LCD Monitor Input Connector Type Questions

[roo_ster]

3-4YO 25" LCD monitor (1080p, IIRC, or somewhat better) is going tango uniform.  It has 2x DVI and 1x HDMI and 1x VGA input.  Desktop PC has 2x DVI out and 1x Mini-HDMI out off the discrete NVida card.  Have used both DVI off the card to service aforementioned 25" LCD monitor and a 52" 1080p. 

Looking at new monitors in the 24-27" range and most seem to be 1080p with 2x HDMI and 1x VGA input connections.  If I had my druthers, I would run DVI to DVI cable and be done with it, but DVI looks to be getting scarce. 
1. What gives? 
2. Is DVI on the way out, displaced by HDMI? 
3. Can HDMI handle greater than 1080p throughput? 
4. Am I going to see performance degradation if I use a DVI to HDMI adapter? 
5. And what is the deal with this vaguely-named Display Port ++D or some such?  Got that on my new laptop.

The various DVI plugs were bad enough, now I have to contend with more plugs. 

[Calumus]

HDMI seems to be the way things are going. Any new high end video card is going to have it built in as well as DVI. It will support well over 1080p, and can also carry sound. I had to use a DVI-HDMI adapter on my last video card and notived no degradation what so ever.

[Firethorn]

3-4YO 25" LCD monitor (1080p, IIRC, or somewhat better) is going tango uniform.  It has 2x DVI and 1x HDMI and 1x VGA input.  Desktop PC has 2x DVI out and 1x Mini-HDMI out off the discrete NVida card.  Have used both DVI off the card to service aforementioned 25" LCD monitor and a 52" 1080p. 

Looking at new monitors in the 24-27" range and most seem to be 1080p with 2x HDMI and 1x VGA input connections.  If I had my druthers, I would run DVI to DVI cable and be done with it, but DVI looks to be getting scarce. 
1. What gives? 
2. Is DVI on the way out, displaced by HDMI? 
3. Can HDMI handle greater than 1080p throughput? 
4. Am I going to see performance degradation if I use a DVI to HDMI adapter? 
5. And what is the deal with this vaguely-named Display Port ++D or some such?  Got that on my new laptop.

The various DVI plugs were bad enough, now I have to contend with more plugs. 

1.  HDMI and DVI are pretty much the same protocol, electrically speaking.  DVI is cheaper though since it doesn't need to be able to ship audio.  That's why you can get cables with DVI on one end and HDMI on the other.
2.  Not for monitors with audio, such as TV sets. 
3.  Yes.  2560x1600@75hz
4.  Nope, digital signal.
5.  Displayport is basically intended to be the USB of video displays.  Right now it's 'sort' of limited to 2560x1600x75, but they've already released a specification upgrade that ups the maximum speed of the connection, enough to run 4 1080p screens at once, which would translate to 3840x2160(IE the new '4k' screens coming out).  Consider the streaming video quality difference possible between a 1 Mb connection and a 10 Mb one.  Scaled up.  Can also do other fancy tricks like run ethernet over it.

[BryanP]

1.  HDMI and DVI are pretty much the same protocol, electrically speaking.  HDMI is cheaper though since it doesn't need to be able to ship audio.  That's why you can get cables with DVI on one end and HDMI on the other.
2.  Not for monitors with audio, such as TV sets. 

I'm pretty sure you have that backwards.  DVI doesn't carry an audio signal.  HDMI does.

[zahc]

DVI had provisions for both digital and analog audio. So it could do things like run audio to cheap computer speakers or speakers built into a TV without having to run separate RCA cables for audio. Niether the sending nor receiving hardware needed (expensive in the 90's?) digital audio hardware.

HDMI can carry a large amount of digital audio, like 7 channels of uncompressed PCM or something crazy. So it's way better than DVI in that regard. It has no provision for analog audio.

[Firethorn]

I'm pretty sure you have that backwards.  DVI doesn't carry an audio signal.  HDMI does.

Doh!  You're right.