HDMI 2.2 is coming in January and requires new cables

Eight years after the announcement of HDMI 2.1, comes successor version 2.2. The HDMI Forum, as the person responsible for the specification, and the HDMI Licensing Administrator, Inc., as the licensor, invite you to a press conference as part of the CES 2025 electronics trade fair. It is called:

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“The HDMI Forum will announce a new HDMI specification. The new specification, with next-generation HDMI technology and higher bandwidth, enables higher resolutions and a wider range of refresh rates and is supported by a new HDMI cable. The new technology manufacturers “The offerings of content from television, film and gaming studios will provide high quality options now and in the future, enabling multiple distribution platforms.”

in footnotes HDMI 2.2 is clearly mentioned. The press conference will take place on January 6, 2025 at 7 pm German time. The heads of two HDMI organizations, Chandlee Harrell and Rob Tobias, will appear as speakers.

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Just for the next generation graphics cards

Some websites speculate that Nvidia’s next-generation graphics cards GeForce RTX 5000 and AMD’s Radeon RX 8000 may already support HDMI 2.2. Both series are likely to be announced on the same day or next night. However, HDMI 2.2 support in this generation seems unlikely especially if the HDMI Forum had not shared the specification with manufacturers years ago.

To put this in perspective: The HDMI Forum announced version 2.1 at CES in January 2017. The first graphics cards came out in late 2020 in the form of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3000 and AMD’s Radeon RX 6000. Other devices like televisions and AV receivers also took a long time to arrive.

HDMI 2.1 transmits a maximum of 48 gigabits per second. This is no longer enough for 4K resolution (3840 × 2160 pixels) at 240 Hz without compression (arithmetically 55 Gbps with 8 bits per color channel, 69 Gbps with 10 bits). DisplayPort 2.1 achieves 80 Gbit/s in its fastest operating mode, but this is largely limited to PC monitors.

It is not yet known how fast HDMI 2.2 will be. However, the new required cables suggest major changes.

(mma)