The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA ) today formally introduced the VESA Display Compression-M (VDC-M) standard, a new display interface compression standard designed for embedded mobile display applications, including smart phones and other hand-held devices. Developed in collaboration with the MIPI Alliance, VDC-M provides a higher level of compression ratio (up to 5:1) at the same visually lossless quality level as VESA's Display Stream Compression (DSC) standard (which offers up to 3:1 compression), with the trade-off of higher circuit complexity. VDC-M is the third compression standard in VESA's family of compression codecs, which include DSC 1.1 (introduced in 2014) and DSC 1.2 (introduced in 2017).
"VESA was a pioneer in the area of low-latency data compression specifically targeting the display interface," according to Bill Lempesis, executive director of VESA. "The initial application for VESA's effort in this area was the Embedded DisplayPort Standard (eDP) and MIPI DSI, both which currently use DSC 1.1, with the specific intent to increase battery life and reduce form factor. The success of this spearheaded our effort on DSC 1.2 for external displays, primarily focusing on increasing display resolution. Working again with MIPI through their liaison with VESA, we returned our focus on mobile displays with VDC-M, developing a display compression standard more optimized for smaller mobile devices such as smart phones."
As the demand for higher image quality and resolution on mobile devices continues to increase, system designers are under increased pressure to find innovative ways to support higher bandwidth across display links without compromising on the overall size, cost and battery life of the mobile device. VDC-M version 1.1 is a higher-complexity codec targeting higher rates of compression for use with higher resolution displays within a smartphone and other embedded usages. For a 30-bit image, VDC-M can enable compression down to 6 bits per pixel, providing a compression ratio of up to 5:1 while maintaining visually lossless viewing with no attendant loss of bandwidth.
Based on the broad industry support in developing the VDC-M standard, VESA expects the same broad industry adoption and longevity enjoyed by its DSC predecessors. The MIPI Alliance is already announcing plans to include VDC-M in its upcoming mobile display transport specification.
"The longstanding liaison relationship between MIPI Alliance and VESA has resulted in yet another advancement for the mobile ecosystem," said Joel Huloux, chairman of MIPI Alliance. "Ultimately, consumers want richer content on smaller devices. The combination of VESA VDC-M and MIPI DSI-2 will enable companies to deliver on those market demands faster and more efficiently."
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