As for the new cable business, is there a way for the devices to detect the version of the cable (maybe resistor strapping or something)?
The reason I ask is because HDMI cables are passive, so any cable with all of the pins populated should be able to work, provided it's able to satisfy the bandwidth requirements. In other words, I'm wondering if these new HDMI 2.1 cables are just regular HDMI cables with better electrical characteristics. If so, then I bet older HDMI cables will work as long as they’re kept short.
I also wonder how this variable refresh rate thing relates to the recent AMD FreeSync over HDMI thing...
I imagine it is like PCI-Express where they link up at the lowest bandwidth possible (x1 in the case of PCIe) and then keep attempting higher bandwidth modes (x4,x8,x16) until the the transceivers can no longer link and then step down one mode.
Is this what windows was trying to do when I hooked it up to my TV the other day? For some apps it kept trying to cycle through resolutions (and never found a stable point).
It's not written in the article how the cables are different. If the new ones user more differential lanes (like USB3 does over USB2) that could of course be detected by the transceivers. If it's still the same amount of lanes but only tighter electrical requirements then the old cables could still work.
The reason I ask is because HDMI cables are passive, so any cable with all of the pins populated should be able to work, provided it's able to satisfy the bandwidth requirements. In other words, I'm wondering if these new HDMI 2.1 cables are just regular HDMI cables with better electrical characteristics. If so, then I bet older HDMI cables will work as long as they’re kept short.
I also wonder how this variable refresh rate thing relates to the recent AMD FreeSync over HDMI thing...