Summary
- HDMI advances faster than devices and content can use, so new formats feel premature.
- 8K/16K won’t go mainstream soon—consoles, games, streaming and TVs lag far behind.
- Backward compatibility lets new HDMI work with old gear, so manufacturers keep pushing.
HDMI is a constantly advancing format, and there’s a lot to be excited about. With the advent of HDMI 2.2, things like 16K resolution are promised, and I’m sure that’s big news for some people. Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people. HDMI 2.1 has only now started to see its features utilized in a mainstream way with the Xbox Series X and PS5 console generation. Even then, it’s not as if every game is yet able to maximize HDMI 2.1’s potential, and a lot of that might be due to the hardware limitations of the Xbox and PlayStation.
The point is that if game consoles still can’t reach the ceiling of what HDMI 2.1 can do, what reason is there to be excited about another HDMI format? I like new things as much as the next person, but it’s really only when I can use the new thing. When it comes to HDMI 2.2, I don’t see a world where we start to fully utilize its potential until several years have gone by. At that point, we could very well be looking at another HDMI generation.
Not worth the advancements
HDMI is moving too fast
From where I’m sitting, it doesn’t make much sense to keep pushing the boundaries of what the HDMI format is capable of if we don’t have anything ready to push them. It’s no fun to see technology advancing like this if I can’t even reap the rewards. I mean, all you have to do is look at the current console generation, where 120 FPS was dangled in front of us, but most major titles don’t support that. If the current consoles can’t support the capabilities of the HDMI 2.1 format, then what’s the point in moving on to the next iteration? I don’t imagine we’re going to be streaming 8K or 16K videos from Netflix any time soon either.
There used to be a time when I got excited about new technology, but that was when everything was moving at the same speed. These days, it feels like advancements aren’t quite as synced up as they used to be, so we’re left with things like HDMI 2.2 coming out with nothing to really take advantage of it.
I can’t imagine a world with 8K being the norm any time soon, and it only feels like we’ve just now gotten 4K as the norm. There certainly won’t be any big games any time soon coming out in 8K on a PS5, and I’m not sure if the physical media format is going to move past 4K, considering the DVD format is still the most popular among discs. Sure, there are 8K TVs for sale, but they are far from affordable, and the masses won’t be getting their hands on them for years to come.
To be fair, this isn’t a problem that’s exclusive to just the HDMI format, as we constantly see new technology coming out with no real point. It feels like AI is in a similar boat where it’s capable of doing a lot, but it seems like most people are currently using it as a chatbot.
Maybe it’s not all bad for HDMI
Just wishful thinking
The nice thing about HDMI is the fact that it’s fully backwards compatible. When the time comes to grab an HDMI 2.2 cable, I can buy one and plug it into my PS3 if I’d like without any performance issues. Now, I wouldn’t be reaping any of the benefits the new format brings, but since it’s already difficult to find a 1.4 cable, there could be a time very soon where this is the only option.
I don’t think HDMI manufacturers will slow down with the advancements because there’s really no need for them to with backwards compatibility. If your new cable works with your old devices, there’s no harm in constantly moving forward. I would like to see more devices push HDMI 2.1 to its limits because there are still people using HDMI 2.0 cables with little to no reason to move onto anything newer.
