HDMI 2.0 Specification Announced: 18Gbps bandwidth, 60fps 4K, 32 channel audio

HDMI For­ums Inc., announced the ver­sion 2.0 spe­cific­a­tion. The latest HDMI Spe­cific­a­tion, offers a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in band­width (up to 18 Gbps) to sup­port new fea­tures such as 4K videos @50/60 fps (2160p), which is 4 times the clar­ity of 1080p/​60 video res­ol­u­tion; The new spe­cific­a­tion also sup­ports 32 audio chan­nels; as well as dynam­ic auto lip-sync and exten­sions to CEC.

HDMI 2.0 is also going to be back­ward com­pat­ible with the earli­er HDMI spe­cific­a­tion. Increased band­width provides the infra­struc­ture for new fea­tures that will drive the next gen­er­a­tion of con­sumer entertainment

“The intro­duc­tion of the HDMI 2.0 Spe­cific­a­tion rep­res­ents a major mile­stone for the HDMI For­um,” said Robert Blan­chard of Sony Cor­por­a­tion, pres­id­ent of the HDMI For­um. “Our mem­bers col­lab­or­ated closely to take the highly suc­cess­ful HDMI Spe­cific­a­tion to the next level by expand­ing audio and video fea­tures for con­sumer elec­tron­ics applications.”

The HDMI For­um has chosen HDMI Licens­ing, LLC to be the Agent to license Ver­sion 2.0 of the HDMI Spe­cific­a­tion. In this role, HDMI Licens­ing, LLC will provide mar­ket­ing, pro­mo­tion­al, licens­ing and admin­is­trat­ive ser­vices, as well as edu­ca­tion on the bene­fits of the HDMI Spe­cific­a­tion to adop­ters, retail­ers, and consumers.

Ver­sion 2.0 of the HDMI Spe­cific­a­tion does not define new cables or new con­nect­ors. Cur­rent High Speed cables (cat­egory 2 cables) are cap­able of car­ry­ing the increased band­width. The HDMI 2.0 Com­pli­ance Test Spe­cific­a­tion (CTS) is expec­ted to be released before the end of 2013.

For more inform­a­tion about Ver­sion 2.0 of the HDMI Spe­cific­a­tion please vis­it HDMI.