CES this week was filled with awesome new technology (and some downright strange ones) for us to talk about at length. However one that particularly caught my eye was a new HDMI standard that will soon reach the market (yes, another one). The new spec was announced at the trade show Wednesday, and it promises to bring higher-res content to faster-refresh screens for the foreseeable future.
Compatible displays will be capable of “10K” resolutions thanks to the new HDMI 2.1 standard – That 10k could imply a 16:9 multiple in line with the UHD versions of 4K (3840×2160) and 8K (7680×4320). To think it was only recently that 8k capable televisions began to surface, all with ludicrous prices attached to them. The average personn will be forgiven for not being able to grasp what 10K will truly mean. It will be a waste of time for us to calculate how many pixels that will actually be; you just have to know it’s a lot.
This HDMI spec also brings along with it an interesting feature for us gamers called “Game Mode VRR”. The VRR – which stands for variable refresh rate – is set to be massively important for computers and consoles; usually, that’s when gamers either see “torn” or dropped frames as the hardware in question can’t draw a full frame in time for the expected 30Hz or 60Hz refresh. Displays that are built with AMD’s FreeSync and Nvidia’s G-Sync will have the ability to natively draw a frame of imagery whenever it’s read and not be locked into a set refresh cycle as it is now.
So when should we expect this new standard to hit consumer markets? No time soon is the most truthful statement we can give you at the moment. The HDMI Forum’s announcement comes well before HDMI 2.1 will be finalized and the Forum tells device manufacturers that they will have to wait until the vague time frame of “Q2/Q3 2017” to learn its exact makeup.
Stay tuned. It’s expected that more information on this exciting new standard will be made available in the upcoming weeks and months.
