HDMI Forum has released the official specifications for HDMI 2.2. While the tech was originally announced at CES 2025 in January, the exact specs for what it would achieve were all left up to our own imaginations, but it was expected to reach higher resolutions thanks to its 96Gbps bandwidth.
HDMI Forum has now sent the specifications out to manufacturers so they can start adopting the new HDMI 2.2 in either ports or cable products. It is expected that HDMI 2.2 hardware, with support of up to 96Gbps, could be available later in the year.
Of course, HDMI 2.2 won’t be seen in the home for a long time. There’s just no reason why the general public needs it right now. HDMI Forum says the tech doubles the bandwidth of HDMI 2.1 from 48Gbps to 96Gbps. It goes from supporting up to 10K resolutions and 120Hz refresh rates to up to 10K resolutions and 240Hz refresh rates.
The frame rates and resolutions all depend on the tech. HDMI 2.2 supports 4K at 480Hz, 8K at 240Hz, 10K at 120Hz, and 16K at 60Hz. It can also transfer uncompressed video formats with 10-bit and 12-bit colour at 8K 60Hz and 4K 240Hz.
In order to avoid the confusion around HDMI cables, HDMI Forum has decided to call HDMI 2.2 cables “Ultra96”. That way, consumers won’t mix around existing cables such as Standard, High Speed, Premium High Speed, and Ultra High Speed.
HDMI 2.2 also includes the new LIP tech. This Latency Indication Protocol is designed to synchronise audio and video to improve latency between the two. It has specifically been designed to fix audio and video latency that occurs when moving sound between a soundbar/AV receiver and TV. It should prevent that weird 50ms delay between a mouth moving and the voice dialogue coming out of the speaker.
While this is all super cool to see happening, HDMI 2.2 will likely be something one can only dream of using. HDMI 2.1 has been around since 2017, and even in 2025, brands have yet to fully embrace the technology. Consumers have also seen very little need for it. Given how little 8K content exists out there, except for Sony’s PS5, which was first marketed as an 8K console and then ended up never using it, there’s very little to take advantage of.
HDMI 2.2 will be useful outside of consumer environments. Film, research, science, and medical fields are always in need of higher bandwidth, so this technology will likely become mainstream there. But we’ll probably not see a 16K TV for a while.
You can read more about HDMI 2.2 on the HDMI Forum site here.
