VESA finalizes requirements for Display Stream Compression Standard

USA: The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has announced the completion of requirements for the Display Stream Compression Standard, which is anticipated to be published in late 2013. The association first initiated efforts for a common industry-wide standard in September 2012 and since formed alliances with other standards bodies for contributions.

VESA’s objective for the Display Stream Compression Standard is to enable increased display resolutions over existing interfaces, while further optimizing power and hardware for portable systems. To ensure a broad scope of the more encompassing DSC standard, VESA established a liaison with Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), through its parent committee under the joint organization of the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29, and with the MIPI Alliance. The shared goal is to have a common standard that can be used by the various organizations for interface standards.

VESA’s Display Stream Compression task group completed the definition of requirements in late 2012 and announced a call for proposals in January 2013. The standard is expected to be published for use by the end of 2013. In contrast with other image or video compression standards, the proposed Display Stream Compression Standard targets a relatively low compression ratio and emphasizes visually-lossless performance, high data throughput, low latency, low complexity, and includes special considerations geared for future display architectures.

“Display manufacturers gain from display stream compression in many ways,” said Dale Stolitzka, VESA Display Compression Standard Task Group chairman and member of Samsung Display’s San Jose R&D Lab . “Display technology continues to improve resolution and color depth in small and large panel sizes. However, we are approaching the limit of how much data we can transfer over the existing display interfaces without increasing power, complexity and number of wires, which is the wrong direction for a mobile device that runs on battery power. The Display Stream Compression Standard will allow us to continue to enhance display resolution without compromising display quality and at the same time make devices smaller and lighter, with longer battery life.”

In current practice, virtually all digital display interfaces send uncompressed pixel data from the system graphics or video source to the display. As display resolutions continue to increase, the data rate across the video electrical interface has also increased. Higher display refresh rates and color depths push rates up even further. For example, a 4K display at 60 frames per second with a 30 bit color depth requires a data rate of about 17.3 gigabits per second, which is the current limit of the DisplayPort specification. Higher interface data rates demand more power, can increase the interface wire count, and require more shielding to prevent interference with the device’s wireless services. These attributes increase system hardware complexity and weight and are undesirable for today’s sleek product designs.