Next-Gen HDMI Spec to Sport Mobile Capability, Higher Bandwidth

LAS VEGAS -- The HDMI Forum, launched in October to develop the next generation of HDMI -- “the “future of connectivity” -- plans to release the next version in second half 2012, said Rambo Jacoby, marketing manager for Nvidia and member of the HDMI Forum’s board, at the company’s pre-CES news conference Monday.

Stressing that the forum is open to any company that wants to participate and will pay the $15,000 annual membership fee, Jacoby said the new spec will “address the most immediate needs of the market,” including a focus on mobile devices. He referred to a “revolution in the display industry” where advances in displays, receiver and transmitters are transitioning to higher resolutions and refresh rates and deeper color rendering. “Displays are no longer passive devices that sit in dens but are turning into active extensions of handheld devices,” Jacoby said.

Member count of the non-profit HDMI Forum is 43 as of December, according to Arnold Brown, chairman of the forum, who said membership draws from the CE, computer and semiconductor industries. At the end of 2011, there were 1,166 HDMI adopters, according to Steve Venuti, president, HDMI Licensing, and the company continues to see growth among niche commercial adopters. New companies are still adding HDMI, Venuti said.

Jacoby encouraged forum members to “speak up” and let the organization understand its needs for future generation specs. The general membership has submitted “dozens” of proposals for the next spec, Jacoby said, and technical and marketing workgroups are working through the proposals for how HDMI can meet the needs of the future, including high-bandwidth 4K x 2K signals at 60Hz. Video at 4K represents a doubling of the bandwidth currently possible with HDMI 1.4, Venuti said. Jacoby said the group would also broaden video timing support to accommodate Europe and other regions with 3D, he said.

A major push will be to “evolve the specification” so it becomes more “friendly” to mobile devices,” Jacoby said. That includes being able to charge the device when it’s connected to the display and the ability to change voltages on the interface so it can be more efficient when connected to a handheld device, he said. HDMI Forum is also looking to improve command and control capabilities of the spec, such as updating the CEC protocol “to make it more relevant” and adding an auxiliary sideband channel for bidirectional communication between the two devices, Jacoby said.

In response to a question about whether becoming “more friendly” will result in HDMI losing the ability to be innovative, and downgrading to “the lowest common denominator,” Arnold said HDMI’s original charter was to react quickly to the marketplace with an initial focus on TVs and source devices. The vision now, he said, is to expand. “We need other industry players and a broad ecosystem” to move forward, he said, calling it “a good thing.” The forum “doesn’t view it as downgrading but as looking toward the future,” he said. Jacoby added that HDMI’s focus isn’t just on CE anymore but the organization is getting “substantial input” from other industries including cable, computers and chipset makers that are “going to make it a better brand."

Small-market connectivity competitors HDBaseT and DiiVA include a power component in their single-cable AV connectivity solutions, and when we asked Jacoby if power would be a component of the next HDMI spec, he said, a power component is on the list of requirements that’s being provided to the marketing work groups. “We're working on incorporating that and deciding when to roll that into the specification,” he said.

That’s not likely to be in the next version, though, as Jacoby said the three main advances members are pressing for currently are led by “getting to higher resolutions.” As social networking connections improve, higher resolution displays will be necessary to view high-res photography in a “smooth” way, he said. Also in the 2012 spec are an increase in the number of formats supported, compatibility between displays and phones either through charging capability or compatible voltages, and improved control, he said.

The next version of HDMI hasn’t been named yet, Jacoby said. In response to an audience question about consumer confusion over HDMI versions and packaging, Venuti acknowledged there are still manufacturers selling HDMI product with version numbers despite HDMI Licensing’s edict that packages can’t list version numbers as of Jan. 1 of this year. “That’s our job to tell people that’s not allowed,” he said, “so we're doing that.” Moving forward, the HDMI Forum understands that “whatever we do has to take into consideration that we need to minimize customer confusion,” Venuti said. How that plays out “remains to be determined,” he said.

One of the ongoing limitations of HDMI, which spawned competitors, is its limitation in long-run uses. In response to a question about plans to offer an active solution for HDMI that could accommodate long cable runs and a locking mechanism, Jacoby said “so far they haven’t been at the top of the list.”

Long runs are a serious issue in the installation world, Bernd Hesse, product marketing manager at G&BL, a German cable maker, told us. Most HDMI applications max out at 30 feet, he said. The company’s repeaters can extend an HDMI run to 82 feet, he said, but it’s very expensive and the solution can’t handle high-bandwidth signals. Most consumers currently have low-bandwidth needs of about 2-4 gigabytes per second for Blu-ray to the TV, he said. Hesse’s concern is about 4K signals in the future and how the next spec will handle four times the resolution. “I hope they support active cables in the future,” he said, “so the consumer is sure the picture is delivered.” Hesse has spoken both to HDBaseT and DiiVA about their long-run solutions over Cat 5, but market penetration is a major drawback, he said, adding that HDMI has 98 percent of the AV connectivity market, and the universes for those two solutions are “far too small.” The next possibility is wireless connectivity, but wireless is plagued by bandwidth limitations,” he said.