With an eye fixed on the next wave of video and new bandwidth-intensive apps such as interactive VR, the HDMI Forum has released a new spec that supports up to 48 Gbps of capacity and resolutions up to 10K (10240 x 4320).
The capacity of 2.1 will more than double the 18 Gbps supported by HDMI 2.0.
HDMI 2.1, available now to all adopters of the 2.0 spec, also supports faster refresh rates, including 8K60 and 4K120, as well as Dynamic HDR formats.
The HDMI Forum sees 10K coming into play for commercial AV, and industrial and other specialty use-cases.
The HDMI Forum also introduced an Ultra High Speed HDMI cable that can handle the aforementioned 48 Gbps data load, and “high-bandwidth depending features” such as uncompressed 8K video with HDR.
The group noted that the new cable will also be made to be backwards compatible with the installed base of HDMI devices.
Other features in 2.1 include Variable Refresh Rate (to eliminate lag, stutter and frame tearing for more fluid and detailed gameplay), Quick Media Switching for movies (eliminates the delay can result in blank screens before content is displayed), and Quick Frame Transport, which reduces latency for smoother, no-lag gaming and real-time interactive VR.
The HDMI Forum said 2.1 compliance test specs will be published in stages during the first three quarters of 2018.
“The HDMI Forum’s mission is to develop specifications meeting market needs, growing demands for higher performance, and to enable future product opportunities,” Robert Blanchard, president of HDMI forum and an exec at Sony Electronics, said in a statement.
The HDMI Forum will provide more detail on the 2.1 specs and membership information in January at CES (LVCC South Hall I, booth 20542).
The HDMI Forum currently has 92 members. Examples of cable technology suppliers in that group include Arris, Broadcom, Dolby, Corning, Intel, Rohde & Schwarz, Samsung Electronics, and Technicolor, among others.
