Last week, the HDMI 2.2 standard was ratified, opening the door to extreme high bandwidth display connections. 16K resolution at 60 frames per second? No problem. Completely uncompressed 4K at 240fps? It’s entirely within spec, with the prospect of DSC compression taking that up to a remarkable 480fps. However, in a world where 8K displays – especially TVs – are becoming ever-rarer, is HDMI 2.2 actually required? I’d say that this isn’t necessarily about the absolute maximum pixel count, it’s more about doubling the amount of bandwidth available and the opportunities available because of that.
Key to the HDMI 2.2 specification is that bandwidth has indeed doubled over HDMI 2.1 to the point where a new cable standard – Ultra96 – is required to ensure that the display output signal makes its way to the new generation of displays. The way this works is that current “Ultra High Speed” HDMI cables are rated for a maximum of 48Gbps – the top-end of HDMI 2.1, while Ultra96 copes with the increased bandwidth demands of the new standard – so 64Gbps, 80Gbps and 96Gbps signals will require the new cable.
This opens the door to much higher resolution displays. The HDMI consortium refers to 16K (15360×8640) at 60fps along with 12K (12880×6480) at 120fps as potential standards. It sounds like an obscene amount of pixels – totally unneeded, in fact – but it’s pretty clear that the whole standard isn’t about the displays of today but the screens of tomorrow. It’s also about increased fidelity and precision in the formats we have today. HDMI 2.2 can handle 8K at 60fps just like HDMI 2.1, the difference being that this is delivered at full chroma 4:4:4 resolution with 10-bit and 12-bit colour.
0:00:00 Introduction0:00:57 News 1: Objective testing: Switch 2 display is very slow0:23:45 News 2: Fast Fusion adds “Pure” visual mode without DLSS0:34:24 News 3: Hellblade 2 to receive 60fps option on consoles0:41:59 News 4: Nvidia announces RTX 50500:54:12 News 5 HDMI 2.2 spec revealed1:05:42 News 6: John reviews his LG 5K2K OLED monitor!1:23:21 Supporter Q1: Is it smarter to focus on raster lighting techniques on consoles instead of ray tracing?1:31:05 Supporter Q2: Is low-level optimisation dead in an era of multiplatform games?1:36:12 Supporter Q3: Should developers build their games around achieving 60fps on consoles?1:42:30 Supporter Q4: Should we be worried about Switch 2’s image quality in demanding games?1:46:19 Supporter Q5: Will ray tracing remasters be a common sight in the PS6 era?1:52:24 Supporter Q6: What is behind you when you record DF Direct?
The stage is set for much higher resolution displays in the future then – although there are limits: HDMI 2.2 work with the Las Vegas Sphere at 60fps (that requires 16K by 16K resolution!). What’s more interesting in the shorter term is that the existing 4K standard sets to benefit in a meaningful way. For gaming at least, 4K resolution is established now at the top-end, but the race is on to deliver that at ever increasing refresh rates and believe it or not, 240Hz and a DSC-powered 480Hz do actually serve a purpose.