Ask S&V

Q I’m preparing to make a big, across-the-board system upgrade, much like I did several years back when HDMI 1.3 became standard for most devices. Will I need to replace my 5-year-old HDMI cables with new, higher speed ones to accommodate 4K video and HDMI 2.0/HDPC 2.2? —Mark Johnson

A HDMI has undergone a bunch of changes since your last upgrade. Versions 1.4/1.4a added both 4K and 3D video support plus an Audio Return Channel (ARC) feature that allows digital audio to be routed back from an HDTV to an ARC-compatible receiver. HDMI 2.0 bumped the interface bandwidth up from 10.2 Gb/s to 18 Gb/s, an upgrade that enabled support for 4K video at 60 frames-per-second along with a Rec. 2020 color gamut.

As for HDCP 2.2, a number of first-gen UHDTVs and AV receivers with HDMI 2.0 connections lacked support for that new copy protection technology—one required for UHDTVs to display 4K video from sources like forthcoming UHD Blu-ray players—out of the gate, but virtually all models shipped since late 2014 are compatible with it. Oh yeah, the latest new HDMI flavor, version 2.0a, supports the transmission of High Dynamic Range (HDR) format images.

The good news here is that any High Speed cables you purchased during your last HDMI 1.3-centric upgrade should work fine for the new HDMI versions up to and including 2.0a. According to a FAQ on the HDMI Forum website, “HDMI 2.0 does not define new cables or new connectors. Current High Speed cables (Category 2 cables) are capable of carrying the increased bandwidth.” So at least that’s one less item you’ll need to buy during your big, across-the-board AV upgrade.