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HDMI 2.1 Announced: 10Kp120, Dynamic HDR, New Color Spaces, New 48G Cable

238 points by dmmalam 10y ago

MaxLeiter 10y ago
It keeps mentioning improved frame rates (very little about refresh rates?) - will HDMI now be able to support 144hz monitors?
- dota_fanatic 10y ago
  It's even in the title of this thread. 10k progressive @ 120Hz. ;) So, no, not 144Hz.
  - eriknstr 10y ago
    How about 4k @ 144Hz? I prefer display port anyway but am curious anyway.
    - jwcooper 10y ago
      More details about the spec are here: http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx Looks like it maxes out at 4k@120Hz
    - morsch 10y ago
      The bandwidth for a higher refresh at 4k is obviously available. But all of the information available so far points to a maximum of 120 Hz at all resolutions. The actual spec is not available, yet, so there's that. From http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx Q: What are the support resolutions and frame rates? A: 4K50/60 4K100/120 5K50/60 5K100/120 8K50/60 8K100/120 10K50/60 10K100/120
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- hocuspocus 10y ago
  DisplayPort works very well for high-resolution and high-refresh-rate monitors (and also support things like FreeSync), why would you want HDMI?
  - pjc50 10y ago
    For some reason all my kit comes with HDMI rather than DisplayPort. It also works with "televisions" (which these days seem to run Android)
- planteen 10y ago
  Just curious - what's the use case for 144 Hz? It's a multiple of 24 but not 30. 120 Hz is a multiple of both.
digi_owl 10y ago
That bit about different functionality when using different cables etc have me worried.
- pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
  HDMI already has cable limitations. long runs don't work good. same as VGA. different problem / same problem. you're an idiot.
- ashark 10y ago
  Good thing we're all switching to USBC for everything, apparently, since it doesn't have that problem. http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-devices/usb-type-c-not-all-cables-are-created-equal/a/d-id/1323293 http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-devices/usb-typ... Oh.... :-/
  - lstamour 10y ago
    Yeah, my head started to hurt when you add Thunderbolt 3 to the mix. Then you've Type-C for USB 2, 3, 3.1 -- and 3.1 gen 1 is really 3.0 re-branded. You need to look for "USB 3.1 gen 2" for the 10 Gbps support in the cable, and don't forget charging requirements -- the Belkin cables they sell at the Apple Store only support up to 60 W, but others, such as https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/TkAnhK84TT7 https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/TkAnhK84TT7 claim support for 100 W or more. Then you've Thunderbolt 3, where you can theoretically hit 40 Gbps, but where cables that support those speeds are basically 0.5m, except one Belkin that's 2m but doesn't support DisplayPort or USB 3.0. And finally, the white USB Type-C cable Apple sells and ships with its power adapters is called a Charge Cable and doesn't support data, like connecting two Macbooks together to do Migration Assistant. But that's okay, because even if you do connect two computers together with a 0.5m Belkin TB3 cable, you won't hit 40 Gbps. Using Migration Assistant, copying 256 GB off a disk capable of 3.1Gbps should take about 11 minutes, but it always takes 2 hours when using cables between two 2016 MBPs -- Ethernet gave me the same speed as that 0.5m TB3 cable -- and it's about a half hour shorter if you use Wi-Fi for a direct connection. Given that, I can't wait for the day when we replace all these confusing cables with new directional wireless standards...
1_2__3 10y ago
One of the more ridiculous arguments in favor of the new MBPs was a refrain of "HDMI is on its way out", "HDMI is old tech", "New equipment won't use HDMI".
- danudey 10y ago
  I've never heard this argument in favour of the new MBP. In fact, one of the best arguments in favour of the new MBP that I've seen is that USB-C can replace every port we're using right now, and often with the same or fewer dongles as before. For example, USB-C supports 'HDMI alternate mode' which is a simple way to provide an HDMI signal over a USB-C port/cable: http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/HDMIAltModeUSBTypeC.aspx http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/HDMIAltModeUSBTypeC.aspx
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - givinguflac 10y ago
    Exactly. Dongles can suck, but it's pretty sweet that you can buy a new dongle to upgrade to a later spec or different port. I'm sure we'll see TB3 HDMI2.1 dongles.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  "It's turtles all the way down", or namely, "new" standards are built from old ones Display port may not be electrically HDMI, but logically it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort And HDMI is based on DVI: "CEA-861 signals carried by HDMI are electrically compatible with the CEA-861 signals used by the digital visual interface (DVI). No signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of video quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI
  - floatboth 10y ago
    No, DisplayPort is not "logically HDMI"! Where did you find that in the article? You can transmit DVI or HDMI signal over a DP cable — which is used for passive adapters. If you plug the DP cable into your monitor, it's using the DP protocol.
mtgx 10y ago
I've always thought 2.0 was a relatively disappointing upgrade over the previous standard. It felt like it should've had at least twice the bandwidth it ended up having. This is looking much better. Also, considering how disappointing 2.0 was, yet it still got the "2.0" name, this should be at least a 3.0, especially with a new cable coming. The only reason I see them using "2.1" is because they don't want TV and laptop makers to yell at them for making their devices look awfully obsolete just a few years later. But it's probably going to confuse users and it's going to hurt adoption of 2.1-enabled devices.
Unklejoe 10y ago
As for the new cable business, is there a way for the devices to detect the version of the cable (maybe resistor strapping or something)? The reason I ask is because HDMI cables are passive, so any cable with all of the pins populated should be able to work, provided it's able to satisfy the bandwidth requirements. In other words, I'm wondering if these new HDMI 2.1 cables are just regular HDMI cables with better electrical characteristics. If so, then I bet older HDMI cables will work as long as they’re kept short. I also wonder how this variable refresh rate thing relates to the recent AMD FreeSync over HDMI thing...
- Matthias247 10y ago
  It's not written in the article how the cables are different. If the new ones user more differential lanes (like USB3 does over USB2) that could of course be detected by the transceivers. If it's still the same amount of lanes but only tighter electrical requirements then the old cables could still work.
- j-walker 10y ago
  I imagine it is like PCI-Express where they link up at the lowest bandwidth possible (x1 in the case of PCIe) and then keep attempting higher bandwidth modes (x4,x8,x16) until the the transceivers can no longer link and then step down one mode.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Is this what windows was trying to do when I hooked it up to my TV the other day? For some apps it kept trying to cycle through resolutions (and never found a stable point).
transfire 10y ago
Just keep making things more complicated for no good reason. 4K 4096 / 2160 = 1.8962962962962964 5K 5120 / 2880 = 1.7777777777777777 8K 7680 / 4320 = 1.7777777777777777 10K 10328 / 7760 = 1.3309278350515463 Thanks a whole lot.
- Matthias247 10y ago
  True. But for the consumers there is typically no 4k but UHD (3840 / 2160). This matches the 16/9 aspect ratio in other resolutions.
- cnvogel 10y ago
  > 4K 4096 / 2160 = 1.8962962962962964 What most people call "4k" is 3840:2160 (typical 16:9 = 1.77… aspect ratio). At least that's the amount of pixels in most TVs/Monitors I've seen.
- 010a 10y ago
  Consumer 4K is definitely 3840x2160. Its likely 10K is the same situation; there are multiple resolutions that fall under that banner, but the consumer version will be 1.77 aspect ratio.
- MBCook 10y ago
  Some of the articles speculate that 4k and 8k are what you'd expect, and that 5k and 10k have the same vertical resolution as 4/8 but a wider aspect ration (probably something closer to that current cinemas use) and that's where the extra pixels are going. Basically they may not all be the same aspect ratio.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Wow that is a lot of bits. Seriously, that is a LOT of bits. Its almost like they said, "We're sick and tired of people complaining the cable is holding them back, here beat that suckers." :-) I guess the margins on 4K televisions have done better than expected, certainly as a 'feature' driving upgrades they have out performed '3D'. For me it starts to push up against the question of whether monitor resolution has hit the top of the s-curve. A 9600 x 5400 (10K) screen at 200PPI is 48" x 27". That is a 55" High DPI screen. And while glorious and amazing as that would be, I'm wondering if that would be "main stream" any time soon.
- mmastrac 10y ago
  That's tough to justify for home viewing distances and sizes. I sit about six feet away from a 4k TV (at the closest) and feel like I'd have a hard time justifying greater resolution than that. If I were guessing, this standard would be only for 1) large format projectors and 2) really larger and expensive boardroom/home theater LCDs.
- jerf 10y ago
  I think 4K has ended up being a bit of a whiff in most respects. I just bought a 60" TV for my living room, where we are about 7 feet from it, which is pretty close (it's the narrow dimension in my rectangular living room), and I can't tell much difference between putatively 4K content and clearly-1080P (from Bluray). It's hard to be sure, because all my putatively-4K content is streaming-based, and there aren't that many sources willing or able to ship enough bits to clearly distinguish between 1080p and 4K. That is, in a 1080p v. 4K streaming contest, if you dedicate the same larger number of bits to the 1080p content as the 4K content, you'd get a better 1080p signal, too. With lossy compression, pixels aren't directly comparable, they have a quality, and low-quality 1080p pixels v. low-quality 4K pixels makes it hard to tell what differences are the format, and which are just the low quality in general. (In other news, I consider the idea that streaming is obviously superior to disks to be a bit crazy. What disks have is higher quality pixels, and I expect that to continue to be true for a while. I've seen Bluray 1080p streams that are clearly superior to putatively 4K over-the-internet streams. And I've got DVDs that upscale to a higher quality than putatively 1080p streams of the same content.) Far more important is the increased color gamut and HDR support, which does provide a noticeable increase in image quality. Even from those aforementioned dubious-quality streaming sources; the higher-gamut HDR images are a visible improvement over the NTSC-sunglasses we were all wearing without realizing it.
SimeVidas 10y ago
How does this relate to Apple’s advanced USB connectors on the new MBPs? I thought, they were supposed to replace all other types of connectors for video. Will we have HDMI for TVs and USB for monitors?
- izacus 10y ago
  Those switch to HDMI alternate mode and send HDMI signals over the USB cable.
  - killercup 10y ago
    Sadly, HDMI alternate mode currently only supports HDMI 1.4b.
- djrogers 10y ago
  They're not "Apple’s advanced USB connectors" - they're the USB-C standard. They support (per the standard) what are called alternate modes, HDMI being one of them. HDMI 1.4b is currently supported over HDMI alt mode, which is unsurprising given that USB-C has been in the wild for a while and HDMI 2.1 is brand new.
  - IshKebab 10y ago
    Well they do support Thunderbolt 3 too, so they're not just USB.
    - MBCook 10y ago
      Thunderbolt 3 is standardized on using the same USB-C connector. Much like Apple used the DisplayPort connector before for Thunderbolt 1 and 2.
      - IshKebab 10y ago
        I know. But a USB 3 Type C port won't support Thunderbolt 3 by default. It has to be a Thunderbolt 3 port.
jerf 10y ago
"Among other things, the new standard will support the game mode variable refresh rate (GM VRR). Nowadays, AMD already supports FreeSync-over-HDMI using a custom mode and with the HDMI 2.1 everything gets a little easier." Oh, that'll be nice. Now that almost every interface is using 3D rendering tech under the hood, regardless of how it looks, I've noticed tearing has spread from something only gamers see very much of to something I'm seeing everywhere. Hopefully this helps drive the tech to push this everywhere and tearing will, in perhaps 10 years or so, be a thing of the past.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Silly thing is that tearing is a non-issue as long as one has vsync enabled. But games often disable vsync to get that "lovely" raw FPS number...
  - floatboth 10y ago
    Actually, to reduce input lag. You don't want vsync in multiplayer first person shooters, that's for sure.
  - eropple 10y ago
    I don't disable VSync for FPS. I disable VSync because it reduces input lag.
    - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
      The input lag can be a serious issue with certain monitors and video cards. It's very noticeable to me when playing and FPS.
      - eropple 10y ago
        Agreed. Overwatch in particular has felt a lot more snappy since disabling it. I'd been out of FPSes for a while, but that game made me acutely aware of it.
sametmax 10y ago
And I was here, hoping HDMI to disapear and be replaced by USB-C.
- protomyth 10y ago
  I guess the HDMI folks thought USB-C insufficiently ambitious on the bandwidth front. 48 Gbps might hold us for a while on the video front. [edit]I too wish USB-C was the single connector, but it is such a confusing standard with all the Alternate Modes and different cables on the market.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    You don't say. Right now I'm trying to buy a new cable to charge my XPS 15, I already bought 2 not working.
    - nikanj 10y ago
      In their infinite wisdom, engineers replaced a large number of incompatible, different looking cables (HDMI, USB, power, etc) with a ton of incompatible, identical looking cables. At least in the past it was easy to eyeball the connectors and pick the right cable.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      Its friggin unreal. I'm trying to do a cable order and have no clue what the heck to buy. I just want something that works. I swear these alternate modes and charging-only cables are going to be the end of me.
      - thisisblurry 10y ago
        It might be worthwhile to check out Benson Leung's (Google engineer) reviews on USB-C cables: http://amzn.to/2hX3cMZ http://amzn.to/2hX3cMZ Previous post from last year on the subject about his work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494
schmichael 10y ago
I wonder which causes more pain for consumers: new cables with new connectors (USB-C) or new cables with backward compatible connectors (HDMI 2.1). While the former definitely makes consumers unhappy in the short term, it seems like in the long term the latter's confusion around what cable you have vs what cable you need is worse.
- Pxtl 10y ago
  USB-C is actually the latter because there are several different flavours of USB-C cable that support different protocols. This is going to suck.
  - Ajedi32 10y ago
    Yeah, it's gotten to the point where I'd rather just buy Thunderbolt cables (despite the extra expense) because it's the only easy way to be sure that I'm getting a cable which fully supports all the features of the USB standard. (Thunderbolt cables are compatible with USB-C connectors, USB 3.1, and USB Power Delivery.)
    - nicpottier 10y ago
      Even THAT isn't good enough, since not all thunderbolt 3 cables support the necessary wattage. (for example https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F2CD081bt1M-Certified-Thunderbolt-Compatible/dp/B01CEFESRO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1483647457&sr=8-3&keywords=thunderbolt+3+cable https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F2CD081bt1M-Certified-Thunderb...) I'm really hoping this is just a transitionary period and soon all USB-C / TB3 cables are created equal. When type-A started being used for charging there was a time with similar inconveniences.
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        > When type-A started being used for charging there was a time with similar inconveniences. Meh, that problem is still there. On top of how Apple has their own take on signaling that the charger is "dumb"...
rocky1138 10y ago
Why do we still have or still need HDMI when we've got USB 3.1 Type-C?
- BHSPitMonkey 10y ago
  USB 3.1 is capped at 10gbps which is a lot more limited than the capabilities in the article.
- DanCarvajal 10y ago
  HDMI also has built in digital content protection built in which is a part of who it got so much support from content producers, particularly with Sony.
- ak217 10y ago
  USB 3.1: 10 Gbit/s DisplayPort 1.4: 32 Gbit/s HDMI 2.1: 38 Gbit/s Thunderbolt 3: 40 Gbit/s
  - Pharaoh2 10y ago
    HDMI 2.1 is 48 Gbits/s
pbreit 10y ago
Didn't see any mention of power. Are the TV sticks going to be able to ditch the plugs?
- MBCook 10y ago
  Powered HDMI existed before 2.0 didn't it? I know it wasn't in 1.0. Since these things tend to be backwards compatible I'd assume 2.1 would still provide power. I suppose it may not be mandatory.
jd007 10y ago
Does this mean TB3 (with "only" 40Gbps bandwidth) won't be able to support all the features/resolutions of HDMI 2.1? This is of course assuming that the HDMI 2.1 spec is designed to fully utilize the hardware level bandwidth. Also I wonder what exactly is making the 48G cable special. Is it using additional pins while maintaining backwards compatibility?
transfire 10y ago
I wish companies would start rolling with HD-BaseT.
- kimburgess 10y ago
  Their current chipsets top out at 10.2Gbps (HDMI 1.4a) for the video signal, which is somewhat limiting today. It's also worth remembering that while historically it's done a pretty decent job at assisting with distance transport it's a 'standard' made by Valens to sell their chips. The use cases for it also make up a minuscule component of the overall display source/sink device market so there's little benefit to manufacturers having to roll the additional cost into every device they make.
pasbesoin 10y ago
Just from the title, it seems this is aimed at the emerging 8K television segment -- with a little overhead. As such, I don't find it "wow" at all. Maybe more "just in time."
themihai 10y ago
Intel has some nice cables delivering 30GB per FRAME[0]. [0] https://www.cnet.com/uk/videos/intel-demos-worlds-first-walk-around-vr-video-experience-ces-2017/ https://www.cnet.com/uk/videos/intel-demos-worlds-first-walk...
- comboy 10y ago
  I think he said 3GB per frame, not 30GB, but that's still pretty insane.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ak217 10y ago
So they are announcing variable data rate streams and Display Stream Compression support. I thought until now HDMI had a fixed data rate except for the control channel, unlike DisplayPort which is fully packetized. Can someone more knowledgeable chime in on whether HDMI will now be packetized too, or how they support variable data rate modes?
shmerl 10y ago
Still no daisy chaining though, unlike with DisplayPort which uses packeted data. Why isn't DP replacing it faster? Is it too expensive to become ubiquitous?
- sprayk 10y ago
  It's a matter of targeted use case. DP is for PCs, while HDMI is for point-to-point AV. There aren't many non-PC HDMI sources that support multiple displays (mirroring or expanding), and this is by design. Chaining makes no sense in the home theater nor building video dist use cases.
  - shmerl 10y ago
    The point is, DP offers a superset of functionality and is also supposedly free of license fees (from what I've heard), while HDMI requires the manufacturer to pay for the license. So why isn't everyone ditching HDMI for DisplayPort which is better on all accounts? May be manufacturing cost plays a role, but I have no idea.
jedberg 10y ago
A somewhat related question -- why is the industry able to agree on a single standard for how data will move over a wire from a device to a display, but yet can't come up with a single standard for doing it without a wire. I can take my Mac laptop or my PC laptop and roll up to my TV and with a single cable make pictures and sound come out of the TV. But yet neither one can talk to the TV without a cable, unless I get a special device (which is different for both and ironically uses the same cable). And even worse, if I had a Samsung phone, it could connect to the TV wirelessly. Why can't we have a single wireless display standard? Is there a technology problem I'm missing, or is it really just walled gardens?
- israrkhan 10y ago
  Miracast is such standard. Thousands of devices support it. However two major players ( Apple & Google) dont. Apple has traditionally been a closed system, so it is not a big surprise. What surprises me is that Google also removed support for Miracast from Android and started promoting their proprietary casting protocol.
  - Sargos 10y ago
    Miracast is heavily broken on many devices and rarely works at a reasonable level. Netflix and Google worked to create a good streaming standard names DIAL. Google took the idea and ran with it to create the Cast system which ended up working really well.
    - jedberg 10y ago
      But the Cast system doesn't send arbitrary bits to the TV. It's a protocol for handing off authorized streams which are then processed by the TV (or in most cases the device connected to the TV by, ironically, HDMI). So it's not really a method to stream arbitrary visual and audio data to a TV.
      - Ajedi32 10y ago
        Well, you _can_ do screen mirroring with Cast, at least on Android. In my experience though it has fairly high latency and will occasionally freeze for a few seconds at a time.
kimburgess 10y ago
Can somebody please introduce the HDMI Forum to semver. While I'm looking forward to what this will enable, it's a little overzealous for a point release.
- profmonocle 10y ago
  Agreed. As a consumer, it's a bit odd that HDMI 1.x and 2.0 used the same cables, but 2.1 requires a new cable. That seems like a good reason to bump the major version number.
  - saghm 10y ago
    It's the same with USB; USB 2.0 and 3.0 were compatible, but USB 3.1 (more commonly known as USB C) is not compatible with either of them. EDIT: Actually, from consulting Wikipedia[1], it's even worse than I remembered. Apparently there's USB 3.1 gen 1 and USB 3.1 gen 2, where USB 3.1 gen 1 is literally just USB 3.0, and USB 3.1 gen 2 is what you get with a USB C cable (where the letter evidently denotes the port size/shape and the version number denotes the rate of transfer). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.1
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      The "gen 1" thing was really stupid, but it's not as complicated as you think it is. A cable can support USB 2 or 3. A cable can end in the older A/B or in C. These two are independent. All combinations exist. Most importantly, a USB C port or cable might only support USB 2.0 Whether you get the "gen 2" speed is also independent of whether you use A/B or whether you use C. The only wrinkle is that micro A/B needs a special extra-wide plug to do USB 3, while everything else fits the pins without changing shape. People get excited about using USB 3 and USB Power Delivery along with USB C, but all three of those are actually separate.
    - Ajedi32 10y ago
      > and USB 3.1 gen 2 is what you get with a USB C cable Nope, it's even more confusing than that. USB-C is just the connector type. Some USB-C cables only support USB 2.0.
tbrock 10y ago
I find it really annoying that cables with the same connectors at the ends and same basic standard have a version today. Imagine if back in the day it was like: "ohhh headphone jack 1.3 eh? Well these headphones only work on 1.4 or greater" Or: "Wow you only have RCA 7.6 you'll have to get a TV with rev 8 to hook up your NES" It's a friggin' cord with some connectors and some pins, how did we wind up having different versions be even possible?!
- ryanplant-au 10y ago
  The cables aren't versioned. They're just rated in categories for attenuation exactly like copper phone wiring is and named for the connector type just like USB-A, USB-C, micro-USB, etc are. You don't have HDMI 1.3 and HDMI 1.4 cables, though; cables bought years before a HDMI version is announced can still work with any of that new version's features that work within the bandwidth that cable can carry. The version is for the HDMI spec which the receiver must support. HDMI isn't just a cable, it's also the hardware encoding and decoding signals, and the different versions define new and different ways of encoding and decoding digital media. As for 'headphone jack 1.4' and 'RCA jack 7.6'-- back in the day we had analogue audio and video signals and invented new types of jack, connector, and cable to carry them. You had RCA jacks, and 3.5mm jacks, and 1/4" audio jacks, and component video jacks, and S-video jacks, and SCART jacks, and coax jacks. Now we have digital audio and video and consistently use HDMI to carry it; instead of inventing new connectors we update the HDMI spec and say "Systems meeting the 1.3 spec can only transmit 1080p over their HDMI cables, and systems meeting the 1.4 spec can transmit 1080p over those cables." Isn't that better, and simpler? Instead of 20 types of cable with different features, we just use one type of cable, and add features to it over time.
XorNot 10y ago
This will be great for VR basically.
webmaven 10y ago
Hmm. To make actual use of this, it seems you would need to be sitting right on top of a ginormous (120"?) screen. You might actually need to use a whole wall, which leads into immersive environments.

238 points by dmmalam 10y ago

It keeps mentioning improved frame rates (very little about refresh rates?) - will HDMI now be able to support 144hz monitors?

dota_fanatic 10y ago
It's even in the title of this thread. 10k progressive @ 120Hz. ;) So, no, not 144Hz.
- eriknstr 10y ago
  How about 4k @ 144Hz? I prefer display port anyway but am curious anyway.
  - jwcooper 10y ago
    More details about the spec are here: http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx Looks like it maxes out at 4k@120Hz
  - morsch 10y ago
    The bandwidth for a higher refresh at 4k is obviously available. But all of the information available so far points to a maximum of 120 Hz at all resolutions. The actual spec is not available, yet, so there's that. From http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_2_1/index.aspx Q: What are the support resolutions and frame rates? A: 4K50/60 4K100/120 5K50/60 5K100/120 8K50/60 8K100/120 10K50/60 10K100/120
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
hocuspocus 10y ago
DisplayPort works very well for high-resolution and high-refresh-rate monitors (and also support things like FreeSync), why would you want HDMI?
- pjc50 10y ago
  For some reason all my kit comes with HDMI rather than DisplayPort. It also works with "televisions" (which these days seem to run Android)
planteen 10y ago
Just curious - what's the use case for 144 Hz? It's a multiple of 24 but not 30. 120 Hz is a multiple of both.

digi_owl 10y ago

That bit about different functionality when using different cables etc have me worried.

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
HDMI already has cable limitations. long runs don't work good. same as VGA. different problem / same problem. you're an idiot.
ashark 10y ago
Good thing we're all switching to USBC for everything, apparently, since it doesn't have that problem. http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-devices/usb-type-c-not-all-cables-are-created-equal/a/d-id/1323293 http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-devices/usb-typ... Oh.... :-/
- lstamour 10y ago
  Yeah, my head started to hurt when you add Thunderbolt 3 to the mix. Then you've Type-C for USB 2, 3, 3.1 -- and 3.1 gen 1 is really 3.0 re-branded. You need to look for "USB 3.1 gen 2" for the 10 Gbps support in the cable, and don't forget charging requirements -- the Belkin cables they sell at the Apple Store only support up to 60 W, but others, such as https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/TkAnhK84TT7 https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/TkAnhK84TT7 claim support for 100 W or more. Then you've Thunderbolt 3, where you can theoretically hit 40 Gbps, but where cables that support those speeds are basically 0.5m, except one Belkin that's 2m but doesn't support DisplayPort or USB 3.0. And finally, the white USB Type-C cable Apple sells and ships with its power adapters is called a Charge Cable and doesn't support data, like connecting two Macbooks together to do Migration Assistant. But that's okay, because even if you do connect two computers together with a 0.5m Belkin TB3 cable, you won't hit 40 Gbps. Using Migration Assistant, copying 256 GB off a disk capable of 3.1Gbps should take about 11 minutes, but it always takes 2 hours when using cables between two 2016 MBPs -- Ethernet gave me the same speed as that 0.5m TB3 cable -- and it's about a half hour shorter if you use Wi-Fi for a direct connection. Given that, I can't wait for the day when we replace all these confusing cables with new directional wireless standards...

1_2__3 10y ago

One of the more ridiculous arguments in favor of the new MBPs was a refrain of "HDMI is on its way out", "HDMI is old tech", "New equipment won't use HDMI".

danudey 10y ago
I've never heard this argument in favour of the new MBP. In fact, one of the best arguments in favour of the new MBP that I've seen is that USB-C can replace every port we're using right now, and often with the same or fewer dongles as before. For example, USB-C supports 'HDMI alternate mode' which is a simple way to provide an HDMI signal over a USB-C port/cable: http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/HDMIAltModeUSBTypeC.aspx http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/HDMIAltModeUSBTypeC.aspx
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- givinguflac 10y ago
  Exactly. Dongles can suck, but it's pretty sweet that you can buy a new dongle to upgrade to a later spec or different port. I'm sure we'll see TB3 HDMI2.1 dongles.
raverbashing 10y ago
"It's turtles all the way down", or namely, "new" standards are built from old ones Display port may not be electrically HDMI, but logically it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort And HDMI is based on DVI: "CEA-861 signals carried by HDMI are electrically compatible with the CEA-861 signals used by the digital visual interface (DVI). No signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of video quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI
- floatboth 10y ago
  No, DisplayPort is not "logically HDMI"! Where did you find that in the article? You can transmit DVI or HDMI signal over a DP cable — which is used for passive adapters. If you plug the DP cable into your monitor, it's using the DP protocol.

mtgx 10y ago

I've always thought 2.0 was a relatively disappointing upgrade over the previous standard. It felt like it should've had at least twice the bandwidth it ended up having. This is looking much better. Also, considering how disappointing 2.0 was, yet it still got the "2.0" name, this should be at least a 3.0, especially with a new cable coming. The only reason I see them using "2.1" is because they don't want TV and laptop makers to yell at them for making their devices look awfully obsolete just a few years later. But it's probably going to confuse users and it's going to hurt adoption of 2.1-enabled devices.

Unklejoe 10y ago

As for the new cable business, is there a way for the devices to detect the version of the cable (maybe resistor strapping or something)? The reason I ask is because HDMI cables are passive, so any cable with all of the pins populated should be able to work, provided it's able to satisfy the bandwidth requirements. In other words, I'm wondering if these new HDMI 2.1 cables are just regular HDMI cables with better electrical characteristics. If so, then I bet older HDMI cables will work as long as they’re kept short. I also wonder how this variable refresh rate thing relates to the recent AMD FreeSync over HDMI thing...

Matthias247 10y ago
It's not written in the article how the cables are different. If the new ones user more differential lanes (like USB3 does over USB2) that could of course be detected by the transceivers. If it's still the same amount of lanes but only tighter electrical requirements then the old cables could still work.
j-walker 10y ago
I imagine it is like PCI-Express where they link up at the lowest bandwidth possible (x1 in the case of PCIe) and then keep attempting higher bandwidth modes (x4,x8,x16) until the the transceivers can no longer link and then step down one mode.
- flukus 10y ago
  Is this what windows was trying to do when I hooked it up to my TV the other day? For some apps it kept trying to cycle through resolutions (and never found a stable point).

transfire 10y ago

Just keep making things more complicated for no good reason. 4K 4096 / 2160 = 1.8962962962962964 5K 5120 / 2880 = 1.7777777777777777 8K 7680 / 4320 = 1.7777777777777777 10K 10328 / 7760 = 1.3309278350515463 Thanks a whole lot.

Matthias247 10y ago
True. But for the consumers there is typically no 4k but UHD (3840 / 2160). This matches the 16/9 aspect ratio in other resolutions.
cnvogel 10y ago
> 4K 4096 / 2160 = 1.8962962962962964 What most people call "4k" is 3840:2160 (typical 16:9 = 1.77… aspect ratio). At least that's the amount of pixels in most TVs/Monitors I've seen.
010a 10y ago
Consumer 4K is definitely 3840x2160. Its likely 10K is the same situation; there are multiple resolutions that fall under that banner, but the consumer version will be 1.77 aspect ratio.
MBCook 10y ago
Some of the articles speculate that 4k and 8k are what you'd expect, and that 5k and 10k have the same vertical resolution as 4/8 but a wider aspect ration (probably something closer to that current cinemas use) and that's where the extra pixels are going. Basically they may not all be the same aspect ratio.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Wow that is a lot of bits. Seriously, that is a LOT of bits. Its almost like they said, "We're sick and tired of people complaining the cable is holding them back, here beat that suckers." :-) I guess the margins on 4K televisions have done better than expected, certainly as a 'feature' driving upgrades they have out performed '3D'. For me it starts to push up against the question of whether monitor resolution has hit the top of the s-curve. A 9600 x 5400 (10K) screen at 200PPI is 48" x 27". That is a 55" High DPI screen. And while glorious and amazing as that would be, I'm wondering if that would be "main stream" any time soon.

mmastrac 10y ago
That's tough to justify for home viewing distances and sizes. I sit about six feet away from a 4k TV (at the closest) and feel like I'd have a hard time justifying greater resolution than that. If I were guessing, this standard would be only for 1) large format projectors and 2) really larger and expensive boardroom/home theater LCDs.
jerf 10y ago
I think 4K has ended up being a bit of a whiff in most respects. I just bought a 60" TV for my living room, where we are about 7 feet from it, which is pretty close (it's the narrow dimension in my rectangular living room), and I can't tell much difference between putatively 4K content and clearly-1080P (from Bluray). It's hard to be sure, because all my putatively-4K content is streaming-based, and there aren't that many sources willing or able to ship enough bits to clearly distinguish between 1080p and 4K. That is, in a 1080p v. 4K streaming contest, if you dedicate the same larger number of bits to the 1080p content as the 4K content, you'd get a better 1080p signal, too. With lossy compression, pixels aren't directly comparable, they have a quality, and low-quality 1080p pixels v. low-quality 4K pixels makes it hard to tell what differences are the format, and which are just the low quality in general. (In other news, I consider the idea that streaming is obviously superior to disks to be a bit crazy. What disks have is higher quality pixels, and I expect that to continue to be true for a while. I've seen Bluray 1080p streams that are clearly superior to putatively 4K over-the-internet streams. And I've got DVDs that upscale to a higher quality than putatively 1080p streams of the same content.) Far more important is the increased color gamut and HDR support, which does provide a noticeable increase in image quality. Even from those aforementioned dubious-quality streaming sources; the higher-gamut HDR images are a visible improvement over the NTSC-sunglasses we were all wearing without realizing it.

SimeVidas 10y ago

How does this relate to Apple’s advanced USB connectors on the new MBPs? I thought, they were supposed to replace all other types of connectors for video. Will we have HDMI for TVs and USB for monitors?

izacus 10y ago
Those switch to HDMI alternate mode and send HDMI signals over the USB cable.
- killercup 10y ago
  Sadly, HDMI alternate mode currently only supports HDMI 1.4b.
djrogers 10y ago
They're not "Apple’s advanced USB connectors" - they're the USB-C standard. They support (per the standard) what are called alternate modes, HDMI being one of them. HDMI 1.4b is currently supported over HDMI alt mode, which is unsurprising given that USB-C has been in the wild for a while and HDMI 2.1 is brand new.
- IshKebab 10y ago
  Well they do support Thunderbolt 3 too, so they're not just USB.
  - MBCook 10y ago
    Thunderbolt 3 is standardized on using the same USB-C connector. Much like Apple used the DisplayPort connector before for Thunderbolt 1 and 2.
    - IshKebab 10y ago
      I know. But a USB 3 Type C port won't support Thunderbolt 3 by default. It has to be a Thunderbolt 3 port.

jerf 10y ago

"Among other things, the new standard will support the game mode variable refresh rate (GM VRR). Nowadays, AMD already supports FreeSync-over-HDMI using a custom mode and with the HDMI 2.1 everything gets a little easier." Oh, that'll be nice. Now that almost every interface is using 3D rendering tech under the hood, regardless of how it looks, I've noticed tearing has spread from something only gamers see very much of to something I'm seeing everywhere. Hopefully this helps drive the tech to push this everywhere and tearing will, in perhaps 10 years or so, be a thing of the past.

digi_owl 10y ago
Silly thing is that tearing is a non-issue as long as one has vsync enabled. But games often disable vsync to get that "lovely" raw FPS number...
- floatboth 10y ago
  Actually, to reduce input lag. You don't want vsync in multiplayer first person shooters, that's for sure.
- eropple 10y ago
  I don't disable VSync for FPS. I disable VSync because it reduces input lag.
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    The input lag can be a serious issue with certain monitors and video cards. It's very noticeable to me when playing and FPS.
    - eropple 10y ago
      Agreed. Overwatch in particular has felt a lot more snappy since disabling it. I'd been out of FPSes for a while, but that game made me acutely aware of it.

sametmax 10y ago

And I was here, hoping HDMI to disapear and be replaced by USB-C.

protomyth 10y ago
I guess the HDMI folks thought USB-C insufficiently ambitious on the bandwidth front. 48 Gbps might hold us for a while on the video front. [edit]I too wish USB-C was the single connector, but it is such a confusing standard with all the Alternate Modes and different cables on the market.
- sametmax 10y ago
  You don't say. Right now I'm trying to buy a new cable to charge my XPS 15, I already bought 2 not working.
  - nikanj 10y ago
    In their infinite wisdom, engineers replaced a large number of incompatible, different looking cables (HDMI, USB, power, etc) with a ton of incompatible, identical looking cables. At least in the past it was easy to eyeball the connectors and pick the right cable.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    Its friggin unreal. I'm trying to do a cable order and have no clue what the heck to buy. I just want something that works. I swear these alternate modes and charging-only cables are going to be the end of me.
    - thisisblurry 10y ago
      It might be worthwhile to check out Benson Leung's (Google engineer) reviews on USB-C cables: http://amzn.to/2hX3cMZ http://amzn.to/2hX3cMZ Previous post from last year on the subject about his work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494

schmichael 10y ago

I wonder which causes more pain for consumers: new cables with new connectors (USB-C) or new cables with backward compatible connectors (HDMI 2.1). While the former definitely makes consumers unhappy in the short term, it seems like in the long term the latter's confusion around what cable you have vs what cable you need is worse.

Pxtl 10y ago
USB-C is actually the latter because there are several different flavours of USB-C cable that support different protocols. This is going to suck.
- Ajedi32 10y ago
  Yeah, it's gotten to the point where I'd rather just buy Thunderbolt cables (despite the extra expense) because it's the only easy way to be sure that I'm getting a cable which fully supports all the features of the USB standard. (Thunderbolt cables are compatible with USB-C connectors, USB 3.1, and USB Power Delivery.)
  - nicpottier 10y ago
    Even THAT isn't good enough, since not all thunderbolt 3 cables support the necessary wattage. (for example https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F2CD081bt1M-Certified-Thunderbolt-Compatible/dp/B01CEFESRO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1483647457&sr=8-3&keywords=thunderbolt+3+cable https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F2CD081bt1M-Certified-Thunderb...) I'm really hoping this is just a transitionary period and soon all USB-C / TB3 cables are created equal. When type-A started being used for charging there was a time with similar inconveniences.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      > When type-A started being used for charging there was a time with similar inconveniences. Meh, that problem is still there. On top of how Apple has their own take on signaling that the charger is "dumb"...

rocky1138 10y ago

Why do we still have or still need HDMI when we've got USB 3.1 Type-C?

BHSPitMonkey 10y ago
USB 3.1 is capped at 10gbps which is a lot more limited than the capabilities in the article.
DanCarvajal 10y ago
HDMI also has built in digital content protection built in which is a part of who it got so much support from content producers, particularly with Sony.
ak217 10y ago
USB 3.1: 10 Gbit/s DisplayPort 1.4: 32 Gbit/s HDMI 2.1: 38 Gbit/s Thunderbolt 3: 40 Gbit/s
- Pharaoh2 10y ago
  HDMI 2.1 is 48 Gbits/s

pbreit 10y ago

Didn't see any mention of power. Are the TV sticks going to be able to ditch the plugs?

MBCook 10y ago
Powered HDMI existed before 2.0 didn't it? I know it wasn't in 1.0. Since these things tend to be backwards compatible I'd assume 2.1 would still provide power. I suppose it may not be mandatory.

jd007 10y ago

Does this mean TB3 (with "only" 40Gbps bandwidth) won't be able to support all the features/resolutions of HDMI 2.1? This is of course assuming that the HDMI 2.1 spec is designed to fully utilize the hardware level bandwidth. Also I wonder what exactly is making the 48G cable special. Is it using additional pins while maintaining backwards compatibility?

transfire 10y ago

I wish companies would start rolling with HD-BaseT.

kimburgess 10y ago
Their current chipsets top out at 10.2Gbps (HDMI 1.4a) for the video signal, which is somewhat limiting today. It's also worth remembering that while historically it's done a pretty decent job at assisting with distance transport it's a 'standard' made by Valens to sell their chips. The use cases for it also make up a minuscule component of the overall display source/sink device market so there's little benefit to manufacturers having to roll the additional cost into every device they make.

pasbesoin 10y ago

Just from the title, it seems this is aimed at the emerging 8K television segment -- with a little overhead. As such, I don't find it "wow" at all. Maybe more "just in time."

themihai 10y ago

Intel has some nice cables delivering 30GB per FRAME[0]. [0] https://www.cnet.com/uk/videos/intel-demos-worlds-first-walk-around-vr-video-experience-ces-2017/ https://www.cnet.com/uk/videos/intel-demos-worlds-first-walk...

comboy 10y ago
I think he said 3GB per frame, not 30GB, but that's still pretty insane.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ak217 10y ago

So they are announcing variable data rate streams and Display Stream Compression support. I thought until now HDMI had a fixed data rate except for the control channel, unlike DisplayPort which is fully packetized. Can someone more knowledgeable chime in on whether HDMI will now be packetized too, or how they support variable data rate modes?

shmerl 10y ago

Still no daisy chaining though, unlike with DisplayPort which uses packeted data. Why isn't DP replacing it faster? Is it too expensive to become ubiquitous?

sprayk 10y ago
It's a matter of targeted use case. DP is for PCs, while HDMI is for point-to-point AV. There aren't many non-PC HDMI sources that support multiple displays (mirroring or expanding), and this is by design. Chaining makes no sense in the home theater nor building video dist use cases.
- shmerl 10y ago
  The point is, DP offers a superset of functionality and is also supposedly free of license fees (from what I've heard), while HDMI requires the manufacturer to pay for the license. So why isn't everyone ditching HDMI for DisplayPort which is better on all accounts? May be manufacturing cost plays a role, but I have no idea.

jedberg 10y ago

A somewhat related question -- why is the industry able to agree on a single standard for how data will move over a wire from a device to a display, but yet can't come up with a single standard for doing it without a wire. I can take my Mac laptop or my PC laptop and roll up to my TV and with a single cable make pictures and sound come out of the TV. But yet neither one can talk to the TV without a cable, unless I get a special device (which is different for both and ironically uses the same cable). And even worse, if I had a Samsung phone, it could connect to the TV wirelessly. Why can't we have a single wireless display standard? Is there a technology problem I'm missing, or is it really just walled gardens?

israrkhan 10y ago
Miracast is such standard. Thousands of devices support it. However two major players ( Apple & Google) dont. Apple has traditionally been a closed system, so it is not a big surprise. What surprises me is that Google also removed support for Miracast from Android and started promoting their proprietary casting protocol.
- Sargos 10y ago
  Miracast is heavily broken on many devices and rarely works at a reasonable level. Netflix and Google worked to create a good streaming standard names DIAL. Google took the idea and ran with it to create the Cast system which ended up working really well.
  - jedberg 10y ago
    But the Cast system doesn't send arbitrary bits to the TV. It's a protocol for handing off authorized streams which are then processed by the TV (or in most cases the device connected to the TV by, ironically, HDMI). So it's not really a method to stream arbitrary visual and audio data to a TV.
    - Ajedi32 10y ago
      Well, you _can_ do screen mirroring with Cast, at least on Android. In my experience though it has fairly high latency and will occasionally freeze for a few seconds at a time.

kimburgess 10y ago

Can somebody please introduce the HDMI Forum to semver. While I'm looking forward to what this will enable, it's a little overzealous for a point release.

profmonocle 10y ago
Agreed. As a consumer, it's a bit odd that HDMI 1.x and 2.0 used the same cables, but 2.1 requires a new cable. That seems like a good reason to bump the major version number.
- saghm 10y ago
  It's the same with USB; USB 2.0 and 3.0 were compatible, but USB 3.1 (more commonly known as USB C) is not compatible with either of them. EDIT: Actually, from consulting Wikipedia[1], it's even worse than I remembered. Apparently there's USB 3.1 gen 1 and USB 3.1 gen 2, where USB 3.1 gen 1 is literally just USB 3.0, and USB 3.1 gen 2 is what you get with a USB C cable (where the letter evidently denotes the port size/shape and the version number denotes the rate of transfer). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.1
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    The "gen 1" thing was really stupid, but it's not as complicated as you think it is. A cable can support USB 2 or 3. A cable can end in the older A/B or in C. These two are independent. All combinations exist. Most importantly, a USB C port or cable might only support USB 2.0 Whether you get the "gen 2" speed is also independent of whether you use A/B or whether you use C. The only wrinkle is that micro A/B needs a special extra-wide plug to do USB 3, while everything else fits the pins without changing shape. People get excited about using USB 3 and USB Power Delivery along with USB C, but all three of those are actually separate.
  - Ajedi32 10y ago
    > and USB 3.1 gen 2 is what you get with a USB C cable Nope, it's even more confusing than that. USB-C is just the connector type. Some USB-C cables only support USB 2.0.

tbrock 10y ago

I find it really annoying that cables with the same connectors at the ends and same basic standard have a version today. Imagine if back in the day it was like: "ohhh headphone jack 1.3 eh? Well these headphones only work on 1.4 or greater" Or: "Wow you only have RCA 7.6 you'll have to get a TV with rev 8 to hook up your NES" It's a friggin' cord with some connectors and some pins, how did we wind up having different versions be even possible?!

ryanplant-au 10y ago
The cables aren't versioned. They're just rated in categories for attenuation exactly like copper phone wiring is and named for the connector type just like USB-A, USB-C, micro-USB, etc are. You don't have HDMI 1.3 and HDMI 1.4 cables, though; cables bought years before a HDMI version is announced can still work with any of that new version's features that work within the bandwidth that cable can carry. The version is for the HDMI spec which the receiver must support. HDMI isn't just a cable, it's also the hardware encoding and decoding signals, and the different versions define new and different ways of encoding and decoding digital media. As for 'headphone jack 1.4' and 'RCA jack 7.6'-- back in the day we had analogue audio and video signals and invented new types of jack, connector, and cable to carry them. You had RCA jacks, and 3.5mm jacks, and 1/4" audio jacks, and component video jacks, and S-video jacks, and SCART jacks, and coax jacks. Now we have digital audio and video and consistently use HDMI to carry it; instead of inventing new connectors we update the HDMI spec and say "Systems meeting the 1.3 spec can only transmit 1080p over their HDMI cables, and systems meeting the 1.4 spec can transmit 1080p over those cables." Isn't that better, and simpler? Instead of 20 types of cable with different features, we just use one type of cable, and add features to it over time.

XorNot 10y ago

This will be great for VR basically.

webmaven 10y ago

Hmm. To make actual use of this, it seems you would need to be sitting right on top of a ginormous (120"?) screen. You might actually need to use a whole wall, which leads into immersive environments.