By Chris Skeldon 
Four years in a rowWe were surprised by the features of HDMI 2.1 – a relatively new video connector standard that can deliver variable refresh rates (VRR), automatic low-latency connections (ALLM), and of course a giant tube with a bandwidth of up to 48 Gbps (and constant rate signaling) for delivery. Resolution up to 10 kB Up to 120Hz refresh rate depending on cable and pressure.
But today I learn that Not only All of these features are technically optional, but the HDMI standard has the chassis Really encourages TV and monitor makers that don’t have any of these things – zip, zilch, zero – are effectively lying and calling it “HDMI 2.1” anyway.
This is the word starting from middle of TFTC, who confronted an HDMI licensing official with news that Xiaomi was selling a “HDMI 2.1” monitor that didn’t support any HDMI 2.1 features and was told that this was a perfectly reasonable case.
It’s annoying.
This means that countless people, some of whom we’ve encouraged in our reviews, to consider HDMI 2.1 products, could be tricked into future spurious protection if they didn’t look at the fine print to see if features like ALLM, VRR, or even higher refresh rates were possible. . Worse, they would be cheated for no particularly good reason: There was a perfectly fine version of HDMI without these features called HDMI 2.0, but the HDMI Licensing Manager decided to drop the mark when he introduced the new version.
Very little of this is really news, I see – Technically, we should know that HDMI 2.1 select features will be optional It’s been some time here On the edge We’ve seen many TV ships without full support. In a story about how to buy Best TV Game for PS5 and Xbox Series XHe described it as “early growing pains”.
But now it looks like these pains may just be the beginning – now that Xiaomi has dipped its toe in murky water and the HDMI powers have expressed their support. We confirm with the HDMI licensing official that, in fact, Xiaomi is already extending the correct something about. “Devices can no longer be certified for version 2.0,” HDMI.org spokesperson Douglas Wright wrote.
“Does HDMI have any comments on the confusion this could cause for consumers?” I order via email. “We all depend on manufacturers and suppliers to properly advertise what features their devices support,” Wright adds.
Do you trust the manufacturer or the salesperson, who is basically trying to sell you as much as they can? Or do you think you can, for example, Specification Authority Should he be responsible for making a stamp that really means something rather than helping or even paying companies to cheat it?
“What about USB?” You may ask. Yes, we are also concerned about the USB-C brand, as there is only one cable theoretically can It allows you to charge your laptop, transfer up to 20Gbps of data, connect multiple monitors, and even connect to an external graphics card, but maybe same Don’t do any of the above. We saw some Similar business tricks From USB too – like when the USB Implementer forum suddenly decided to make USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 look better at retail by calling them “USB 3.2 Gen 1” and “USB 3.2 Gen 2”.
But usually, I feel like USB-IF, at least Try To calm consumer confusion with new combinations of logos and names, even if they are It ends up making many of them remotely viable.
As someone who twice helped family members understand that the number of megapixels has nothing to do with the processing speed of your phone, this is bad. And that’s before we consider that buying cables for these devices is a bad thing as well, with very little guarantee that you’ll get a quality HDMI or USB-C cable that can actually provide enough bandwidth (and in the case of USB-PD, enough wattage) to activate all the features, even If provided by TV, monitor and laptop.
Please do better, standards bodies.