Ten Myths of Apple’s iPad: 6. It needs HDMI for HD video output

February 8th, 2010

Daniel Eran Dilger

Here’s segment six in my series taking on iPad myths: no the iPad doesn’t need an HDMI 720p HDTV output.

The VGA connector option for the iPad will deliver a 1024×768 (“XGA”) resolution output. That is comparable to High Definition TV video, although as a PC-oriented standard, the VGA output uses a square “4:3” aspect ratio rather than having a widescreen “16:9” display ratio; HDTV standards were geared toward watching widescreen films, while the iPad, more like a desktop computer, is designed to present a workspace closer to the aspect ratio of a piece of paper.

This has left some pundits to suggest that Apple should have given the iPad either “more modern” HDTV output (usually delivered via an HDMI cable with a resolution of at least 1280×720, which also known as “720p”) or one of the high resolution display modes common to today’s computers, which typically require a new digital interface such as DVI (HDMI’s PC cousin) or DisplayPort (what Apple currently uses on its computers).

Apple and the Mini DisplayPort

Why is the iPad using VGA?

So why doesn’t the iPad also support DVI/HDMI and DisplayPort? Well for starters, VGA-style analog video is cheap and easy to do. That’s why netbooks and even most PC laptops still use VGA rather than a digital video output interface.

Adding complexity adds cost, and it would also require adding another port that could pack lots of signal pins into a small space. There’s 30 pins in the standard Dock Connector, which isn’t enough to pack in VGA and DisplayPort and certainly not DVI.

Apple has long used DVI, and now uses DisplayPort, on its Macs because analog VGA-style signaling is limited in the resolutions it can support. The iPad has a 1024×768 native resolution. Unlike MacBooks, it isn’t designed to drive another external display; the VGA output is just there to show presentations on video projectors. Most projectors built over the last decade support XGA but many do not yet support HDTV resolutions.

Why no HD output?

Additionally, the iPad is a mobile device. Sure, it can output VGA to a monitor or projector or composite/component video to a TV, but it’s designed to be viewed directly. It is a screen.

Asking why it doesn’t have a variety of HD video outputs is like asking why a Walkman or iPod or common boom-box doesn’t have fancy 5.1 optical digital outputs for driving a home theater system. And consider: does your TV have a TV output?

Adding DVI/HDMI or DisplayPort circuitry to the iPad would complicate it and make it more expensive, but who would actually drive their HDTV with a tablet sized device? That’s what Apple TV is designed to do (and why it supplies HDMI rather than DVI or DisplayPort or just composite/component video alone). Since both products sync to your desktop iTunes, there’s no need to have an array of cords options to attach to your mobile iPad device to your TV.

Features that make sense, not just bullet points.

A better home theater use for the iPad would be as a sophisticated control surface for watching TV. Imagine watching videos on Apple TV while piloting through iTunes Extras special features from your iPad. Or interactive learning games on the iPad that interact with a system driving a large classroom monitor. That would be far cooler than expecting your tablet to play movies to your HDTV via a cable.

Come on, that’s a Microsoft idea. Look how popular that made the Zune HD, which claims the ability to watch 720p content via a special cable. It’s a fringe feature added by people without much understanding of what people really want to do. All it really does is force users to load up their mobile device with very large HD versions of their video content which the device has to scale down to display on its own low resolution screen.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD

The wrong technology, or exactly the right one?

At least one other critic complained that the iPad uses the “old computer resolution” of 1024×768 rather than the “new HD resolution” he’s been hearing about at 1280×720. Well yes, VGA has been around longer than HDTV, and certainly has been in wider use. That explains why more business projectors can handle VGA than can handle 720p video, which explains why the iPad does what it does.

It’s not a matter of Apple not realizing what new resolutions are available (as Apple TV’s HDTV output indicates), but rather a matter of the company selecting the most appropriate technologies to meet the needs of users while keeping costs in check. Certainly, if Apple were designing the iPad to drive an HDTV, it would have given it an HDMI port and a 720p native resolution, just as it did with Apple TV. But iPad clearly isn’t designed to act as a video source; it’s a display!

So much for that smug attempt at suggesting Apple’s engineers are behind the curve at knowing what technology to use. Clearly, it’s much easier to sound smart than it is to actually make sensible engineering decisions that can’t be assailed by people who don’t really know what they’re talking about. Which is the basis of my entire iPad myth series.

aburgh

You should clarify the comment “the lower quality composite or slightly higher quality component video outputs”. The component video standard allows up to 1080i (1080p proposed):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video

but iPods and iPhones only support up to 480p/576p (to your point), which is standard TV, but without the interlacing:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1454

VGA is actually a type of component video. The component video on TVs should have comparable video quality at similar resolutions.
http://berendschotanus.com Berend Schotanus

Well, it was a surprise that Apple, after switching its whole line of iMacs to 16:9 and bringing displayport all over, suddenly ‘returns’ to good old 4:3 VGA.
Your explanation is perfect, it makes a lot of sense. It is pretty cool to reveal the design philosophy that looks at intended use in the first place.

And still it is pretty shocking to see Apple is ‘shamelessly’ using old-fashioned technology in its newest device. Any other company would have used HDMI, displayport, 16:9, whatever just for status reasons. They would be dead scared to be labeled as old-fashioned and be bearing the extra costs and complexity just for that reason. Decisions like this mark Apple as a trendsetter for some, as irritatingly arrogant for others.
martinald

Most of this just isn’t true.

To start with, VGA doesn’t have to be 4:3. You can send 16:9 and 16:10 modes down it just fine – all that way to at least 1900×1200, and it can go higher than that with a lower refresh rate.

Secondly, component supports 1080p just fine too, maybe not with the digital clarity of HDMI but it will certainly work.

Many netbooks now opt for HDMI over VGA now. The circuitry is not dramatically more complex, and Apple could of very easily outputted a DVI-I signal which carries both VGA (for old projectors) and DVI (for DVI/HDMI, since both DVI and HDMI use the same output format, HDMI just adds encryption and audio out on top of that). Apple could then do what it does with most macbooks and offer separate adaptors for the iPad to give the appropriate port.

It is somewhat short sighted IMO to suggest that it’s ‘just for projectors’ — if the API is good for developers then we could see some very interesting applications come out for the iPad using external display, and to not have HDMI is frankly embarrassing considering the complexity that it involves.
http://www.van-garde.com adobephile

It seems obvious to me that Apple is interested in the market sector which uses projectors. The iPad, with its new suite of iWork apps would seem to be a perfect fit for such.

If they modified the Remote app to find an iPad volume the same way it now finds computers and Apple TVs, presenters could use their iPhones to remotely control their iPad presentation from anywhere in the room via WiFi. Very elegant.

With such a ubiquitous connection standard to projectors, there would be no need to re-invest in still-expensive projectors. And the iPad will further bolster the “halo effect” the iPod and iPhone have already had with Apple computers and the whole Apple ecosystem.
gus2000

Yup, my ~~IBM~~ Lenovo T60 has only lowly VGA output. All the video projectors mounted in my office conference rooms have one cable routed from the ceiling…VGA! Whooda thunk it? If Apple had put DVI or Lightpeak or HDMI the haters would cry about needing an adapter for VGA!

Power is another reason to limit the resolution. If I add 20% more pixels to get true HD, I need 20% more VRAM, and now video operations take 20% longer (or use 20% more battery). Increasing the screen size means increasing every other spec to keep up, including price.

Sometimes, I think that most tech products out there are designed by the Dilbert Marketing Department.
ChuckO

martinald, Mission accomplished. I’m now slowly and painfully banging my head against a wall as your comment was the final one from a smart guy that knows more than Apple about what the iPad should be. We got it. The iPad should be a netbook. Apple should be Microsoft. Why try something new. Everything should be cheaper and less useful but in every other respect just like everything that came before it. I now totally agree although only because I’ll be dead soon from banging my head against the wall in order to stop the pain from reading comments like yours. To everyone who outlives me please start begging Apple to stop trying. It’s all for naught.
stormj

Geeks want tech spec porn. It has to have the most memory, the fastest processor, the biggest HD, and the most ports or else it’s shit.
Apple’s stuff is, for the most part, very good at being on the cutting edge—just not when it’s useless, and that’s what makes Apple Apple.

Engineering is just as much about what you leave out as what you put in.
http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman

@4 adobephile,
Exactly, I would guess most businesses have 1024×768 projectors.

@7 stormj,
Exactly. Nerds only want numbers that don’t mean anything in real life. Those people don’t realize that usability is an important feature.
http://blog.cytv.com cy_starkman

There is also nothing stopping a 3rd party making an adaptor to HDMI or whatever floats your boat.

The pundits have not considered 3rd party apps or accessories when crowing negatively. Curious considering what already exists in those spheres
ShabbaRanks

Hmmm. I like tech porn, but I also like porn porn.
So, which is better. There’s only one way to find out…….

I’ll now wait for someone British to finish this off.
gctwnl

@ShabbaRanks: Only tech porn. No Flash, remember?
ulicar

One real fact in this whole story is that you have no idea of what are you talking about, or you are saying lies. Paper aspect is 2:3, which is kind of A LOT DIFFERENT to 4:3

4:3 aspect ratio is actually called “academy ratio”, which was used in cinemas until let’s say 1950’s when somebody smart came by and invented wide screen ratio. It has nothing to do with the size of paper. Actually, designers use wide screens tilted 90 degrees, to get closer to the paper ratio.

Dude, you were paid by apple to disseminate their advertisements, I get hat and sort of understand, but this what you are saying in “apple myths” is plain and simply not true. Do you know it is not true, or not? That will make difference between you being a liar, and you being stupid and misinformed.
gctwnl

Actually, 4:3 (1.33) is a nice compromise between US Letter paper size (which has 3.88:3 or 1.29) and the A4 that the rest of the world is using, which has 4.24:3 aspect ratio (actually 1.41 or sqrt(2)).
benlewis

I have been doing presentations in conference rooms in Silicon Valley for more than ten years. In all that time, I can count on one hand how many of the in-room projectors had DVI set up as default (they may have had a DVI port, but the cable sitting on the table has always been VGA). I can’t say why this is, but for whatever reason, this is how things are. If Apple is indeed targeting presentations on projectors (which is exactly what they are stating), then they are providing the right technology for that use case.
http://chrissyone.wordpress.com/ ChrissyOne

You 16:9 freaks aren’t thinking this through.

Apple widescreen monitors are great, but they aren’t designed to be rotated vertically. Think about it-

You’re using the iPad horizontally and you bring up the touch keyboard. On a widescreen, the keyboard would take up much more of the space vertically, leading to a smaller text display area.
Or you might be using it vertically, and now the keyboard is narrow and cramped at the long end.

For watching movies, yes, you’ll have letterboxing. But for EVERYTHING ELSE it makes more sense to have a more square monitor.
miloh

Various aspect ratios (in decreasing order):

16:9 = 1.777778
A4 = 1.414214
academy ratio = 1.375000
4:3 = 1.333333
11:8.5 = 1.294118
Gatesbasher2

Well, my old password wouldn’t work, WordPress wouldn’t send me a new one, and it says my username and email are in use. So here’s a new ID.

@ulicar: Isn’t it interesting how the Micro$haft shills accuse anybody who doesn’t bash Apple as enthusiastically as they do of being in their pay? It’s called projection, son—look it up.

You are the one who has no idea what you’re talking about. Pre widescreen movies were 1.5 : 1, not 4 : 3. 4 : 3 was invented by RCA for their television sets, first demonstrated at the New York World’s fair in 1939, unfortunately remaining the standard for 70 years. Later on, in the 1950s, in order to compete with TV, the movie studios invented various widescreen formats, most stillborn, but a large majority of movies in the last 60 years have been either 1.85 : 1 or the super-wide Cinemascope ratio of 2.35 : 1.

16 : 9 is a lame attempt to equal the standard 1.85 : 1 movie screen. It is to 4 : 3 as 4 : 3 is to a square. If all the iPad was going to do is reproduce video, a 16 : 9 screen would have made sense, but it needs to do other things as well.

I hadn’t realized that most projectors it would be used with were still 1024 x 768. That explains the 4 : 3 ratio better than any other explanation I could think of. This usage of the iPad also neatly explains its lack of a camera. Remember all the people hyperventilating about the iPhone because it HAD a camera? “It’ll be confiscated at the security desk at a lot of places! They should offer one without a camera!” (As if they would believe it yours was one of the ones without a camera short of taking it apart!) Getting your phone confiscated would be an annoyance, but the device you were going to make your presentation with? Oops!

My only quibble with the resolution of the iPad has to do with input rather than output. If it had been 1280 x 960, you could watch 720p video in native resolution, and standard-def video just line-doubled. As it is, everything you watch will be heavily interpolated, and most of the original information thrown away.

Here’s an interesting piece of numerology: If you take the dot pitch of the iPhone and figure the size of a 1280 x 960 screen, you get exactly 9.7″! What do you want to bet that that was the original plan, but Apple couldn’t get that screen at the price point they wanted?

If the iPad can’t be used to read all the e-books I’ve downloaded from Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, Google Books, manybooks.net, etc. etc., in HTML, PDF, and DjVu, then I really don’t want to buy it, but I don’t regard a company releasing a product that I don’t want to buy as a deep personal insult. I can’t figure out what’s wrong with some people.
gus2000

One real fact that you are all missing is that trolls should never be fed.
ulicar

@gatesbasher2 what the f**k are you talking about? Silent films were shot at a 1.33 aspect ratio. Get the calculator out, type in 4 divide by 3 and there you have it. Was that so difficult? Stupid dumbfark.
Imapolicecar

@ulicar
You are getting really out of order. Perhaps be more civil rather than aggressive and rude and your points of view would be received much better. Calling people names and swearing is not appropriate on any forum.
ulicar

You are absolutely right and I do apologize for all I have said. I am sorry and I will try not to do it again. Sorry. I know it is not an excuse, but when people start saying something that is completely false as a defense for something that was completely false in the first place, I get quite angry and stupid.

Again, sorry.
Gatesbasher2

Without feeding the troll, 4 : 3 was a compromise that RCA reached for their TV receivers. Remember, they were masking off a rectangular portion of a round screen. The most efficient ratio of course would be 1 : 1—square. They didn’t want to do this, because movies had accustomed people to a wider ratio, and squares always look higher than they are wide. It’s an optical illusion, but there you are.

3 : 2, like theatrical films, would have masked off too much area. They settled on 4 : 3—the only whole-number ratio in between. No theatrical film was ever shot in 4 : 3, but of course teleplays, intended for TV broadcast, were.
Pingback: Ten Myths of Apple’s iPad: 4. It was over-hyped and under-delivered — RoughlyDrafted Magazine()
pronk

Does it *need* HDMI? No. Would it have been a good idea to have it? Absolutely.

This article does seem to assume that money is no object, and that homes can have as many devices as they require. So to answer the question, who would want to drive their TV with an iPad? I’ll tell you – someone who doesn’t own an Apple TV and doesn’t want to have to buy one. The iPad can buy/rent HD films and is powerful enough to output HD-quality video. So yes, I think it would actually be a boon, if not merely sensible, to have some sort of easy hookup to an HDTV rather than have to buy another device. Otherwise you have a device that will likely be used in the home that can rent and view HD material that has no sensible way of outputting that material to the best viewing option available. Adding such a port would cost considerably less than buying an Apple TV, the purchase of which seems to have been suggested as the reason why this omission is not only acceptable but actually somehow to our benefit as it’ll save on cables.

The point about iPods not having hundreds of output options is disingenuous, because it’s very easy to get a clean output to use them as such a source. In fact, iPod docks are the centrepieces of many stereos.

I’m excited by the iPad and will almost certainly get one, but I think this particular “myth” isn’t busted at all and this article reads more like an excuse than anything else. The iPad could easily and cheaply have been a multimedia powerhouse with the simple addition of a dock or port that allowed TV output and some sort of version of Front Row. I just hope there is a third party solution in the offing.

P.S. ShabbaRanks: ….FIIIIIIIIGHT!!!! :)
ulicar

@gb you said it, it must be true. O wait, it is not. I do not have my books with me, but here is a link from wikipedia, I don’t know, maybe you could read on the subject before opening mouth, or do you want to admit to telling lies?

Silent films were shot at a 1.33 aspect ratio, with each frame using all of the negative space between the two rows of film perforations for a length of 4 perfs.[1][2] The frame line between the silent film frames was very thin. When sound films were introduced in the late 1920s, the soundtrack was placed down a row along the inside of one of the lines of perforations, cutting into the 1.33 image.[1][2] This made the image area “taller”, usually around 1.19, which was slightly disorienting to audiences used to the 1.33 frame and also presented problems for exhibitors with fixed-size screens and stationary projectors.

Any more “truths”?
ShabbaRanks

I personally wouldn’t cite Wikipedia for anything.

Not that I’m saying who’s right and wrong. Just that WIkipedia is as scientifically valid as consulting a Magic 8-Ball.
miloh

Film history aside, Daniel’s original statement is valid. Numerically speaking, and ignoring orientation, the aspect ratio of the iPad is closer to that of a letter-sized sheet of paper (Δ=0.039215) than to HDTV (Δ=0.444445).
http://www.van-garde.com adobephile

Numerically speaking, a 3:4 ratio would mean 8.25 x 11 or 8.5 x 11.333: again, pretty close. Such an aspect ratio goes along with the VGA connector to make it nicely compatible with a lot of existing projectors.

Widescreen movies would letterbox. But still, they’d be about 7.75″ wide, which is a lot better than 3″ wide on an iPhone or Touch. And SD TV shows would fit just right.
jpmrb

@ShabbaRanks… …Let’s fight!!! (And for those not in the know, well, two words: Harry Hill.)
http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman

You want HDMI capable iPad? Here it is:

iPad vga -> HDMI adapter:
http://obamapacman.com/2010/02/apple-ipad-vga-to-1080p-hd-hdmi-upscaling-adapter/
Pingback: Ten Myth of Apple’s iPad: 1. It’s just a big iPod touch — RoughlyDrafted Magazine()
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ShabbaRanks

@ jpmrb

At last. I thought I was the only TV Burp watcher.
Pingback: Ten Myths of Apple’s iPad: 5. It’s just a Tablet PC or Kindle — RoughlyDrafted Magazine()
http://www.roughlydrafted.com danieleran

In the original account I posted this Video to on YouTube, it received 7,439 views and the following comments:
Fotenks (3 days ago)
Speech impediment, didnt make any really good points, apple fanboyism at it’s worst.

johnmonk66 (4 days ago)
you and i are the only two logical fans of ipad, everyone else predicted or wanted a super computer that could do everything…for 500 dollars

rw86347 (1 week ago)
I am interested in replacing my mac book pro with something light weight, yet business capable. I believe the iPad will be too locked down (i.e. no file browser) to allow me to replace my laptop.

However I am tickled pink about the VGA output! I only wish my iPhone 3Gs was simularly designed. today if I want to do a presentation using my iPhone I must use a huge expensive composite cable. Worse yet many projectors don’t support HDTV inputs.

I want business uses not coolness.

carlomac (1 week ago)
@rw86347
just in case u misunderstand, the iPad is not designed to be a replacement for a full-featured laptop to be used as ones sole computer.

The primary touch technology used in the iPad will undoubtedly be used in a more business/production orientated device in the future, the iPad just so happens to NOT be that device (yet). Its the first one off the rank, a useful, consumer targeted, break-through media device, with the first traces of productivity tools in place. Just the beginning…

LemmingAttack (2 days ago)
@carlomac and that’s why we hate the iPad.

most people have no use for a piece of shit that severely impedes your ability to use your files and which is controlled by the Mac Software Nazi unit.

carlomac (2 days ago)
@LemmingAttack

well get a piece of crap netbook and stop whinging.

…and ‘we’ is completely presumptuous. We’ll soon see if people want the iPad or not.

Perhaps you should opt for a windows touch screen device? seems more your style.

tubepasta (1 week ago)
Ad subtitles here! ;-)

Korebyn (1 week ago)
I was perusing through one of my favorite websites (appleinsider), and happened upon a rather familiar article.

appleseedas (1 week ago)
Oh, yes. Keep ’em coming!
Pingback: Ten Myths of Apple’s iPad: 2. It needs Flash, segment 2 — RoughlyDrafted Magazine()
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ashoro

I agree with pronk. I’m an iPad user and would definitely use the HDMI to output to a TV. And both my 4 year old projector and our church projector, yes the projector for our church, accepts HDMI. If you’re using an old school projector that only accepts VGA well then that’s your problem and you should get an HDMI to VGA adapter. The benefits with HDMI is that it provides Audio as well, sorry that I’m not interested in hooking a cable to the connector on my ipad and then an audio cable to the headphone port and then all that to a VGA to HDMI adapter in order to watch Netflix on my friend’s TV.
Most users are not business people that need to do Keynote on their company’s projector, so don’t try to create this retarded excuse of saying they actually designed it right INTENTIONALLY in mind of the user. Most users are just watching Netflix or their home cable TV with say SlingPlayer, and to be able to easily connect to their bud’s TV is not a “fringe” usage, it’s a very normal thing to do. Microsoft has gotten this one right as much as I don’t like Microsoft.
jflores476

My wife’s Andriod-based phone has a mini-HDMI output, so it’s not a question of size. I would stream video from my tablet to my TV in the evenings and bring it to class and work during the day. These arguments are little biased…

Ten Myths of Apple’s iPad: 6. It needs HDMI for HD video output

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