**The Future of HDR: Understanding HDMI 2.1 and Its Advantages**

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, has become a buzzword in the world of display technology, with many gamers and tech enthusiasts eager to experience the benefits it offers. But what exactly is HDR, and how does it compare to other display technologies? In this article, we'll delve into the world of HDR and explore the advantages of HDMI 2.1, as well as its limitations.

**The Xbox Series X and S: Pioneers of HDMI 2.1**

The Xbox Series X and S are two of the most highly anticipated gaming consoles in recent history, and they've both taken significant steps forward in terms of display technology. One of the most notable features of these consoles is their support for HDMI 2.1, a new standard that offers several advantages over its predecessor, HDMI 2.0. HDMI 2.1 supports resolutions up to 8K at 60Hz, as well as higher refresh rates and dynamic HDR capabilities.

One of the key benefits of HDMI 2.1 is its support for "Auto-HDR," a feature that creates a virtual HDR effect on non-HDR content. This can be particularly useful for gamers who don't have access to hardware with true HDR capabilities. Additionally, both the Xbox Series X and S are capable of producing high-quality HDR content, including 10-bit color and uncompressed color data.

**The Limitations of HDMI 2.1**

While HDMI 2.1 offers several advantages over its predecessor, it's not without its limitations. One of the main drawbacks is that it can only support resolutions up to 8K at 60Hz, which may limit its appeal for gamers who want to take advantage of higher refresh rates and resolutions.

Another limitation is that HDMI 2.1 requires a monitor with HDMI 2.1 capabilities to fully utilize its features. While many high-end monitors support HDMI 2.1, there are still some limitations to consider, particularly when it comes to color subsampling and chroma subsampling. The Xbox Series X and S can only produce 10-bit color at 120Hz using the 4:4:4 chroma subsampling format, which is not supported by all monitors.

**The Impact of HDMI 2.1 on Gaming Monitors**

So how much of an impact will HDMI 2.1 have on gaming monitors? In theory, it should offer significant improvements over standard HDMI 2.0 connections, particularly when it comes to color accuracy and brightness. However, the actual difference may be less noticeable than expected.

The biggest advantage of HDMI 2.1 is its ability to support higher refresh rates and resolutions, which can greatly enhance the gaming experience. However, these benefits are not necessarily exclusive to the Xbox Series X and S, as many modern games can already take advantage of high refresh rates and resolutions using standard HDMI 2.0 connections.

**The Verdict: Is HDMI 2.1 Worth It?**

So is HDMI 2.1 worth it for gamers who want to experience the best possible display quality? The answer depends on several factors, including your budget, monitor options, and gaming needs. If you're looking to upgrade to a high-end gaming monitor with HDR capabilities, then HDMI 2.1 may be a worthwhile investment.

However, if you're on a tight budget or don't need the latest and greatest display technology, there are other options available that can offer similar benefits at a lower cost. In particular, 1080p and 1440p monitors with high refresh rates and HDR capabilities can provide an excellent gaming experience without breaking the bank.

**DisplayPort: A Alternative to HDMI 2.1**

For those who want to connect their console to a monitor via DisplayPort, there are some limitations to consider. While DisplayPort can offer similar benefits to HDMI 2.1, including high refresh rates and resolutions, it's not without its drawbacks. One of the main limitations is that it tops out at 120Hz at 10-bit color, which may limit its appeal for gamers who want to take advantage of higher refresh rates.

Additionally, DisplayPort adapters can introduce latency and other issues, particularly when used in conjunction with HDMI cables. In general, sticking with standard HDMI connections is a safer bet for gamers who want the best possible display quality.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, HDMI 2.1 offers several advantages over its predecessor, including support for higher refresh rates and resolutions, as well as improved color accuracy and brightness. However, the actual difference may be less noticeable than expected, particularly when it comes to color subsampling and chroma subsampling. Ultimately, whether or not HDMI 2.1 is worth it depends on your budget, monitor options, and gaming needs.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys i'm tom of techchap and if you're lucky enough to have one of the new consoles and you don't fancy using it with a regular tv like a normal person um and you want to use a gaming monitor is it worth paying the extra for an hdmi 2.1 enabled monitor to get a full 4k 120 hertz experience or is it all just a bit of a waste of money and if you do find this helpful then a cheeky little like and subscribe would be lovely so this is the new asus tough vg28u and it's one of a handful of new hdmi 2.1 supported monitors and there's been a lot of hype around 2.1 with these new consoles as it offers a full 4k resolution at 120 hertz with 10-bit color and 444 chroma as well as variable refresh rates or vrr and dynamic hdr well let's start with the big one 120 hertz because if you've played games at 120 fps or higher on a pc you'll know that it makes a huge difference to how fast everything feels it can really give you a competitive advantage and it's absolutely worth the jump from 60. now so far there are only a dozen or so games that support 120 on console right now and in most cases you actually have to choose uh in the display option like favor performance or favor frame rate which effectively enables the 120 fps mode however before you throw your current hdmi 2.0 spec monitor in the bin because it's not this fancy new spec actually don't worry because when it comes to the refresh rate uh even current 2.0 monitors support 120 at 1080p and 1440. it's only 4k where you need 2.1 to get the high refresh also i should say that the xbox has a bit of an advantage here as it supports 1080p and 1440p modes whereas the ps5's only non-4k option right now is 1080p which is actually really interesting because a lot of popular gaming monitors right now are quad hd 1440p and also high refresh so that would be best paired with the xbox because you'll be able to get the 1440p and 120 over a current hdmi 2 port so you don't maybe need to buy one of these but if you do want the best of the best and the most future-proofed uh monitor for your console then you probably will want 2.1 but there are a couple of issues with that firstly there aren't that many displays to choose from right now also they are quite expensive for example this asus tough 2.1 enable monitor is actually one of the most affordable at about 750 pounds but that's still not exactly cheap also while the list of 120 hertz optimized games is growing there's still not that many and they're often just patched versions of older games now again xbox has a bit of an advantage here thanks to fps boost which automatically doubles the fps in backwards compatible games without needing full optimization by the developer even if a game says it supports 4k and 120 they almost never support them at the same time you kind of have to go for one or the other and it either reduces or scales down the resolution to give you that higher refresh rate or alternatively they just reduce the graphic settings so there's always some kind of compromise here and that's really just a limitation of the performance of these consoles for example in mass effect legendary edition it actually drops down from 4k at 60 to 1440 at 120 on the series x to maintain a steady frame rate but then as it's upscaled again it still needs an hdmi 2.1 connection and even more confusingly on the ps5 the quality and the performance modes are both 60fps even with the latter's drop in resolution now another big upgrade with 2.1 is support for variable refresh rates or vrr which is sometimes called adaptive sync and basically that syncs up the output from the graphics in the console to what's being displayed on the monitor to reduce screen tearing and stuttering and give you a slightly more stable gameplay experience but i know what you're thinking we've had adaptive sync for years now well yes but hdmi 2.1 has it hardwired into the connection so unlike 2.0 the monitors panel and the electronics don't actually need to support vrr or some other form of adaptive sync as well if they do though then all the better as both xboxes can use amd's freesync the bad news for ps5 owners is that vrr isn't expected to be added until the end of the year and even then games will need to be updated to take advantage of it however that's not necessarily a reason to upgrade to a 2.1 monitor as most 2.0 gaming displays already support some kind of adaptive sync like freesync and that will work over 2.0 with these guys well sorry with the xbox for now but it doesn't support nvidia's g-sync for that you need either displayport or hdmi 2.1 so if you want to use g-sync with these in the future then you will need 2.1 just a quick mention of today's sponsor crucial because they sent over their latest x6 and x8 external ssds and these things are the best thing since sliced bread because i've actually been editing this entire video the one you're watching right now off my x8 ssd all 212 gigs of this stuff and it makes such a difference to my workflow to have everything i need on this little drive and if we do a little live test here it takes about four minutes to transfer a quarter of a terabyte 227 gigs of data which is just ridiculously fast whether you're backing up your ps4 games you've got all your videos and files on here you're editing directly off it or you're just well transferring to a new device grab yourself a little x6 or x8 from crucial or even one of their m2 ssds if you want to upgrade your laptop or pc internally definitely recommend these guys i'll leave a link below if you want to check them out so 120 hertz variable refresh rate and then there's dynamic hdr another advantage of 2.1 and this is where hdr formats like hdr 10 plus and dolby vision allow movies and games more granular control over lighting and contrast by varying the dynamic range metadata between scenes as opposed to older standards like hdr10 where the data is fixed which is great if you have a nice bright contrasty screen on your tv but as you guys know hdr monitors are less common and genuinely not nearly as good the most recent mini led monitors are a big step forward but again this is brand new tech and very expensive the other issue is that while most games on console do support some form of hdr generally they're the more basic kind of hdr 10 standard uh not say dolby vision or anything that would actually use that dynamic hdr support which we get with 2.1 so that may be something we see more of in the future but right now it doesn't make that much difference speaking of hdr though because the xbox series x and s do support something called auto hdr which creates a sort of virtual hdr effect and while it's not as convincing as the real thing it's nice to have and it does already work over hdmi 2.0 but there is one more advantage to a 2.1 spec monitor and that's the fact that we can get the 4k 120 with vrro and all that good stuff and uncompressed 10 bit color both new consoles can make use of 10 bits basically meaning games that are developed with this in mind can access a much wider range of colors over a billion and actually both can do compressed 12-bit color as well but not at 120. now if i said to you that this monitor in particular supports 444 chroma you'll be thinking well that sounds great what does it mean well a quick explainer because normally 10-bit color data is compressed at one of three levels which is confusingly called chroma subsampling but with 2.1 it can be uncompressed referred to as 444 and this helps reduce color banding and gives you more accurate colors overall again though this is something only the xbox can do in terms of 444 the ps5 currently is limited to 442 which is still a very high data rate so you really wouldn't see the difference but again it's another technical advantage of the xbox the thing is i'm only mentioning this because it is one of the sort of new features touted as being part of this 2.1 spec and it's like a big upgrade but really i don't know how much of an impact it will have because even over hdmi 2.0 you can still get that full uncompressed 10-bit color at 120fps at 1080p and 1440p again it's really only at 4k uh where you have to start making these compromises and where 2.1 really comes into its own but in reality it's the monitors panel and the processing that will be the limiting factor when it comes to colors and contrast especially as many cheaper models are only 8-bit although so far it seems this asus tough vg28u is the only gaming monitor that can process uncompressed 10-bit so maybe that's worth bearing in mind and breathe that was so much more complicated than i originally thought it would be when i wanted to make this video when asus sent this review sample over um but to answer the question of whether you should actually buy an hdmi 2.1 monitor i would say yes but only if it doesn't cost you that much more than a standard 2.0 monitor and if you only want 4k would i buy one now no probably not because there really isn't that much advantage to it at the moment maybe in a few months maybe a few years when more games are developed and optimized for the higher refresh rates and the high resolution and we see you know dynamic hdr being taken advantage of a bit more but right now most games are still targeting 60. and those that do have a 120 option then reduce the resolution anyway so it's not that important so for most of you guys i would argue going for a good 1080p or 1440p high refresh 120 165 hertz monitor with freesync and if possible decent hdr support is a much better and also much cheaper option and specifically 1080p is fine for the ps5 because it doesn't have that 1440p option but if you do have a quad hd monitor then you will get some benefit with a series x and i think most importantly good hdr performance is a much bigger deal than 4k and usually this comes down to the panel more than it does the particular hdr format so spending more on a screen with better hdr performance i.e brightness and contrast in my opinion will give you a much better image quality for your bug and lastly if you were wondering is there any way to connect a console to a gaming monitor via displayport which gives you pretty much all the advantages near enough of hdmi 2.1 technically yes but there are some quite significant limitations like it tops out at 120 fps at 10tp or 4k30 and it doesn't support vrr when you're using an adapter so really i would just stick with hdmi so what do you reckon have i tempted you to upgrade to 2.1 or have i convinced you it's not really worth it yet let me know what you're thinking in the comments below and also what setup you're using in terms of tv or monitor for your console thank you so much for watching guys don't forget to hit that subscribe button and i will see you next time right here on the tech chathey guys i'm tom of techchap and if you're lucky enough to have one of the new consoles and you don't fancy using it with a regular tv like a normal person um and you want to use a gaming monitor is it worth paying the extra for an hdmi 2.1 enabled monitor to get a full 4k 120 hertz experience or is it all just a bit of a waste of money and if you do find this helpful then a cheeky little like and subscribe would be lovely so this is the new asus tough vg28u and it's one of a handful of new hdmi 2.1 supported monitors and there's been a lot of hype around 2.1 with these new consoles as it offers a full 4k resolution at 120 hertz with 10-bit color and 444 chroma as well as variable refresh rates or vrr and dynamic hdr well let's start with the big one 120 hertz because if you've played games at 120 fps or higher on a pc you'll know that it makes a huge difference to how fast everything feels it can really give you a competitive advantage and it's absolutely worth the jump from 60. now so far there are only a dozen or so games that support 120 on console right now and in most cases you actually have to choose uh in the display option like favor performance or favor frame rate which effectively enables the 120 fps mode however before you throw your current hdmi 2.0 spec monitor in the bin because it's not this fancy new spec actually don't worry because when it comes to the refresh rate uh even current 2.0 monitors support 120 at 1080p and 1440. it's only 4k where you need 2.1 to get the high refresh also i should say that the xbox has a bit of an advantage here as it supports 1080p and 1440p modes whereas the ps5's only non-4k option right now is 1080p which is actually really interesting because a lot of popular gaming monitors right now are quad hd 1440p and also high refresh so that would be best paired with the xbox because you'll be able to get the 1440p and 120 over a current hdmi 2 port so you don't maybe need to buy one of these but if you do want the best of the best and the most future-proofed uh monitor for your console then you probably will want 2.1 but there are a couple of issues with that firstly there aren't that many displays to choose from right now also they are quite expensive for example this asus tough 2.1 enable monitor is actually one of the most affordable at about 750 pounds but that's still not exactly cheap also while the list of 120 hertz optimized games is growing there's still not that many and they're often just patched versions of older games now again xbox has a bit of an advantage here thanks to fps boost which automatically doubles the fps in backwards compatible games without needing full optimization by the developer even if a game says it supports 4k and 120 they almost never support them at the same time you kind of have to go for one or the other and it either reduces or scales down the resolution to give you that higher refresh rate or alternatively they just reduce the graphic settings so there's always some kind of compromise here and that's really just a limitation of the performance of these consoles for example in mass effect legendary edition it actually drops down from 4k at 60 to 1440 at 120 on the series x to maintain a steady frame rate but then as it's upscaled again it still needs an hdmi 2.1 connection and even more confusingly on the ps5 the quality and the performance modes are both 60fps even with the latter's drop in resolution now another big upgrade with 2.1 is support for variable refresh rates or vrr which is sometimes called adaptive sync and basically that syncs up the output from the graphics in the console to what's being displayed on the monitor to reduce screen tearing and stuttering and give you a slightly more stable gameplay experience but i know what you're thinking we've had adaptive sync for years now well yes but hdmi 2.1 has it hardwired into the connection so unlike 2.0 the monitors panel and the electronics don't actually need to support vrr or some other form of adaptive sync as well if they do though then all the better as both xboxes can use amd's freesync the bad news for ps5 owners is that vrr isn't expected to be added until the end of the year and even then games will need to be updated to take advantage of it however that's not necessarily a reason to upgrade to a 2.1 monitor as most 2.0 gaming displays already support some kind of adaptive sync like freesync and that will work over 2.0 with these guys well sorry with the xbox for now but it doesn't support nvidia's g-sync for that you need either displayport or hdmi 2.1 so if you want to use g-sync with these in the future then you will need 2.1 just a quick mention of today's sponsor crucial because they sent over their latest x6 and x8 external ssds and these things are the best thing since sliced bread because i've actually been editing this entire video the one you're watching right now off my x8 ssd all 212 gigs of this stuff and it makes such a difference to my workflow to have everything i need on this little drive and if we do a little live test here it takes about four minutes to transfer a quarter of a terabyte 227 gigs of data which is just ridiculously fast whether you're backing up your ps4 games you've got all your videos and files on here you're editing directly off it or you're just well transferring to a new device grab yourself a little x6 or x8 from crucial or even one of their m2 ssds if you want to upgrade your laptop or pc internally definitely recommend these guys i'll leave a link below if you want to check them out so 120 hertz variable refresh rate and then there's dynamic hdr another advantage of 2.1 and this is where hdr formats like hdr 10 plus and dolby vision allow movies and games more granular control over lighting and contrast by varying the dynamic range metadata between scenes as opposed to older standards like hdr10 where the data is fixed which is great if you have a nice bright contrasty screen on your tv but as you guys know hdr monitors are less common and genuinely not nearly as good the most recent mini led monitors are a big step forward but again this is brand new tech and very expensive the other issue is that while most games on console do support some form of hdr generally they're the more basic kind of hdr 10 standard uh not say dolby vision or anything that would actually use that dynamic hdr support which we get with 2.1 so that may be something we see more of in the future but right now it doesn't make that much difference speaking of hdr though because the xbox series x and s do support something called auto hdr which creates a sort of virtual hdr effect and while it's not as convincing as the real thing it's nice to have and it does already work over hdmi 2.0 but there is one more advantage to a 2.1 spec monitor and that's the fact that we can get the 4k 120 with vrro and all that good stuff and uncompressed 10 bit color both new consoles can make use of 10 bits basically meaning games that are developed with this in mind can access a much wider range of colors over a billion and actually both can do compressed 12-bit color as well but not at 120. now if i said to you that this monitor in particular supports 444 chroma you'll be thinking well that sounds great what does it mean well a quick explainer because normally 10-bit color data is compressed at one of three levels which is confusingly called chroma subsampling but with 2.1 it can be uncompressed referred to as 444 and this helps reduce color banding and gives you more accurate colors overall again though this is something only the xbox can do in terms of 444 the ps5 currently is limited to 442 which is still a very high data rate so you really wouldn't see the difference but again it's another technical advantage of the xbox the thing is i'm only mentioning this because it is one of the sort of new features touted as being part of this 2.1 spec and it's like a big upgrade but really i don't know how much of an impact it will have because even over hdmi 2.0 you can still get that full uncompressed 10-bit color at 120fps at 1080p and 1440p again it's really only at 4k uh where you have to start making these compromises and where 2.1 really comes into its own but in reality it's the monitors panel and the processing that will be the limiting factor when it comes to colors and contrast especially as many cheaper models are only 8-bit although so far it seems this asus tough vg28u is the only gaming monitor that can process uncompressed 10-bit so maybe that's worth bearing in mind and breathe that was so much more complicated than i originally thought it would be when i wanted to make this video when asus sent this review sample over um but to answer the question of whether you should actually buy an hdmi 2.1 monitor i would say yes but only if it doesn't cost you that much more than a standard 2.0 monitor and if you only want 4k would i buy one now no probably not because there really isn't that much advantage to it at the moment maybe in a few months maybe a few years when more games are developed and optimized for the higher refresh rates and the high resolution and we see you know dynamic hdr being taken advantage of a bit more but right now most games are still targeting 60. and those that do have a 120 option then reduce the resolution anyway so it's not that important so for most of you guys i would argue going for a good 1080p or 1440p high refresh 120 165 hertz monitor with freesync and if possible decent hdr support is a much better and also much cheaper option and specifically 1080p is fine for the ps5 because it doesn't have that 1440p option but if you do have a quad hd monitor then you will get some benefit with a series x and i think most importantly good hdr performance is a much bigger deal than 4k and usually this comes down to the panel more than it does the particular hdr format so spending more on a screen with better hdr performance i.e brightness and contrast in my opinion will give you a much better image quality for your bug and lastly if you were wondering is there any way to connect a console to a gaming monitor via displayport which gives you pretty much all the advantages near enough of hdmi 2.1 technically yes but there are some quite significant limitations like it tops out at 120 fps at 10tp or 4k30 and it doesn't support vrr when you're using an adapter so really i would just stick with hdmi so what do you reckon have i tempted you to upgrade to 2.1 or have i convinced you it's not really worth it yet let me know what you're thinking in the comments below and also what setup you're using in terms of tv or monitor for your console thank you so much for watching guys don't forget to hit that subscribe button and i will see you next time right here on the tech chat\n"