cich86

Mar 01, 2024 04:12 PM By kminq

8

What exactly does it mean for the user if M27U needs “compression” for demanding signals?

For the user it means very little. You will not notice any difference at all if the signal was compressed. HDMI 2.1 relies on Display Stream Compression (DSC), which is a compression algorithm that is “visually lossless”, and that means that the output is indistinguishable from the original to the lay human eye. I honestly wouldn’t worry about this too much, especially if you have a mid-high end graphics card that can perform compression without breaking a sweat.

A bit more info… HDMI 2.1 supports a maximum “uncompressed” bandwidth of 48 Gbps, which is enough to support signals up to 4K/144Hz without any compression. Anything higher than that, and the signal will have to be compressed by the graphics cards before it is pushed to the monitor.

The HDMI 2.1 on the M27U however does not support the full 48 Gbps bandwidth (it only supports half that bandwidth at 24 Gbps). This means that the M27U monitor will require compression for even lesser demanding signals, possibly anything higher than 4K/75Hz when using the HDMI 2.1 port.

Interesting tidbit; If you do not plan on hooking up a PS5/Xbox to the M27U, or if you’re concerned about compression, then you would be better off using the DisplayPort 1.4 port, which supports a maximum bandwidth of 32Gbps, enough to support signals up to 4K/120Hz without compression. This is a higher signal than what the HDMI 2.1 port on the M27U can deliver without compression. The M27U has a max refresh rate of 160Hz, so if you plan to play games in 4K at that high refresh rate, there will be compression/chroma subsampling whether on HDMI 2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4.