The body in charge of granting the HDMI certification has changed the rules about the most advanced version of its standard, in such a way that we are going to see devices that come with a false HDMI 2.1 and that, therefore, lack the bandwidth and the features why this differs from previous versions of the popular video transfer standard.
Version 2.1 of the HDMI standard is the most advanced yet and due to its high specifications it will be for a long time. However, many manufacturers are taking advantage of a weak point in the HDMI license to sell cables and devices with worse technical specifications than HDMI 2.1 as if they were.
The fake HDMI 2.1
The reason why we are going to see devices with a false HDMI 2.1 appear that do not meet the minimum specifications, but that will obtain the seal to be sold as such has a very simple explanation: several manufacturers with products that by specifications do not reach the standards have pushed to change the standards of what is considered HDMI 2.1 and what is not. What are the changes that have been made to the certification?
First of all, we must bear in mind that the HDMI 2.0 specification no longer exists, so that all 2.0 devices become 2.1, this being the base standard. And what about all the features that HDMI 2.1 brought over its predecessor?
Well, under the new certification all of them become optional. In other words, manufacturers are going to be allowed to label HDMI 2.0 products as 2.1. In return, manufacturers will need to specify which of the optional features they support and which they don’t. So we can find, for example, a device that does not support all the features or that simply does not have enough bandwidth to reach the highest resolutions such as HDMI 2.1.
In short, the market will be filled with devices with a fake HDMI 2.1 and we will have to go with a magnifying glass so that they do not give us a hoax and pay more for it.
The reasons behind this change
We have to bear in mind that it has not gone lower than HDMI 2.0 in terms of base specification due to the fact that this is necessary for HDPC, which is key for the reproduction of most commercial content and, therefore, copyrighted that has appeared in recent years.
However, the change is not because HDMI 2.0 is good enough, but because of the fact that not all televisions and monitors are the same and for a great majority everything that version 2.1 of the specification brings can not be shown. For example, we may be facing a screen designed to reproduce content at 60 Hz in which VRR is not necessary or that the panel of our monitor does not support dynamic HDR. Although in particular we also have to take into account that not all resolutions require the same bandwidth and it does not make sense to transmit 48 Gbps if, for example, the PC GPU or the card does not support such resolutions.
For example, the PlayStation 5 console has an HDMI port with a bandwidth of 32 Gbps, so it would not comply under the old 2.1 certification, but it is higher than the 18 Gbps of HDMI 2.0 and therefore it is sufficient good enough to allow resolutions to 4K at 120 Hz. Are we going to notice it? For the average user this is not going to make any difference except in the representation of the color being 4: 2: 2 instead of 4: 4: 4, however, it is good enough for the common people. Another omission is the VRR, which will be patched soon by SONY.
