The Video Electronics Standard Organization (VESA) earlier this week issued its Mini DisplayPort standard, officially bringing the interface used extensively by Apple into the mainstream.

Mini DisplayPort – referred to by VESA as mDP – is a video connection standard that is considerably smaller than the Digital Visual Interface (DVI) commonly found on flat panel displays; it’s also smaller than the VGA connector commonly found on analog displays. Apple first started to ship Macs equipped with the Mini DisplayPort interface in October 2008, and agreed to license the mDP standard to VESA earlier this year.

The Mini DisplayPort interface has made its way throughout Apple’s Mac line. Apple also sells the LED Cinema Display, a 24-inch flat panel display with 1920 x 1200 pixels.

Mini DisplayPort hasn’t been broadly supported by third-party display manufacturers, some of whom may have been waiting for the VESA standard adoption before proceeding. The larger DisplayPort interface has been adopted by Dell, Lenovo, HP and other companies for use in their flat panel displays, along with ATI-branded video cards made by AMD.

VESA noted that it’s now finalizing the DisplayPort 1.2 specification, which incorporates mDP and also doubles available bandwidth, which will introduce new capabilities including multiple monitor support through a single output connector, higher resolutions, more refresh rates and color depth, and high performance 3D displays.