Next generation of HDMI will support 8K video with HDR
CES 2017 is under way and we are hearing specifications of the new HDMI 2.1 standard. This new standard will increase link bandwidth to 48 Gbps and will enable support for up to 10K resolutions without compression, new color spaces with up to 16 bits per component, dynamic HDR, variable refresh rates for gaming applications as well as new audio formats.
The killer feature here is that the HDMI 2.1 specification brings a massively increased bandwidth over its predecessors. That additional bandwidth (48 Gbps over 18 Gbps, a little more than a USB-C cable) will enable the long-term evolution of displays and TVs but will require the industry to adopt the new 48G cable, which will keep using the existing connectors and retain backward compatibility with existing equipment. The standard 48G cables will use copper wires up to 3 meters, but what happens to longer cables? It is noteworthy that while some of the new features that the HDMI 2.1 spec brings to the table will require a new cable, while others will not.
Keep any eye on the second quarters for published specifications of the HDMI 2.1 standard.
