Imagine that you buy a brand new TV or monitor. You have chosen it because it has HDMI 2.1 ports , so surely you can connect your PS5 or your Xbox Series X and make the most of them , right? Well no.
It turns out that just because a television or monitor includes HDMI 2.1 ports does not mean that all the benefits of the HDMI 2.1 specification are supported . It seems somewhat absurd, but those responsible for licensing this specification have made it very confusing , and manufacturers may say that their ports are HDMI 2.1, but that they actually offer only compatibility with the HDMI 2.0 standard.
HDMI 2.0 is dead: long live HDMI 2.1
TFT Central discussed a hitherto undiscovered issue that can lead to major disappointments for users of new devices.
They did so for example when talking about the new Xiaomi Fast LCD Monitor , a 24.5-inch model with refresh rates of up to 240 Hz recently launched in China.
The monitor has an HDMI 2.1 port which is not a full HDMI 2.1 actually, because it only supports the TMDS signal protocol. This means that at higher resolutions you cannot take advantage of the higher refresh rate, and therefore it can end up being a disappointment for many users.
Xiaomi actually shows an asterisk next to the HDMI 2.1 port in its specifications, and then indicates in the small print that limitation of a port that has a characteristic that was typical of the HDMI 2.0 standard.
Those responsible for TFT Central contacted the HDMI Licensing Administrator, the entity in charge of validating that manufacturers can say that they have integrated HDMI 2.1 ports in their televisions or monitors.
In doing so, the spokespersons of this entity indicated that " HDMI 2.0 no longer exists " and that "the characteristics of HDMI 2.0 are now a subset of HDMI 2.1". In fact, they emphasized that if a device claims to be 2.1 compliant, it must also indicate what features the device supports so there is "no confusion."
That makes it clear that Xiaomi actually met the requirements: you can say that it has an HDMI 2.1 port because it does (with an asterisk), and that is precisely why you have to be very careful when buying a television or monitor with these ports from now on. , which may be small in print and not have all the benefits of the HDMI 2.1 specification.
The arrival of HDMI 2.1 is great news for users: the advantages are evident if you take advantage of this increase in bandwidth from 18 to 48 Gbps, but be careful because the advantages that we can obtain —for example, play at 4K and 120 Hz on newer consoles or Variable Refresh Rate technology— not guaranteed.
Here users should be alert: we have already started to see the inclusion of HDMI 2.1 ports in many of the 2021 high-end televisions and that will probably be the norm in 2022 in lower ranges, but beware: some manufacturers combined several HDMI 2.0 ports with a "full" HDMI 2.1 port.
To that is now added this new confusion that forces users to be very careful when buying a new monitor or a television with HDMI 2.1 ports. Read the fine print carefully, lest those HDMI 2.1 ports are not "real" HDMI 2.1 ports.