ISE 2025: HDMI 2.2 Has Been Announced, We Talked with Kordz to Find Out What It Means For Enthusiasts

(February 18, 2025) The official announcement of HDMI 2.2 has stoked the flames of excitement while also posing as a source of dread as enthusiasts begin to wonder what it ultimately means for them and their current systems.

When will HDMI 2.2 become relevant?

When will we see compatible content?

Will we all need to buy new cables?

What does 2.2 mean for manufacturers?

These are reasonable questions, and who better to ask than Ben Yeh, Operations Director at the well-known cable manufacturer Kordz! We caught up with Ben on the show floor at ISE 2025 and had a great conversation. You can watch the full interview below.

Related Reading:

• Just When You Thought The HDMI Rat Race Had Ended, HDMI 2.2 Gets Announced
• Just Ask Bob; Free Advice on how to adopt HDMI into your older audio system
• Murideo Unveils STIX HDMI Generator and Analyzer for 8K Testing Needs

 

[Bob Rapoport]

View attachment 78250
(February 18, 2025) The official announcement of HDMI 2.2 has stoked the flames of excitement while also posing as a source of dread as enthusiasts begin to wonder what it ultimately means for them and their current systems.

When will HDMI 2.2 become relevant?

When will we see compatible content?

Will we all need to buy new cables?

What does 2.2 mean for manufacturers?

These are reasonable questions, and who better to ask than Ben Yeh, Operations Director at the well-known cable manufacturer Kordz! We caught up with Ben on the show floor at ISE 2025 and had a great conversation. You can watch the full interview below.

Related Reading:

• Just When You Thought The HDMI Rat Race Had Ended, HDMI 2.2 Gets Announced
• Just Ask Bob; Free Advice on how to adopt HDMI into your older audio system
• Murideo Unveils STIX HDMI Generator and Analyzer for 8K Testing Needs

View attachment 78250
(February 18, 2025) The official announcement of HDMI 2.2 has stoked the flames of excitement while also posing as a source of dread as enthusiasts begin to wonder what it ultimately means for them and their current systems.

When will HDMI 2.2 become relevant?

When will we see compatible content?

Will we all need to buy new cables?

What does 2.2 mean for manufacturers?

These are reasonable questions, and who better to ask than Ben Yeh, Operations Director at the well-known cable manufacturer Kordz! We caught up with Ben on the show floor at ISE 2025 and had a great conversation. You can watch the full interview below.

Related Reading:

• Just When You Thought The HDMI Rat Race Had Ended, HDMI 2.2 Gets Announced
• Just Ask Bob; Free Advice on how to adopt HDMI into your older audio system
• Murideo Unveils STIX HDMI Generator and Analyzer for 8K Testing Needs

After 20 years of evolving HDMI versions, its safe to say that the first thing to know is never be an early adopter of a new version of HDMI. v2.1 was followed by v2.1a and v2.1b, adopting v2.1 when it first appeared lead to early obsolescence. The same happened to v1.3, v1.4, and v2.0, all followed by extensions that added more features. v2.1 added 8K definition, VRR, and eARC but the Studios quickly announced there would be no movies or concerts released in 8K because the deployment of 4K TVs was still going slowly, nowhere near saturation.
8K TVs appeared but we all had to feed them with 4K content and rely on the TVs upscaling to fill up all those pixels. 8K was more about screen size than definition. Now with v2.2, the definition increases to 10K, 12K, and 16K and no software will be released. v2.1 and v2.2 are better suited to ProAV applications like digital advertising on buildings in Times Square and the Vegas Strip, & stadium scoreboards. They are not consumer applications unless you're a video gamer.
Today's best content is native 4K on Blu-ray and 4K AV streaming. All you need for those is v2.0b, the mature version of v2.0.

 

[Todd Anderson]

After 20 years of evolving HDMI versions, its safe to say that the first thing to know is never be an early adopter of a new version of HDMI. v2.1 was followed by v2.1a and v2.1b, adopting v2.1 when it first appeared lead to early obsolescence. The same happened to v1.3, v1.4, and v2.0, all followed by extensions that added more features. v2.1 added 8K definition, VRR, and eARC but the Studios quickly announced there would be no movies or concerts released in 8K because the deployment of 4K TVs was still going slowly, nowhere near saturation.
8K TVs appeared but we all had to feed them with 4K content and rely on the TVs upscaling to fill up all those pixels. 8K was more about screen size than definition. Now with v2.2, the definition increases to 10K, 12K, and 16K and no software will be released. v2.1 and v2.2 are better suited to ProAV applications like digital advertising on buildings in Times Square and the Vegas Strip, & stadium scoreboards. They are not consumer applications unless you're a video gamer.
Today's best content is native 4K on Blu-ray and 4K AV streaming. All you need for those is v2.0b, the mature version of v2.0.

I talked to someone that specializes in HDMI about the likelihood of 2.2 gravitating toward commercial applications first - and almost exclusively so. They said that it was likely going to be mainly residential, and that display port is the preferred commercial connection, but even at that, most commercial applications are still relying heavily on 1080p.

I thought that was interesting because my initial thought was commercial and primarily commercial for the opening years of 2.2's existence.

So, who knows. If they're right, and based on their position in the industry, I'm assuming they probably have a good pulse, then the roll out of 2.2 will take years upon years. I don't see residential customers

 

[Bob Rapoport]

I talked to someone that specializes in HDMI about the likelihood of 2.2 gravitating toward commercial applications first - and almost exclusively so. They said that it was likely going to be mainly residential, and that display port is the preferred commercial connection, but even at that, most commercial applications are still relying heavily on 1080p.

I thought that was interesting because my initial thought was commercial and primarily commercial for the opening years of 2.2's existence.

So, who knows. If they're right, and based on their position in the industry, I'm assuming they probably have a good pulse, then the roll out of 2.2 will take years upon years. I don't see residential customers

I agree with you Todd, residential customers rejected 8K TVs when they found out there would be no content for them. The confusion made consumers angry, wondering if they needed new HDMI v2.1 cables and sources. Dealers rejected v2.1 due to complaints from their customers about being hyped into buying yet another new version of HDMI for which no content was available except for a few video games. With v2.2, consumers will feel hyped again. 10K TVs will not be available, there's no reason to change sources and cables again for a format that nobody needs.

As I mentioned earlier, I learned the hard way to never be an early adopter of a new version of HDMI.

The stores all promote 4K TVs, that's the safe space for the dealers and consumers with streaming content plentiful now and a growing catalog of 4K Blu-ray movie and concert releases. I was on the original team that introduced HDMI to the American marketplace and I manufacture HDMI DACs with the mature version of v2.0b, its stable and I think more reliable than v2.1. 4K deployment is still a long way off from saturation.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Your words remind me of an article I wrote on my flight home from CES 2019…

Thread 'The Death of High-Performance Audio at CES and 8K Musings'

Jan 13, 2019

The Death of High-Performance Audio at CES and 8K Musings​

(January 11, 2019) Jason Knott (CePro) punctuated last year’s CES media coverage with a brutal take on the declining presence of high-performance audio at the yearly expo. At the time, said audio occupied just two floors of The Venetian Resort and, as Knott detailed, exhibitors were grumbling that hallways were relatively devoid of bodies. It’s not that CES attendee numbers were (or are) on the decline – far from it. Much like this year, the 2018 version of the show found the North, Central...

• Todd Anderson
• Replies: 18
• Forum: AV Industry News

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