HDMI 2.2 vs. DisplayPort 2.1b: The future of display connectors, explained
What is HDMI 2.2?
At CES 2025, the HDMI Forum announced HDMI 2.2 (PDF), the next-generation HDMI standard. While remaining backward-compatible, it increases bandwidth and support for higher resolutions and refresh rates, as well as latency-reduction technologies to improve audio and visual synchronization.
Like how HDMI 2.1 made big improvements over its predecessor, HDMI 2.2 brings another jump in bandwidth — from HDMI 2.1’s 48Gbps to now 96Gbps — and a new cable to handle the additional throughput.
HDMI Forum
Chandlee Harrell, president of the HDMI Forum, said during the initial announcement: “This new specification supports the fast-evolving landscape for amazing new technologies and products entering the markets, now and in the future.” That’s key to this development. For as capable as HDMI 2.1 was, it was quickly outstripped by DisplayPort 2.1 and USB4/Thunderbolt 5 with their bandwidth up to 80Gbps.
Although HDMI 2.1 is king of the living room, helping to connect modern TVs with gaming consoles, A/V systems, and 4K Blu-ray players, it’s already hitting its limits. Any further home media advances would need greater bandwidth — and that’s where HDMI 2.2 comes in.
These new HDMI 2.2 cables have been branded as Ultra96 cables. With 96Gbps of total throughput, an Ultra96 cable can theoretically support 8K video at up to 240Hz or 10K video at up to 120Hz or 4K video at up to 480Hz. Those are some blazingly fast refresh rates!
HDMI Forum
The HDMI Forum suggests that HDMI 2.2 would be a great fit for future augmented reality and virtual reality headsets, light field displays, medical imaging, and large-scale signage. In more traditional settings, the new Latency Indication Protocol should improve syncing between audio and video (e.g., lipsyncing in movies and TV shows).
The only downside to all these advances? You’ll need those new Ultra96 cables to enjoy them, which will be debuting later in 2025, with supporting devices and displays to follow. Ultra96 cables will be backward-compatible, so you can replace all your existing HDMI cables with them and still use your pre-HDMI 2.2 devices.
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