HDMI 2.0 Officially Announced

jones_supa writes with news that HDMI 2.0 is out. From Engadget "The folks at HDMI Licensing are announcing HDMI 2.0 officially. Arriving just in time for the wide rollout of a new generation of Ultra HDTVs, it adds a few key capabilities to the standard. With a bandwidth capacity of up to 18Gbps, HDMI 2.0 has the ability to carry 3,840 x 2,160 resolution video at 60fps. It also has support for up to 32 audio channels, 'dynamic auto lipsync' and additional CEC extensions. The physical cables and connectors remain unchanged." Just like HDMI 1.4, the specification is only available to HDMI Forum members.

Comments

Re:And how many new restrictions?

[h4rr4r]

No, HDMI is all about audio and video on the same cable. HDCP is the DRM you are talking about.

Re:THROW AWAY YOUR OLD AND BUY THE NEW !!

[oji-sama]

"Version 2.0 of the HDMI Specification, which is backward compatible with earlier versions of the Specification[...]"

Re:And how many new restrictions?

[Billly Gates]

No it is not manditory.

However, operating systems like Windows 7 will degrade video quality if they detect a non HDMI cable for blue-Ray content in the RC releases so this way MPAA can make people think DRM HDMI is better.

I use HDMI on my machine due to convenience of less cables and I hate the sound on my mobo. Not because I believe it is better video quality.

But it is just a cable and nothing else. The DRM HDCP is dependent on OS support.

Re:And how many new restrictions?

[markkezner]

digital signal all the way to the monitor means better audio quality (speakers are in monitor).

Seriously bro? Any miniature benefit that digital audio signals would have given you is completely blown away by using speakers that are integrated into your monitor. Integrated speakers are just universally bad, full stop. I'm not talking about an audiophile's definition of bad, either; I bet my grandma could hear the difference.

I'd wager that given the same sound source, a stereo analog signal going into standard desktop computer speakers will sound better than your pure digital setup through your computer monitor.

If this was a troll, well, you deserve a beer, cause you got me.

Why and how would HDMI do CC?

[Sycraft-fu]

HDMI is video and audio transport. Closed captioning works fine over it, since it comes from the video source. Be it your cable, DVD, Blu-ray, whatever, the CC information is processed on the relevant device, and then sent out as part of the video.

Asking HDMI to do closed captioning is like asking Ethernet to do packet filtering: You are looking at the wrong area.

Re:Why and how would HDMI do CC?

[Anonymous Coward]

In USA, the previous video transport technology (composite video) did handle closed captioning. Technically speaking, it was encoded into part of the non-picture area of the video signal (which is exactly how HDMI handles audio). Logically speaking, it makes as much sense as anything else; video goes and text goes with it.

Practically speaking, it gave the end user a lot of control over how the captioning was presented; you could record captioned video and then play back at a later time with or without the captions active. You could use special accessibility hardware to show GIANT BIG LETTERS for grandma, instead of having the captions show on the TV.

You can still do those things, but it's harder now because by the time the video stream has reached HDMI, the captions are either gone and unrecoverable or burned into the video stream and unremovable. Each input source has to handle captioning in its own way with its own methods, and some are friendlier than others....

I guess I'm not sure what's the best solution overall, but the idea of captions in an uncompressed video stream ready for presentation certainly has some merit and we lasted with it for a few decades.

What You're Missing

[Anonymous Coward]

my blu rays play just fine on my TV. what exactly am i missing?

You're missing the ability to access the HDMI channel, more specifically the HDCP channel, that your Blu-Ray disc is playing across. Many would use this access to record/copy the video stream, possibly for piracy which is what the DRM is designed to prevent. But, many others would like to be able to access the video stream to do things like:

* Add our own news crawler, or pop-up alerts from our home automation systems.
* We'd like to pop-up caller ID from our PBX while the video is playing.
* Allow the home automation system to mute the Blu-Ray's audio and make an announcement.
* We'd like the ability to switch video feeds on a particular HDMI interface in software, so we don't have to use convoluted mechanical HDMI switchers and computer controlled IR blasters to control the HDMI switch.
* Similar to above; switch our security cameras/gate video on the fly.

All of these things were possible with previously unDRMed interfaces. But, using those interfaces now cause the Blu-Ray player to artificially and significantly reduce the playback resolution. Instead of watching 1080p, the Blu-Ray restricts the video down to 720p or less.

Re:And how many new restrictions?

[aliquis]

Lots of monitors support DisplayPort. Maybe you mean Thunderbolt?

DVI is a dead/dying format so don't worry about that one.

Personally I agree with you as far as cables go.

If nothing else because DisplayPort already did it and because I think it's ridicilous with lots of ports on everything (especially if the purpose in some cases may have been to make a new one to not have to pay license fees ..) I'd rather see this new standard never released and everyone using DisplayPort.

But I guess there will be camps for both and lots of people who are already invested in either option.

At least DVI is a dead end and will be removed. And well, VGA? Yeah .. :D

Also can't they do shit for real? At least make it support 120 Hz from the beginning, possibly all the way to UHD 8K to.

At least they kept the same cable as said, so not much worse than the progress over the analog cables and connectors I guess (better graphic card or monitor = better abilities but still same port, cable and connectors.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort