HDMI 2.1 Explained - By Simplified MFG

Summarized from Richard Kwaseski - Simplified MFG

There is an important development in the HDMI world that is misunderstood, the HDMI 2.1 format.  It will be advertised as 8K (including by SMP), but in reality, it is not ready for primetime for 8K applications.  You can use it for 8K 30Hz. 10-bit color but probably nothing past that as you will have to sacrifice something important (see below).  Much like we do now with 4K and the most widely used HDMI format (HDMI 2.0b). 

This is what is important to understand.  High end 4K signals such as 4K/UHD at 60Hz, RGB or YUV 4:4:4, 10/12-bit color DO NOT fit in the HDMI 2.0b bandwidth.  If you search the web it is full of misinformation on this.  I often get asked if an extender is “4:4:4”.  They are, but you have to give up something else like color depth which is the very last thing you should sacrifice.  This presents the argument of frame rate and Chroma subsampling and which to sacrifice.  This also the very reason that 4K is more difficult than 1080p to distribute as many sources have chosen different sacrifices to get the signal within the 18Gbps pipeline.

So what’s the point? 

It is simple, the HDMI 2.1 format allows us to fully support the entire 4K and 5K format up to 60Hz. and 4K up to 120hz.  No more choosing what to sacrifice.  More importantly, the standardization of 4K/UHD like 1080p is now.  This has already happened on the display side.  The X-BOX-X and PS5 are capable of supporting this.  My guess is that some of the high end Blu-ray devices are/will.  The streamers will follow suit as the standard is set/adopted.

Do I need fiber to support this?  The answer is no!  The EX3-8K supports up to 40Gbps on Cat 6A up to 100m/ 60m on Cat 6.  This means you can move 4K @120Hz. in YUV 4:4:4/RGB deep color on CAT cable.  The best part is that they are available now.

Here is a chart explaining the true bandwidth of the signals below:

With 40Gbps of capability, you can see via the chart what the EX3-8K is capable of.  In addition, it supports 1 Gbps Ethernet passthrough, USB 2.0, RS-232, IR, and a myriad of other things.