Why HDMI 2.2 is equal parts overkill and the future of TV and gaming
Version 2.2 of the HDMI Specification is here, because we weren't blazing ahead into eyeball-dazzling televisual overkill enough already.
The new spec ramps up maximum bandwidth from 48Gbps to 96Gbps, and supports resolutions up to a whopping 16K resolution at 60Hz. That's 15,360x8640px. You could tile 16 4K images – or 64 1080p images – within the same space, if you were very bored and didn't have anything better to do.
But come on: do we really need 16K? According to our team here at Stuff, no. And also, yes.
16K? Pfft. Just buy 16 4K TVs and a big tube of glue instead. Or something.
Why I don't need 16K in my life
Craig Grannell, regular Stuff contributor and irregular grumpy old person
Maybe it's my age. OK, definitely my age. But as new specs whoosh past my face, there comes a point where I think: enough. Like with 16K.
I come from a pre-HD world. Games with pixels so chunky you could cut yourself on them. Video so fuzzy that, when watching it today, you'd swear your internet was broken. So I'm not anti-upgrade.
The leap from SD to HD was huge. 4K? Not so much, unless your TV covers an entire wall. So most upgrades have felt like diminishing returns, alongside diminishing bank accounts while trying to keep up. Or maybe it's my diminishing eyesight. But do eyes even support 16K? I'm reminded of audiophiles raving about remastered albums with audio ranges you'd need to be part bat, part elephant to appreciate. Can you really see 16K?
'Aha!' say some folks. 'It's not about size – it's about sharpness!' TVs and monitors as crisp as a phone's display, for pin-sharp footage when your nose is pressed up against the glass. Or a future of face-mounted gadgets for people who consider the vaguest hint of a visible pixel a crime against technology, humanity and reality.
Fine. Maybe this is my own (wrongly attributed) Bill Gates quote. But rather than saying 640k is enough for everyone, I'm arguing for 4K. Or definitely 8K. Because it's not like we're drowning in 4K content, let alone 8K. 'But the future', you might cry, as your closing move. Sure. Good luck flinging 16K footage around without melting broadband and blowing up budgets.
Still, if I'm wrong, feel free to dig up this column a decade from now while watching Captain Spider-Panther and the Miracle of Merch (Because We're Not Even pretending Now) in glorious 16K.
Why I'm 16K all the way
Tom Morgan-Freelander, Stuff deputy editor and irritatingly optimistic youngling
If my glasses prescription is any indication, you really don't need 20/20 vision to spot the difference between HD and 4K – so imagine how much detail will be on show once Netflix starts streaming Is it Cake in glorious 16K. You'll almost be able to taste the frosting!
OK, it'll take a lot more than a new HDMI spec before that happens. We need cameras with big enough sensors to film the content in the first place. The file sizes will be astronomical. And no commercially available screen has that many pixels. Sony would allegedly sell you one as early as 2019, if you had a cool $5 million – and space for a display 17 meters wide. The tech has come a long way since then, but 8K is still where most TV brands draw the line.
HDMI 2.1 took two years to arrive, so the upgrade isn't going to appear overnight. Still, we've got to start somewhere, right?
Black Magic, Red, Sony and Canon are almost certainly hard at work on the camera hardware; people far smarter than I are figuring out the algorithms to keep those file sizes in check; and ever-faster broadband speeds are laying the groundwork for 16K video at more than a frame per second. Having all those extra pixels to push in games might make the likes of Nvidia sweat a bit, but if that stops them obsessing over AI for even a moment then I'm all for it.
It's not just resolution that has me excited about HDMI 2.2, either. Doubling the bandwidth means higher refresh rate gaming, so in theory the PlayStation 6 could spit out 4K images at 240Hz – or double what the PS5 can handle today. HDMI 2.1 goodies such as variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low latency mode (ALLM) aren't going anywhere, and backwards compatibility is a given, so we're not having to give anything up in exchange. As noted philosopher Frasier Crane once said: 'if less is more, just imagine how much more more would be.'
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Version 2.2 of the HDMI Specification is here, because we weren't blazing ahead into eyeball-dazzling televisual overkill enough already. The new spec ramps up maximum bandwidth from 48Gbps to 96Gbps, and supports resolutions up to a whopping 16K resolution at 60Hz. That's 15,360x8640px. You could tile 16 4K images – or 64 1080p images – within the same space, if you were very bored and didn't have anything better to do. But come on: do we really need 16K? According to our team here at Stuff, no. And also, yes. 16K? Pfft. Just buy 16 4K TVs and a big tube of glue instead. Or something. Why I don't need 16K in my life Craig Grannell, regular Stuff contributor and irregular grumpy old person Maybe it's my age. OK, definitely my age. But as new specs whoosh past my face, there comes a point where I think: enough. Like with 16K. I come from a pre-HD world. Games with pixels so chunky you could cut yourself on them. Video so fuzzy that, when watching it today, you'd swear your internet was broken. So I'm not anti-upgrade. The leap from SD to HD was huge. 4K? Not so much, unless your TV covers an entire wall. So most upgrades have felt like diminishing returns, alongside diminishing bank accounts while trying to keep up. Or maybe it's my diminishing eyesight. But do eyes even support 16K? I'm reminded of audiophiles raving about remastered albums with audio ranges you'd need to be part bat, part elephant to appreciate. Can you really see 16K? 'Aha!' say some folks. 'It's not about size – it's about sharpness!' TVs and monitors as crisp as a phone's display, for pin-sharp footage when your nose is pressed up against the glass. Or a future of face-mounted gadgets for people who consider the vaguest hint of a visible pixel a crime against technology, humanity and reality. Fine. Maybe this is my own (wrongly attributed) Bill Gates quote. But rather than saying 640k is enough for everyone, I'm arguing for 4K. Or definitely 8K. Because it's not like we're drowning in 4K content, let alone 8K. 'But the future', you might cry, as your closing move. Sure. Good luck flinging 16K footage around without melting broadband and blowing up budgets. Still, if I'm wrong, feel free to dig up this column a decade from now while watching Captain Spider-Panther and the Miracle of Merch (Because We're Not Even pretending Now) in glorious 16K. Why I'm 16K all the way Tom Morgan-Freelander, Stuff deputy editor and irritatingly optimistic youngling If my glasses prescription is any indication, you really don't need 20/20 vision to spot the difference between HD and 4K – so imagine how much detail will be on show once Netflix starts streaming Is it Cake in glorious 16K. You'll almost be able to taste the frosting! OK, it'll take a lot more than a new HDMI spec before that happens. We need cameras with big enough sensors to film the content in the first place. The file sizes will be astronomical. And no commercially available screen has that many pixels. Sony would allegedly sell you one as early as 2019, if you had a cool $5 million – and space for a display 17 meters wide. The tech has come a long way since then, but 8K is still where most TV brands draw the line. HDMI 2.1 took two years to arrive, so the upgrade isn't going to appear overnight. Still, we've got to start somewhere, right? Black Magic, Red, Sony and Canon are almost certainly hard at work on the camera hardware; people far smarter than I are figuring out the algorithms to keep those file sizes in check; and ever-faster broadband speeds are laying the groundwork for 16K video at more than a frame per second. Having all those extra pixels to push in games might make the likes of Nvidia sweat a bit, but if that stops them obsessing over AI for even a moment then I'm all for it. It's not just resolution that has me excited about HDMI 2.2, either. Doubling the bandwidth means higher refresh rate gaming, so in theory the PlayStation 6 could spit out 4K images at 240Hz – or double what the PS5 can handle today. HDMI 2.1 goodies such as variable refresh rate (VRR) and auto low latency mode (ALLM) aren't going anywhere, and backwards compatibility is a given, so we're not having to give anything up in exchange. As noted philosopher Frasier Crane once said: 'if less is more, just imagine how much more more would be.'
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I tested the Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 noise-cancelling earbuds and while excellent they make this one key compromise
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These new A100s build on last year's M100s with a more compact design and footprint. But can they also further banish Cambridge's mistakes of the past? Some early Melomania buds such as the 1+ had software flaws and were difficult to use consistently. The move to the A100s from the M100s is an interesting one. Cambridge has told me that 'A100 will replace M100 as stocks run down' but these are quite different buds from the M100s. Notably they are more compact as I said, but the big compromise is that they have shorter battery life as a result. That's made palatable by the price point, which clocks in at $150/£119//€139. Things are pretty competitive around this price point – the AirPods 4 are only a little more expensive. Sony's LinkBuds S are similarly priced, while the original Bose QuietComfort Earbuds cost aroud $20 more. All are serious competitors. How we test headphones Every pair of earphones and headphones reviewed on Stuff is used for a minimum of a week's worth of daily listening. We use a playlist of test tracks made up of multiple genres to assess sound, and use our years of experience to compare to other models. Manufacturers have no visibility on reviews before they appear online, and we never accept payment to feature products. Find out more about how we test and rate products. Design: plasticky but not cheap The buds are made from smooth plastic but they don't feel cheap and sit in the ear nicely. Indeed, they're instantly comfortable – I found there was no jostling to ensure comfort and I really enjoyed wearing them, which I can't say for a lot of earbuds. The case, too, has a quality to it. It certainly doesn't have the lid flexing you find on so many true wireless bud boxes. There are indicator lights on the front to show battery life (and for pairing), a USB-C port at the rear (there's no wireless charging) and a pairing button on the base. The A100s anre available in both black and white. They come with medium ear tips pre-fitted, but there are two other options in the box for small or large ear canals. Specs: plenty on offer, but battery life worse than before Hardware-wise there's a huge amount on offer from the A100s, which support a wider range of codecs than many rivals – LDAC, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, AAC and SBC. Thanks to Bluetooth 5.4 there's also multipoint support for connecting to more than one device. These aren't rugged earbuds of course, but there is IPX5 water resistance so you'll have no problem in even serious rain showers. The reduced battery life from the M100s is an interesting facet of these headphones. The M100 offered 52 hours battery life in total with the case and up to 16 hours in the buds with ANC off. Despite the reduction, the A100 still offer quite hefty playback times – a total of 39 hours, 11 hours for the buds with ANC off and 6.5 hours with ANC on. The ANC seems a little more power hungry than rivals, then, but it's not absolutely crazy. We bet you wouldn't notice the compromise in overall battery life of the case and buds, especially if you're coming from a pair that only offers three or four hours. There is a fast charging feature that will gives you up to three hours of playback from a 10-minute charge. Perhaps my favorite feature of the A100s is transported over from previous Cambridge buds. And it's that the default controls are excellent and clear to use. Single taps on a bud will cycle between noise cancellation, transparency and ANC off. And there's a clear voice indication to tell you so – no mystic beeps that you're supposed to be able to interpret. A double tap gets you to your voice assistant. Sound quality: impressively good The quality of these buds is excellent when listening to either music or podcasts and they genuinely do sound more expensive than they actually are. Noise cancelling is fine for the price – certainly we couldn't hear details of conversations happening quite close to us even when the music wasn't at a particularly high volume. However, I felt wind resistance was poor when out and about and I certainly can't recommend them on this regard. This also causes problems for voice calls when you're on the move, which is a shame. However, general voice quality is good and that's something that has obviously been worked on with a six microphone array present. The transparency mode is OK, but I found I preferred to turn the noise cancellation off if I needed to be aware of anything else. It will be useful for city walks and other situations where you need to stay aware of your surroundings though. Cambridge's own DynamEQ tech is designed to keep music balanced even at low volumes and I found it does a pretty good job of it – as you can see below you're able to enable or disable this within the app. There's also a 7 band equalizer in the app to fine-tune the EQ to your own preferences should you desire. App and settings: much improved Cambridge Audio has significantly improved its Melomania app this time around and for the A100s there are a huge amount of options you can choose as well as doing the basics (such as changing the level of noise cancellation) and checking in on battery life. There's an equalizer as we mentioned above, while you can also enable or disable wear detect (so they pause when you remove then) as well as enable modes for different times – sleep or gaming. You can also choose when they power off. Indeed the only time I felt disappointed by the app experience was during the pairing process as it took a while to recognise the earbuds once they were paired with my phone. But in general use, it's an excellent companion even though I was using a pre-release version to test the A100s. Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 verdict Obviously there are better noise cancelling buds out there – but they tend to be more expensive than the A100s. And so for an everyday pair of buds that don't cost a small fortune they're undoubtedly worth the outlay. At this price point there's a serious list of challengers though. The noise cancellation is fine for general noise, but can't cope with wind gusts at which point it's hard to hear your music. However, in a standard environment they're an engaging listen and can boast of quality that is beyond their size and cost. There are compromises – hence my four star rating – but they also earn our Recommended badge as I have enjoyed listening to them a great deal, and so will you. Stuff Says… Score: 4/5 Excellent value for money, the A100 are an engaging listen with very good options and controls. The downside is that you can get better just a little further up the ladder. Pros Engaging sound Decent noise cancelling Competitively priced Very compact Cons Not great with wind No wireless charging Battery life has been reduced Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 technical specifications Drivers 2x 10mm Neodymium drivers ANC Yes Bluetooth version Bluetooth 5.4 Codecs supported LDAC, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, AAC and SBC Durability IPX5 Battery life 6.5 hours ANC on (buds), 39 hours (with case) Dimensions 152x76x23mm, 72g (case) 9.4g/ 0.33oz (buds, each)
