HDMI connectors are notable for the quality, bandwidth and speed of the AV signals they’re able to carry.
HDMI products were first launched in 2002 and since then there have been a number of revisions and official iterations of the HDMI standard, each of which delivered its own updated set of HDMI connector specifications.
Below are official standards and the year they were released.
For the sake of what is relevant in today's home / home cinema setups, we're going to focus on HDMI 2.0 / (a) (b) and HDMI 2.1.
HDMI Version
- HDMI 1.0 (2002)
- HDMI 1.1 (2004)
- HDMI 1.2 and 1.2a (2005)
- HDMI 1.3 (2006)
- HDMI 1.4, 1.4a and 1.4b (2009, 2010, 2011)
- HDMI 2.0, 2.0a and 2.0b (also known as HDMI UHD) (2013, 2015, 2016)
- HDMI 2.1 (2017)
4K protected content requires a cable that supports HDMI 2.0 which includes the ability to pass through HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) which allows an end device (TV/projector) to display the content without the signal path being affected / pulled off.
Content from Sky Q, Sky Mini, Blu Ray, UHD 4K DVD, nvidea Shield, Apple TV 4K etc is all HDCP 2.2 encrypted and as such, needs a quality cable that supports all protocols and will allow content playback.
The later HDMI 2.0 (b) supports UHD / HDR and is required for TV's manufactured from 2017 onwards and where HDMI 2.1 isn't required.
All of the cables for sale at Yorkshire AV allows for HDCP 2.2 (4K) as a minimum and are HDMI 2.0b compliant.
