After attending the HDMI 2.2 briefing on June 25, Michael Heiss breaks down the standard’s ongoing development with a tongue-in-cheek analogy.
In many ways, HDMI 2.2 reminds me of the birthing process in at least two ways. That may sound silly, but hear me out.
Elephants have a gestation period just shy of two years, while Frilled sharks have the longest of any vertebrate - three years. Yikes. I know prospective mums get a bit antsy as they move towards the end of term, but at least it’s not as bad as these!
I bring it up because the folks at HDMI have, more than once, announced a new standard that we all talk about but don’t see for many months. Such has it been with the new HDMI 2.2 standard. It was announced at CES back in January 2025 and, as of June 25, news has broken of the standard’s release.
In fairness, HDMI’s announcement at CES also mentioned the standard would not be final and released until June. However, a launch doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see products right away or any time soon.
With that in mind, we come back to the birthing analogy – as an infant takes time to develop, so do the products for a new standard.
During its press briefing, the HDMI executives said we can expect to see products with the new system towards the end of the year. After all, there probably aren’t any HDMI 2.2 parts yet and that will take time.
Yes, the standard is here, but any new product featuring it requires fully compliant software and hardware. You get the picture: HDMI 2.2 has arrived in one respect, but it will still be a while before you can buy a source, receiver or sink product with it.
Best guess from here? Perhaps before the end of the year.
Are you listening Apple? How about HDMI 2.2 in a new Apple 4K (or 8K?) TV, ready to sit under your tree this year? Hmm. Maybe that elephant-like gestation period from announcement to product isn’t all that far off, after all.
It's always good to provide a reality check for your knowledgeable clients and prospects, who will most likely read the popular press and ask for something with HDMI 2.2 now. Ain’t possible, I’m afraid.
4K/8K comparison
Pushing the theme here, but ours was a premature baby and didn’t make it to term. All eventually good as he is now almost 39, but we learned one interesting thing at the time: in Los Angeles County you can’t take an infant home until you decide on a name.
Given his early arrival, we hadn’t settled on “Daniel Lawrence” until the staff told us we had to get out of the hospital and pick a name.
And so it is with HDMI 2.2. The standard now can, if you will, leave the maternity ward. It too has a name: Ultra96.
It’s most likely that brands will use the more recognisable HDMI 2.2 moniker more often, but at least the name is there.
That isn’t a bad thing, as it does bring you to one of the more promotional features of the format: bandwidth capability of up to 96Gbps. That’s more than enough to handle just about any format you can throw at it.
With HDMI 2.2 devices, HDMI Ultra High Speed Cables and even format combinations of Display Stream Compression (DSC) for some, you can accommodate and view 4K at 400/480fps, 8K at 400/480fps and – hold on to your hats and eyeballs – 16K at 50/60fps.
To get the benefits of the new Ultra96, HDMI 2.2 format, Ultra High Speed Cables will be a necessity. Look for the verifications to avoid counterfits.
Are those sources common place? Perhaps not so much at this time, but look at gaming applications with the latest PC video cards, future data-intensive, immersive, VR/AR/MR products, spatial reality and light field displays.
Consider the industrial applications for “Factory 4.0”, high-end/high-resolution video conferencing, medical, machine vision, scientific imaging and other ecosystem applications beyond residential; manifold new opportunities to expand your business.
The new Ultra High Speed Cables (UHS) are also part of the extended birthing process, as they are expected to hit the market in the later half of this year. With the reminder again that the UHS cables will be key to accessing the bandwidth and features for Ultra96, you are encouraged to look for them where they are needed.
To assist with that and help you avoid cables claiming to be Ultra96 UHS but aren’t, HDMI is expanding its Certified Cable programme to include the new Stock Keeping Units (SKUs).
You’ll not only see the branding on the cable jacket, but the packaging and cable tags will have verifiable holographic stickers and a QR code to verify the product is what it claims to be.
Beyond that, one more use of our theme for today: for the most part, the HDMI announcements were much like when the parents have already had a “gender reveal” and know what colour to paint the nursery, but no news when the child is born. That’s more or less the same thing here.
At CES, there were no new features announced as the bandwidth and resulting video format capabilities were revealed. It’s worth a reminder that one of the new features of Ultra96 will be HDMI Latency Indication Protocol (LIP).
LIP may be the big advancement for HDMI 2.2, just as VRR and eARC might be considered the biggest benefits that HDMI 2.1 brought us.
LIP will improve video/audio sync with the wider range of system configurations we have in AVRs, processors and soundbars managing streaming devices and services, Connected TVs (CTV), game consoles and PC gamers.
Particularly with larger screens and faster game content action, lip sync will become more noticeable while out-of-sync audio will be an annoyance you must avoid. LIP will hopefully reduce or eliminate that.
Speaking of gestation periods, I think this article has exceeded its time, so let’s end it here. The takeaway summary: the HDMI 2.2 standard is final and released, the go-to-market name will be “Ultra96”, to get the benefits of the standard you will need Ultra High Speed cables, and the first cables will most likely appear towards the end of this year, possibly with more to come at CES in January 2026.
As with any infant, one of the curiosities is often how big it will grow. We’ll see how this one turns out.