1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,400 There's no question, HDMI has been a great convenience 2 00:00:03,400 --> 00:00:06,840 for the consumer. Aside from being a high bandwidth connection 3 00:00:06,840 --> 00:00:10,360 that enables high resolution video and lossless audio, 4 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:15,680 it's a lot simpler to use than the old days where you needed three chords for an HD picture 5 00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:18,880 and then up to six more for surround sound. 6 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:22,640 But that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its issues, 7 00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:25,960 some of which are a result of its digital design. 8 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:33,200 Unlike old school analog AV connections, digital protocols like HDMI require a lot more processing, 9 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:37,200 introducing complexity and more potential points of failure. 10 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:43,260 One such issue that's been making headlines recently has to do with new HDMI 2.1 connections. 11 00:00:43,260 --> 00:00:49,120 You can learn more about HDMI 2.1 up here, but in a nutshell, it's an incredibly fast revision 12 00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:54,120 that allows 8K 60 or 4K 120 Hertz pictures, 13 00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:59,440 dynamic HDR and even variable refresh rate support 14 00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:04,480 for gamers to help cut down on ugly screen tearing. Sounds pretty good, right? 15 00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:08,320 Well, it turns out that a widespread HDMI 2.1 chipset 16 00:01:08,320 --> 00:01:11,520 is causing lots of headaches for early adopters. 17 00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:15,200 You see, although tons of companies make HDMI components, 18 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:19,880 many of them source the actual chipsets that run them from the same places. 19 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:23,120 In this case, AV receivers from Denon, 20 00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:30,200 Yamaha and Moranze have all been using a faulty HDMI 2.1 chip from Panasonic. 21 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:35,200 The problem is that when a device is set to 4K 120 Hertz mode 22 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:39,400 and connected to an HDMI 2.1 port on one of these receivers, 23 00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:42,600 the video signal won't be passed through to your display 24 00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:45,960 and no sound will come out of the speakers connected to the receiver. 25 00:01:45,960 --> 00:01:50,160 So congratulations. Your festival of high resolution video and immersive sound 26 00:01:50,160 --> 00:01:54,680 just amounted to a whole lot of nothing. This has been especially disappointing 27 00:01:54,680 --> 00:01:58,160 for folks who bought an Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5 28 00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:01,240 or NVIDIA RTX 3000 series graphics card 29 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:05,480 as all of these devices boasted 4K 120 Hertz support 30 00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:09,240 as big selling points. The only workarounds right now then 31 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:12,960 are either to connect your gadget directly to your display 32 00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:17,840 and use HDMI audio return channel to send the audio signal back to your receiver 33 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:22,160 or just settle for 4K 60 mode until a patch is issued. 34 00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:25,280 That is, assuming that the problem can even be fixed 35 00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:29,280 through software. Although the companies involved are working on a solution, 36 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:35,280 it appears that they don't even know exactly what the problem is as of the time we shot this video. 37 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:40,240 But hold on a second, HDMI is a standard, meaning all the manufacturers have to do 38 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:44,720 is build a product according to the spec, right? How is this broken? 39 00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:52,040 Well, one potential trouble spot is the way that HDMI handles sending and receiving non-video information. 40 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:56,600 This includes identifiers that are exchanged between two connected devices 41 00:02:56,600 --> 00:03:00,960 so that one device knows what's connected to it and what it can do. 42 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:04,880 It also includes plug and play features and HDCP, 43 00:03:04,880 --> 00:03:09,480 which is HDMI's content protection system designed to counter copyright infringement. 44 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:14,660 All of these features are handled by part of the connection that is vulnerable to electrical interference 45 00:03:14,660 --> 00:03:18,600 from other parts of the system, making it a common source of problems. 46 00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:24,520 And of course, if you've ever seen a blank or snowy display over HDMI, there's a good chance 47 00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:27,720 that's because of the HDCP handshaking procedure 48 00:03:27,720 --> 00:03:32,000 that's used to ensure that connected devices are compliant with copy protection. 49 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:35,700 It ain't perfect and often necessitates a power cycle. 50 00:03:35,700 --> 00:03:38,920 Additionally, packing so many features into one cable 51 00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:42,680 not only means that it can be a little hard to switch between inputs, 52 00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:48,420 which is part of what a receiver has to do, but it also means that it is basically impossible 53 00:03:48,420 --> 00:03:53,740 to test every configuration of different HDMI compatible hardware that's out there. 54 00:03:53,740 --> 00:03:58,560 It's similar to how sometimes PC components just don't play nicely with each other, 55 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:02,080 even though they're all supposed to be compliant with certain standards. 56 00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:05,700 The nuances and idiosyncrasies of each individual component 57 00:04:05,700 --> 00:04:08,980 can affect a standard protocol in unforeseen ways, 58 00:04:08,980 --> 00:04:13,400 which is possibly part of what's going on with the current HDMI 2.1 fiasco. 59 00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:18,680 Now, we're not saying that any specific issue we just discussed is the actual culprit. 60 00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:22,040 We're gonna have to wait possibly into next year to find out. 61 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:26,420 In the meantime, hopefully we can all settle for 4K 60 62 00:04:26,420 --> 00:04:31,420 or 1080p 120 or go outside and like play with a stick. 63 00:04:33,240 --> 00:04:38,000 Basically, that's just as entertaining, right? Stick play, no? 64 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:42,440 Thanks for watching guys, check out our other videos, leave a comment if you have a video suggestion 65 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:48,060 and don't forget to subscribe and follow or it's possible that, oh man, I wanted to come up 66 00:04:48,060 --> 00:04:52,760 with a threat that was something to do with the topic of this video, but I've already forgotten what it was. 67 00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:57,360 What were we talking about? I don't know. Yeah, me neither, I wasn't listening. 68 00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:01,160 HDMI, that's right, or all your HDMI connectors will fall off, ha ha!