HDMI 1.3 Overview

With the launch of HDMI version 1.3, HDMI continues to increase its overall functionality to meet the needs of the High-Definition marketplace. 
HDMI 1.3 will include the following new features:

Higher speed: HDMI 1.3 increases its single-link bandwidth from 165 MHz (4.95 gigabits per second) to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbps) to support the demands of future high definition display devices, such as higher resolutions, Deep Color™ and high frame rates. In addition, built into the HDMI 1.3 specification is the technical foundation that will let future versions of HDMI reach significantly higher speeds.

Deep Color™: HDMI 1.3 supports 30-bit, 36-bit and 48-bit (RGB or YCbCr) color depths, up from the 24-bit depths in previous versions of the HDMI specification.

• Lets HDTVs and other displays go from million of colors to billions of colors.
• Eliminates on-screen color banding, for smooth tonal transitions and subtle gradations between colors.
• Enables increased contrast ratio
• Can represent many times more shades of gray between black and white
• At 30-bit pixel depth, a four times improvement would be the minimum, and the typical improvement would be eight times or more.

Broader color space: HDMI 1.3 removes all limits on color selection

• Next-generation “xvYCC” color space supports 1.8 times as many colors as existing HDTV signals
• Lets HDTVs display colors more accurately
• Enables displays with natural, vivid colors

New mini connector: With small portable devices such as HD camcorders and still cameras demanding seamless connectivity to HDTVs, HDMI 1.3 offers a new, smaller form factor connector option.

Lip Sync: Because consumer electronics devices are using increasingly complex digital signal processing to enhance the clarity and detail of the content, synchronization of video and audio in user devices has become a greater challenge and could potentially require complex end-user adjustments. HDMI 1.3 incorporates an automatic video/audio synching capability that allows devices to perform this synchronization automatically with total accuracy.

New lossless audio formats: In addition to HDMI’s current ability to support high-bandwidth uncompressed digital audio and all currently-available compressed formats (such as Dolby Digital and DTS), HDMI 1.3 adds additional support for new, lossless compressed digital audio formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD.