The announcement is expected on January 6, during a press conference organized by the HDMI Licensing Forum, just before CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The organization responsible for developing the HDMI standard has not yet detailed the precise reasons for this gathering, but should, without much surprise, reveal the technical specifications of a new version of the HDMI standardwhich will be upgraded to version 2.2.
An update that changes everything
The latest version of the HDMI standard, called 2.1b dates from August 2023, and already offered the possibility of enjoying a 4K image at 144 Hz, 8K at 30 Hz and even 10K at 30 Hz, without any compression thanks to its bandwidth of 42.6 Gb/s. The arrival of the HDMI 2.2 update will undoubtedly allow you to benefit from greater bandwidth, why not similar to 80 Gb/s DisplayPort 2.x standard, with even higher definitions, and even lower latency times. We can also expect this new standard to drastically improve DSC compression and add support for new technologies.
On paper, this new version promises improved bandwidth, as 8K at 120 Hz or 10K with even higher refresh rates. Enough to give pride of place to new productions from cinematographic and video game giants.
We'll have to change the TV (one day)
As with every change in standard, manufacturers of televisions, screens, but also graphics cards and video game consoles will gradually adapt to support HDMI 2.2. We should therefore expect to see the terminals presented at CES 2025 equipped with this type of connectivity. However, the change is likely to be more gradual on the consumer side. To take advantage of the possibilities offered by the device, you will have to change HDMI cables to acquire compatible models. It will also be necessary – in the long term – to change televisions, most of the models on the market being just compatible with HDMI 2.1. To fully exploit HDMI 2.2, video game publishers and streaming platforms will also need to get up to speed, with ever higher resolutions and ever higher bit rates. Enough to promise (still) some price increases in the future.
The announcement of the HDMI Forum coincides with the arrival of the next generations of graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD, which should – still on the occasion of CES 2025 – formalize their GeForce RTX 50 and Radeon RX 8000. They should thus be among the first to integrate this new standard.
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