As announced on www.slashcam.de/news/single/HDMI-2-2-bringt-hoehere-Aufloesungen-und-Bildraten-18998.html, the HDMI organization officially unveiled the new HDMI 2.2 standard at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The biggest innovation is the doubling of the maximum bandwidth from 48 Gbit/s to an impressive 96 Gbit/s.
The new Ultra96 cable
This significantly surpasses the previous maximum uncompressed video resolution of up to 8K/10K at 30 Hz (compressed up to 100 Hz), as 4K UltraHD (4:4:4 with 10 and 12 bit) video with a refresh rate of 240 fps is now possible uncompressed compressed using Display Stream Compression (DSC), even 12K (12,288 x 6,480 pixels) at a maximum of 60 fps and 4K at 480 fps is possible. However, the highest resolutions (i.e., data rates) can only be achieved with a new cable called "Ultra96". The following table shows the maximum possible combinations of resolution, frame rate, and color depth with old and new cables, with and without compression (which must also be supported by the display and graphics card used).
Supported video formats
However, it will take some time until HDMI 2.2 is available in new hardware apart from the fact that normal users will hardly benefit from the new possibilities due to the increased bandwidth only gamers might appreciate displaying 4K with an extremely high refresh rate of 240 fps. Therefore, the press release focuses more on data-intensive immersive and virtual applications such as AR/VR/MR and large-area displays as application areas.
For consumers, the increased bandwidth would be more relevant if it were possible to supply multiple displays with data using only one cable via a multi-stream protocol ("Daisy Chaining") however, only the DisplayPort protocol can do this.
Improved Latency Indication Protocol (LIP)
Another innovation of HDMI 2.2 is the new Latency Indication Protocol (LIP). This feature improves the synchronization between audio and video, especially in complex home cinema setups with multiple players such as soundbars and AV receivers. LIP marks the audio track with timestamps so that connected devices can exchange and compensate for latency times.
Comparison of different resolutions
New Ultra96 Cables
At CES 2025, a prototype of the new Ultra96 cable was presented, already bearing the inscription "16K" in anticipation of future resolutions. These cables are specifically designed to support the higher bandwidth and will be available from the third quarter of 2025.
DisplayPort Update to Version 2.1b
Almost simultaneously with HDMI 2.2, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) announced an update to the DisplayPort 2.1 specification, raising it to version DisplayPort 2.1b. This will result in new DP80LL ("low loss") active cables that support up to four lanes of UHBR20 link rates and achieve a maximum throughput of 80 Gbps over lengths of up to three meters. This improvement triples the cable length for UHBR20 connections compared to existing passive DP80 cables.
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