An announcement that may slipped under the radar for many as the dust settles from the carnage of CES, was the unveiling of the new HDMI 2.1 cable standard – upgrading bandwidth from 18 Gbps to 48Gbps, with support for 8K resolutions and scene-by-scene HDR (high dynamic range). HDMI 2.1 is expected to roll out in the second quarter of 2017, but while most HDMI devices won’t support the standard until 2018, version 2.1 sets a significant benchmark for how premium video and gaming will look in the near future, starting one year from now. A data rate of 18 Gbps, which its predecessor HDMI 2.0 handles, is more than adequate for the majority of HDMI users today. Although the…