- HDMI 2.2 bandwidth increases from 48 Gbps to 96 Gbps
- 4K without compressing at 240Hz and 8k at 60Hz, or 4k tablet at 480Hz and 8k 240Hz
- Not all ports labeled as HDMI 2.2 have to admit the full specification
It is official: the HDMI 2.2 specification has been published, and that means that manufacturers can begin to incorporate it into their products. You will not see it immediately, there is a fair delay between a new specification that is published and the appropriate hardware that is in production, but promises some great improvements and some minor discomfort.
The good news first: provided you have an ultra96 cable, you can take advantage of the 96 Gbps bandwidth compared to the 48 GBPS of HDMI 2.1b.
The bad news: the fact that an HDMI port says “Ultra96” does not mean that it obtains 96 Gbps, because that would be too easy.
Why HDMI 2.2 does not necessarily mean that everything is updated
As Flatpanelshd reports, if a cable says that it is certified ultra96, then it has to deliver 96 Gbps. But if the HDMI 2.2 port of a device says ultra96, it does not. It could be 80 Gbps, or 64 Gbps.
This is because with HDMI 2.2, manufacturers can paste the tag 2.2 / ultra96 in their products, even if those products do not admit each part of the standard.
It is rather a reminiscence of USB-C: the fact that something has a USB-C connector does not mean that it admits any or all the important features that you can expect to do so.
However, the specification is impressive. In addition to better AV device synchronization through the latency and support indication protocol for 4k 240Hz uncompressed and 8K 60Hz, there is DSC Signal Compression 1.2A for even higher resolution formats of up to 16K, although that requires the screen and its video/audio source to admit both HDMI 2.2 and DSC 1.2A, and the last one is optional. And, of course, it also requires that creators commit to doing things in 16k too.
In terms of when you can obtain HDMI 2.2 products, hopefully will happen faster than the two -year gap between the announcement and the arrival of HDMI 2.1. But even in a faster schedule, the HDMI 2.2 televisions are probably seeing for the first time at the end of 2026 or early 2027.
