HOORAY for HDMI,
the friendliest of
display interfaces.
Who needs anything
else, especially now
HDMI 2.1 supports
both 4K@120Hz and
8K@60Hz? Well, you might if you want even
faster refresh at 4K or daisy-chaining. And
that might not be an entirely unrealistic
expectation when AMD and Nvidia’s next-
gen GPUs arrive later in 2022. Rumors
suggest an even bigger step forward
in performance than last time around.
200Hz-plus gaming at 4K? Don’t rule it out.
But I digress. There’s no question HDMI
2.1 is a good thing for PC users. As well as
supporting lots of pixels and high refresh
rates, it’s also adaptive-sync capable and
includes support for low-latency display
connections. This is enabling a new
generation of HDTVs that play nicely with
the PC—if you have an HDMI 2.1 graphics
card. Which you won’t, unless you have
either an Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series or
an AMD Radeon RX 6000 series.
Still, as HDMI 2.1 graphics cards
eventually become the norm, PC users will
have the option of a wide range of HDMI
TVs, which deliver more bang for your
buck than PC monitors. Sure, many are too
big for ergonomic PC use, but a new class
of HDMI 2.1 4K monitors designed for the
latest games consoles and marketed at a
lower price than a comparable PC monitor
courtesy of HDMI 2.1 is incoming, too. A 32-
inch 4K@120Hz HDMI 2.1 monitor? Sign me
up, please.
So, it’s all gravy when it comes to HDMI
2.1, then? Not quite. So far, HDMI 2.1 has
been associated most importantly with the
ability to support 4K@120Hz with full 10-bit
uncompressed color. That’s courtesy of a
maximum bandwidth of 48Gbps. Now, it’s...ain’t what it used to be
HDMI 2.1...
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true that not all displays and indeed output
devices with HDMI 2.1 support have thus
far supported the full 48Gbps. At launch,
the Sony PlayStation 5 was capped at
32Mbps and the Xbox Series X at 40Gbps.
In the case of the PS5, that means color
fidelity at 4K@120Hz has to be reduced.
Anyway, the point is that you have to be
careful not to make too many assumptions
about HDMI 2.1. The devil is in the detail.
Sadly, that’s just about to get a whole lot
worse. It turns out, according to the HDMI
Licensing Administrator, that HDMI 2.0
no longer exists. Its features are now a
subset of HDMI 2.1. But here’s the kicker.
The HDMI Licensing Administrator says
that “all the new capabilities and features
associated with HDMI 2.1 are optional. This
includes FRL, the higher bandwidths, VRR,
ALLM, and everything else.”
In other words, it is now possible to
buy an HDMI 2.1 display that can’t do
4K@120Hz, adaptive refresh, or auto low
latency. HDMI 2.1 no longer guarantees
any of that stuff. It’s a bizarre decision
that’s not only guaranteed to confuse
consumers but also encourage display
makers to cynically recertify what were
once HDMI 2.0 displays as HDMI 2.1
compliant. Because they will be.
Of course, these standards bodies have
form. The USB Implementers Forum did
unspeakable things when they folded USB
3.0 and 3.1 into USB 3.2, leaving the latter
as a broad church with little meaning
and supporting anything from 5Gbps to
20Gbps. Before we had USB 3.0, USB 3.1
and USB 3.2, now we have USB 3.2 Gen 1,
USB 3.2 Gen 2 and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. How
anyone thinks this is progress defies belief.
The same goes for the changes to HDMI 2.1
nomenclature. It’s hard to see the benefit.
Whatever, you have been warned. HDMI 2.1
ain’t what it used to be. –JL89 ASUS ROG
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