The Video Electronics Standards Association yesterday formally announced its new DisplayPort 1.4 standard, setting the stage for improved video quality and color for external display connections over both DisplayPort and USB-C connectors.
Rather than an increase in actual bandwidth, the improvements in DisplayPort 1.4 come due to improved compression, taking advantage of VESA's new Display Stream Compression 1.2 standard to support High Dynamic Range (HDR) video up to either 8K resolution at 60 Hz or 4K resolution at 120 Hz.
DSC version 1.2 transport enables up to 3:1 compression ratio and has been deemed, through VESA membership testing, to be visually lossless. Together with other new capabilities, this makes the latest version of DP ideally suited for implementation in high-end electronic products demanding premier sound and image quality.
In addition to video-related improvements, DisplayPort 1.4 also expands audio capabilities with support for 32 channels, 1536kHz sample rates, and broader support for "all known" audio formats.
The approval of DisplayPort 1.4 comes even though consumers are still awaiting the arrival of devices supporting the previous DisplayPort 1.3 standard. Intel had been expected to support DisplayPort 1.3 in its current Skylake generation of chips, but the company instead opted to offer dual DisplayPort 1.2 support. As we detailed earlier this year, the lack of DisplayPort 1.3 support in Skylake could lead Apple to hold off on releasing a new 5K Thunderbolt Display until next year when chips supporting the standard become available.
Intel hasn't laid out its DisplayPort support plans beyond Skylake, so it's unknown whether the company will first move to DisplayPort 1.3 or if it can jump straight to the new DisplayPort 1.4 standard. Either way, we're unlikely to see Macs supporting DisplayPort 1.4 until 2017 at the earliest.
Friday October 31, 2025 1:40 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a small but helpful change for iPhones, and it could prevent you from running late to something important.
Specifically, when an alarm goes off in the Clock app, there is a new "slide to stop" control on the screen for turning off the alarm. On previous iOS 26 versions, there is simply a large "stop" button, which could be accidentally tapped.
The new ...
Friday October 31, 2025 7:32 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has just given a strong indication that it will not be releasing any additional new Macs for the remainder of the year.
Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh dropped the hint during the company's earnings call on Thursday:On Mac, keep in mind, we expect to face a very difficult compare against the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac launches in the year-ago quarter.Parekh essentially gave a heads up ...
Thursday October 30, 2025 4:42 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below.
Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro models could be available in new rich and warm color option, according to a known leaker.
The Weibo user known as "Instant Digital" today suggested that next-year's iPhone 18 Pro models will be available in at least one of the following color options: Coffee, purple, and burgundy.
The iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 14, and iPhone 14 Pro were all available in ...
Friday October 31, 2025 8:52 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is expected to launch a new foldable iPhone next year, based on multiple rumors and credible sources. The long-awaited device has been rumored for years now, but signs increasingly suggest that 2026 could indeed be the year that Apple releases its first foldable device.
Below, we've collated an updated set of key details that have been leaked about Apple's foldable iPhone so far.
Ove...
Apple launched the Apple TV HD, the Siri Remote, tvOS, and their accompanying App Store a decade ago today, marking a major overhaul of the device.
The new vision for the Apple TV was unveiled on September 9, 2015 during Apple's "Hey Siri" event in San Francisco, where CEO Tim Cook introduced the device with the statement, "The future of TV is apps." The announcement represented a major...
Thursday October 30, 2025 12:42 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Tomorrow is Halloween, and then November is upon us. Below, we outline what to expect from Apple next month, as the slower holiday season approaches.
Apple is expected to kick off November by releasing iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, tvOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1. With beta testing now wrapped up, the updates will likely be released this Monday, November 3 or Tuesday,...
Thursday October 30, 2025 1:50 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple CEO Tim Cook today said that a more personalized version of Siri remains on track to launch at some point next year, with the new set of features expected to debut on the iPhone as part of iOS 26.4 in March or April.
"We're also excited for a more personalized Siri," said Cook, on Apple's earnings call for the third quarter of the 2025 calendar year. "We're making good progress on it,...
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Compression is never lossless. It may be imperceptible to the ear or eye, but it is still compressed at some level.
Excuse me, but this is complete nonsense. Indeed there is true lossless compression (though I cannot say for sure that "lossless" in this article truly means lossless). Just think about zip compression, you compress a text file by zipping it and get the exact same file with all data back when unzipping it. That's exactly what happens also with audio or video, when talking about lossless compression, though algorithms may differ.
Jesus. Never in my life would I have believed this is how people actually think. Dude, I don't want to mock you but you are so wrong, so UTTERLY ignorant about this subject, it's not funny.
Let me simply point out that LOSSLESS compression is a well-defined mathematical field, it is built upon probability theory, like all CS it consists of theorems and algorithms, and it applies to all random processes (think "data streams") regardless of whether they are text, video, sensor data, or anything else. It has NOTHING to do with "rephrasing" and use of "shorter words". Your comment is the sort of thing I'd expect EE's to send each other on April Fools' day as a joke.
Compression is never lossless. It may be imperceptible to the ear or eye, but it is still compressed at some level.
And compressing a file in the form of a ZIP 'archive' is also never lossless. If you zip a text file, the text will be shortened by slight rephrasing and the use of shorter words. This may be imperceptible to the reader but it is still compressed at some level.
Compression is never lossless. It may be imperceptible to the ear or eye, but it is still compressed at some level.
No - there are plenty of lossless compression algorithms. E.g. LZW compression used by GIF, some types of TIFF and ".zip" files (using lossy compression on executables and data files is not a good idea), Apple Lossless ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless') audio, FLAC ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC') audio, .png files...
Lossless compression works by finding a more efficient way to pack the data. E.g. replacing frequently occurring patterns with short codes or 'run length encoding' (e.g. if there is a row of 1000 white pixels just send 'white' and '1000'). Morse code is another example (frequently occurring letters are given the shortest code rather than ASCII which uses 8 bits for every single character - Huffman encoding is the algorithmic equivalent).
With lossless compression, you get back exactly what you put in. You don't get the sort of 100x compression you see with lossy compression, but 2-3x is feasible.
However, "visually lossless" is either a redundancy (if its lossless, of course there's no visual difference) or weasel words.
Intel hasn't laid out its DisplayPort support plans beyond Skylake, so it's unknown whether the company will first move to DisplayPort 1.3 or if it can jump straight to the new DisplayPort 1.4 standard. Either way, we're unlikely to see Macs supporting DisplayPort 1.4 until 2017 at the earliest.
Knowing Intel, we might see 1.4 sometime around 2025. :rolleyes:
And compressing a file in the form of a ZIP 'archive' is also never lossless. If you zip a text file, the text will be shortened by slight rephrasing and the use of shorter words. This may be imperceptible to the reader but it is still compressed at some level.
Jesus. Never in my life would I have believed this is how people actually think. Dude, I don't want to mock you but you are so wrong, so UTTERLY ignorant about this subject, it's not funny.
Let me simply point out that LOSSLESS compression is a well-defined mathematical field, it is built upon probability theory, like all CS it consists of theorems and algorithms, and it applies to all random processes (think "data streams") regardless of whether they are text, video, sensor data, or anything else. It has NOTHING to do with "rephrasing" and use of "shorter words". Your comment is the sort of thing I'd expect EE's to send each other on April Fools' day as a joke.
