DATE: 02/04/14

TO: Classé Dealers and Distributors

FROM: Dave Nauber, President
RE: 4K and HDMI 2.0

Contents
• What does Classé have to say about 4K video and HDMI 2.0?
• Does the SSP-800 pass 4K video?
• What is UHD video?
• What are the potential sources of UHD video?
• Is handling 4K bandwidth enough or should I wait for HDMI 2.0?
• AVRs are already coming with HDMI 2.0, aren’t they?
• Why can’t Classé deliver HDMI 2.0 today as well?
• The SSP-800: a case study
• What will come next for HDMI?
• What does all this mean for the Sigma SSP?
• Further Discussion:
• Are forces impeding adoption of UHD standards?
• HD video games
• Streaming

What does Classé have to say about 4K video and HDMI 2.0?

I wrote last June about the subject of 4K or UHD video and I thought it would be a good time to review what if anything
has changed and report on the collective wisdom being shared by industry insiders.

Does the SSP-800 pass 4K video?

The SSP-800 does not pass 4K video nor will with the new Sigma SSP when it’s released, which is still no cause for con-
cern once you understand what is involved. There are plenty of reasons to be excited about this new video capability and
some of the sales opportunities it will present. There are just as many reasons to be wary of claims made about future
proof designs and compatibility with yet-to-be-defined standards.

What is UHD video?

Let’s start with a quick review. Ultra High Definition television has two resolution standards, one being the familiar 3840
x 2160 pixels, which is two times the horizontal and vertical resolution of a 1080p picture and four times as many pixels
(not quite 4K, but people call it that). The other is 7680 x 4320 pixels, known as (almost) 8K or 8K UHD. These are the
standards for displaying 4K and 8K on their respective television resolutions. 4K and 8K film is actually captured at some-
what higher resolution (actually 4K and 8K!), but that’s another matter.

Keep in mind 4K/UHD displays all have their own upscaling to convert video sources to their higher resolution display
capability. This scaling is done in a way which best suits its associated display. To scale the output of a source, like a
Blu-ray player, to UHD, is not a good idea. Tempting as it may be, burdening the HDMI pipe with all that extra data when
this function could and should be done in the display makes no sense whatsoever. Please don’t do it. You’ll be asking for
trouble!

What are the potential sources of UHD video?

The potential sources of UHD video are broadcast/satellite, optical discs, video games, streaming (Netflix, Amazon,
etc.) and computers/storage devices. There is no agreed standard for UHD broadcasts, optical discs or video games.
Likewise, for streaming and delivery from computers and storage devices, there isn’t a single standard, but various ways
to package and deliver content. You might show a 4K still image but not full-motion, yet refer to your streaming capabil-
ity as 4K. Companies may experiment with their own methods of delivering UHD content as a means to establishing an
accepted standard but nothing is standardized. Until it is, you can’t say for sure that any HDMI repeater (like an AVR or
SSP) will be compatible.

Any manufacturer may create a closed system and decide how they want to handle content. For example, the Sony
FMP-X1 can store movies at UHD resolution and deliver them to the Sony display but they squeeze that signal into the
current hardware pipe using 4:2:0 color space subsampling, which is an HDMI 2.0 feature and not part of the HDMI 1.4
spec. So repeaters that are honestly promoted as 4K-capable, may not know what to do with this Sony signal. That’s
why I said last June that the only thing you can say for sure is that whatever you buy today won’t handle all the signals
you will have in two years. For those who buy the Sony, there’s not really a problem since Sony wisely includes two HDMI
outputs—one for audio to connect to your AVR or SSP and the other for video to connect to the UHD display. This is
the solution virtually all early-generation UHD sources will need to employ, simply because they must be compatible with
legacy AVRs and SSPs in order to work in a consumer’s existing system.

Is handling 4K bandwidth enough or should I wait for HDMI 2.0?

Recently, a few manufacturers have begun announcing that their newest displays have or will soon have HDMI 2.0.
Others have announced that displays will be software upgradeable to HDMI 2.0. For a display, or a source, it’s not really
a problem to make an HDMI 2.0 claim. The reason is that they reside on either end of the system. They’re either say-
ing “this is what I can accept” or “this is what I can output.” A repeater lying between, however, must contend with any
signal that any source wants to send and relay it properly to whatever display/sink is connected. In other words, SSPs
and AVRs need to know how to converse simultaneously with ANY source and ANY sink combination, while also taking
the audio from the HDMI signal and perhaps integrating On Screen Display messages. This is why connecting a source
to a display is not a completely effective troubleshooting method. It only tells you that the source and sink hardware is
operable. A source or sink may fail to handshake with a repeater, which has its own capabilities, inserted between. The
specific combination of all three components must interact correctly for the signal to flow.

If you ever had a handshaking issue in an installation involving HDMI you know that things can and do go wrong. As an
industry, we have gotten to the point where most of that is behind us, but when you look ahead to new terrestrial and
satellite broadcast, optical disc, video game and streaming standards you will see the new HDCP 2.x content protec-
tion—and nothing that says it can switch using HDMI 2.0 today has been tested with HDCP 2.x (or other HDMI 2.0
products for that matter). Now maybe everything will work (it won’t) or all of the problems will be addressable with soft-
ware updates (they won’t). But that’s the risk you take when you get too far out in front. This is only to say that no matter
what the check box on the spec sheet says, you can be certain that SSPs and AVRs that are produced this year will not
handle all o the signals they will encounter a year or two from now.

AVRs are already coming with HDMI 2.0, aren’t they?

Pioneer has announced entry-level receivers with HDMI 2.0 and I just read that Onkyo has also announced the release
of two new entry level receivers with HDMI 2.0. Onkyo says that they “have been future-proofed with HDMI functional-
ity for 4K video at 60 frames per second.” They claim that the more expensive model (priced at $699) “also adds HDCP
2.2 content protection support,” going on to explain that “HDCP 2.2 will reside on future 4K packaged media, streamed
4K content and 4K terrestrial and satellite broadcasts. Such content will be unplayable or will be converted to standard
definition when passed through AV receivers that aren’t HDCP 2.2 compliant.” Presumably, they are referring to their less
expensive HDMI 2.0 equipped AVR and the Pioneer models just announced.

Obviously, the battle has begun! One has to wonder how Onkyo knows all of the details about HDCP 2.2 and its imple-
mentation in the as-yet-to-be-defined standards for 4K packaged media, streamed 4K content and 4K terrestrial and
satellite broadcasts, or how any testing could possibly have been done. How can they make these claims? The cynical
answer is that by the time there really is 4K content to switch, several generations of AVRs will have succeeded these
models and no one but the customers who still own them will remember that it was all supposed to work. I’m not cynical,
I just think it’s reasonable to ask the question.

Why can’t Classé deliver HDMI 2.0 today as well?

Most people think that high-end brands lag behind mass market companies in cases like this because we can’t commit
to the purchase volume required to get the attention of the chip suppliers who are on the cutting edge, can’t afford to
spin our own silicon and/or don’t have the dedicated, technical expertise to specialize in making our own chips. While
these things are true, there are other factors that matter more to your customers and these are reasons that favor more
patient, considered approach.

Classé’s model lifecycles typically run anywhere from three to ten times longer than their mass market counterparts. This
is good for our customers as it supports the long term value of their purchase and it encourages a responsible approach
to maintaining the product with software and occasional hardware updates. Long product lifecycles enforce a certain
discipline on the adoption and implementation of new technologies because we know they must be maintained over an
extended period. This is most certainly the case with HDMI, where we know that after a period of stability, the target is
again moving rather quickly (HDCP 2.2? what happened to 2.0 and 2.1?) and it is not clearly visible, which is to say no
one knows exactly what an HDMI repeater will need to do in two years.

Silicon Image, the large semiconductor company that supplies the HDMI chips we use in the SSP-800 and Sigma SSP,
has not introduced the HDMI 2.0 parts we will likely use yet. They are the inner circle, at the leading edge of HDMI de-
velopment, and are in fact the architects of the HDMI standard. Why aren’t their HDMI 2.0 chips on the market yet? One
might correctly conclude that they are in the same kind of long-term business that we are.

The SSP-800: a case study

Our first SSP to feature HDMI is still on the market! The SSP-800 came to market in 2008 with HDMI 1.3. Should we
have launched an SSP with DVI, then replaced it with one having HDMI 1.0, then replaced it again with one having HDMI
1.1 followed by a version with HDMI 1.2? Probably not, since it wasn’t until HDMI 1.3 that HDMI began to support HD
Audio. It was the adoption of the HDMI 1.3 standard when HDMI finally mattered to audio and it was at this point that
Classé introduced the SSP-800 and shortly thereafter became the first high-end company to support HD Audio. Timing
matters, as is evidenced by the remarkable success of the SSP-800.

The HDMI 2.0 story is similar. 4K or UHD video is video, not audio. As it was in the days of DVI and HDMI 1.0-1.2, there
are many ways that video sources can be connected to displays without requiring support from the AVR or SSP, so cus-
tomers are not forced to buy an inferior audio processor in order to switch video. They have a choice.

There are indeed some audio features thrown into the HDMI 2.0 spec, including support for up to 32 channels of audio
and sampling frequencies up to 1536 kHz, but these are fringe benefits and not part of any current-generation audio
standard. These new audio features of HDMI 2.0 may or may not ever have a practical use, but at the moment, they
don’t. Interestingly, during the entire period of DVI to HDMI 1.3, the video capability remained 2D 1080p but various
tweaks, such as color bit depth and color space subsampling options were expanded. To this day, Blu-rays are limited
to 24 bits of color depth, leaving the available 48-bit HDMI 1.4 spec (arguably more important than 4K resolution) looking
like overkill. In other words, just because a feature is in the HDMI spec doesn’t mean there will ever be a use for it.

The SSP-800 was updated to HDMI 1.4 in late 2010—the first high-end SSP to offer HDMI 1.4—done primarily to
remove S-video in exchange for an extra HDMI input, but it also added support for 3D video (a must-have feature at the
time), Audio Return Channel and the Ethernet channel.

As for audio, with its current HDMI configuration, the SSP-800 will support anything it has the processing capability to
decode, so no audio performance or functionality benefits will come from another HDMI update.

What will come next for HDMI?

HDMI 2.0 gets us 4K @ 60fps but what about 120fps, 8K and UHD in 3D? There is definitely more to come beyond
HDMI 2.0, so it remains true that the only thing you can say with 100% certainty is that anything you buy today will be
incompatible with and/or unable to pass UHD signals you will encounter in the future. Some software updates will patch
a few holes, but we have all seen this movie over HDMI before. Nothing is future proof and nothing will work with every-
thing—not now and especially not for things yet to be introduced sometime in the future.

There will be an extended period of uncertainty and difficulty for manufacturers, dealers and consumers as UHD source
standards are defined and content protection schemes become first adopted and then understood by content providers
and hardware manufacturers. Until content providers and hardware manufacturers have a chance to test each other’s
products and get them working together, we won’t be able to enjoy the relative stability that we’ve seen these past few
years.
What does all this mean for the Sigma SSP?
The Sigma SSP will come to market with an HDMI 1.4 video board. Like the SSP-800 it will support 3D at 1080p but
not 4K at 24fps. As with the SSP-800, this is not really a problem because 1) it can do all it needs to do with audio using
HDMI 1.4 and 2) there is too much uncertainty in the near term to worry about what kind of 4K/UHD signals you may or
may not eventually want to switch. At the moment, the few native UHD sources available can be switched independently,
meaning audio goes to the SSP and video to the display.

Once we see some stability, we will design an HDMI 2.x video board and offer an upgrade, just as we did with the SSP-
800. Classé has the credibility to say it’s not important now and we will upgrade the product when the time is right. We
were the first high-end audio company with HDMI 1.3 and HDMI 1.4 and we will watch this closely to determine the best
time to offer an upgrade. That’s what your customers need to know.

Just like the early days of HDMI, the evolution of HDMI 2.x and HDCP 2.x will be associated with some painful learning
curves. The first companies, dealers and customers into the fray will also suffer the most casualties. Classé will join the
fun when we feel the time is right.

Thanks for your continuing support of Classé.

Dave Nauber
President, Classé

For further discussion and speculation…

Are forces impeding adoption of UHD standards?

When I wrote last June I thought we would see a UHD Disc standard announced by CES 2014. That didn’t happen and
the speculation is it could be CES 2015 before we see it. On the one hand, you have the Blu-ray Disc Association eager
to pump new life into a waning packaged media market. On the other, you have content providers feeling burned by
the lack of uptake on 3D and skeptical of the real demand for UHD video. It seems we have chickens and eggs. Are the
content providers chicken?

Can anyone tune into a 1080p broadcast anywhere in the world? There is some On-Demand and Pay Per View content
available, but actual broadcast content has remained elusive because of the bandwidth required. 1080p TVs have been
around for more than eight years, right? What will change to encourage broadcasters to forget 1080p and jump right to
2160p? That’s four times the bandwidth and compared with the number of installed 1080p displays, it’s in its infancy.
Realistically, how old will you be when you sit down to watch your first 2160p broadcast?

HD video games are typically native 720p, with output sometimes scaled to 1080p in current generation players. A tiny
fraction of the games are native 1080p, with most of those listed as 1080p either being scaled from a lower resolution or
saying they support 1080p, which is another way of saying they can be scaled by the player but are not native. This year
the list will grow, but the point is that gaming requires lots of processing power and when you add pixels you load more
burden on the processor. If 2014 is the breakout year for 1080p gaming, how old do you think you’ll be when you play
your first 4K video game?

Streaming seems to have the most momentum as far as 4K content and a viable delivery system. It doesn’t rely on
packaged media or wholesale upgrades of a delivery infrastructure. You’ll need the bandwidth on your network and from
your service provider (15.6 Megabits per second for Netflix, as an example), but it is reasonable to expect this to be avail-
able in many markets and high-end customer’s homes. The audio packaged with early 4K content is in the familiar Dolby,
DTS and PCM formats, so as far as current-generation AVRs and SSPs, there shouldn’t be a problem. If you are using a
Netflix App on your Smart 4K TV (the most common approach), then even if you have an HDMI 2.0 receiver with HDCP
2.2, you’ll need to use the Audio Return Channel to get audio back to the AVR, at which point an HDMI 1.4 equipped
AVR or SSP, such as the Classé SSP with ARC would also work. It’s not as good as the HD Audio on a Blu-ray, but no
worse than other broadcast options and the picture might look nice.