Extreme High Definition

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Extreme High Definition, or XHD, is a term coined by NVIDIA and Dell at the Consumer Electronics Show 2006 to emphasize gaming at resolutions, higher than High Definition. The term was created as a marketing term for NVIDIA's Quad SLI setup and Dell's 3007WFP monitor.

According to NVIDIA, XHD is achieved by using one or two dual-link DVI ports. This higher bandwidth allows the cards to reach a maximum resolution of 2560x1600. The resolutions 1920x1200 and 1680x1050 are also classed as XHD resolutions, even though they do not match the XHD specification of 4x1080i / 2x1080p stated on the XHD site. (see: NVIDIA's Extreme HD Site)

XHD cables provide far superior video definition and the highest resolution video performance for HDTV and today's high-resolution signals. Cables include composite video, S-Video, component video, VGA, DVI, HDMI, digital audio and others.

The first XHD cables became publicly available in February 2006 by the manufacturer Comprehensive.

[edit] Extreme Definition

A related term is Extreme Definition (or XD). This is a term used on the Internet, referring to the 1440p - 2560x1440 - resolution. The term was formulated with Extreme High Definition in mind, since both standards share the 2560 pixel horizontal resolution. To avoid confusion between the two resolutions, however, the word high was left out.

At the moment, there are no commercial releases in the 1440p format. Only demo videos and some movie trailers are available in Extreme Definition.