performance tests covering several key variables, including refresh rate, flicker, gray-to-gray response time, video frame drop, and video frame rate jitter, and with tighter criteria than many existing specs and logo programs.
Setting the Bar for HDR
Finally, VESA showcased several monitors highlighting the high contrast ratio, color accuracy and vibrancy enabled by high dynamic range (HDR) and incorporating VESA’s DisplayHDR and DisplayHDR True Black standards. DisplayHDR and DisplayHDR True Black are the display industry’s first fully open standards specifying HDR quality for LCD and emissive displays, respectively. The CES demos included a side-by-side comparison of a standard dynamic range (SDR) display with two displays, one certified to the DisplayHDR 600 tier, and another to the DisplayHDR 1400 tier. In addition, the MSI Raider GE67 HX OLED 240Hz QHD gaming laptop, which received both ClearMR and AdaptiveSync Display certification, has also been certified to the highest DisplayHDR True Black 600 tier.
Side-by-side demonstration of DisplayHDR certified displays vs a non-certified SDR display. Source: VESA.
While the tier number represents a luminance or brightness value for the display, the DisplayHDR and DisplayHDR True Black standards define a rigorous set of performance criteria that go far beyond just maximum luminance levels – including full-screen flash luminance, long-duration luminance, local dimming, color gamut, bit depth and others. With more than 1000 devices certified to date, the DisplayHDR and DisplayHDR True Black standards represent two of the most wildly successful standards and logos programs within VESA.
It’s a Wrap
Interest in VESA’s activities was quite high among the media and analysts attending CES. VESA standards developments as well as new member products incorporating the latest VESA standards were covered in a variety of publications, including Ars Technica, CNET, Digital Trends, IGN, Insight Media, PC Gamer, PC World and many more. All in all, CES 2023 was a huge success for VESA. While this year’s CES is now in our rear view mirror, VESA is already in discussion within our working groups on planning for next year’s show. We look forward to working with our more than 340 member companies to prepare even more exciting product demonstrations showing off the ground-breaking display capabilities and performance enabled by our video display standards.