The Plasma TV Blog

Digital Visual Interface is the name give to a connecting device that is used with digital display devices to maximize the visual quality. It uses binary data to transmit the required brightness level of each individual pixel in the display. The device was developed by a group of researchers primarily for the purpose of improving the quality of display in devices such as the LCD flat screen monitor.

With the signals being sent as binary data, the DVI reads the binary number and knows what brightness level to transfer to each individual pixel. This represents an improvement over the older analog interface such as VGA that was primarily designed for use with CRT monitors. The VGA did not use discrete time, and as it transmitted each horizontal line of the image, it varied the output voltage to produce the desired illumination of each pixel.

When a VGA connection was used with a digital display device, it led to the need for a decoder that in effect sampled the voltage output of the transmission to produce the brightness in the pixel. This was inexact and led to distortion, and a condition known as cross talking. The DVI provides a direct pixel to pixel exchange by assigning a binary number to encode the brightness level.

Like other interface connectors, the DVI consists of pins, and must be handled with care prior to the connecting to the display monitor to prevent damage. Damaged or broken pins will lead to loss of image quality.