Last Friday heise online reported that the computer magazine c’t in its current issue 23 / 20 reveals a suspected breakdown of the chip manufacturer Panasonic Solutions (now taken over by Nuvoton Technology). According to the current state of knowledge, this breakdown ensures that all HDMI 2.1-compatible receivers (also called “8K models”) from Denon, Marantz and Yamaha are not able to play videos in 4K resolution with certain players with 120 images per second (short 4K 120) with increased contrast range (high dynamic range) from Microsoft’s upcoming console Xbox Series X to a suitable television.

After there were already problems with HDMI 2.1 in a new Samsung- TV model, c’t had taken a closer look at a pre-production model of the Xbox Series X in this regard. It turned out that the car racing game “Dirt 5” ran problem-free on the LG CX9 TV with a direct connection in 4K 120 with HDR, while using Denon’s HDMI 2.1-compatible AV receiver AVR-X 2700 H, however, this did not pass the ultra-high resolution with increased contrast range from the console to the TV as advertised.

Shortly after the publication of the c’t report, Sound United (Denon / Marantz) confirmed corresponding problems with its AV receivers (meanwhile also available in a German version), while Yamaha was initially more likely vaguely expressed in the way that customers would be supported with possible compatibility problems.

Compared to Forbes, the company was now more specific and also admitted the problems reported by c’t. Yamaha promises to deliver the promised functions for the affected models to its customers via “future updates” – but when asked by Forbes did not want to comment on whether this also meant replacing the board. c’t had reported that the problems caused by the HDMI bug could not be solved by software updates.

The first tests problems with RTX 30 graphics cards when transferring 4K 120 videos via HDMI -2.1-compatible AV receivers are not due to the bug that c’t found last week in connection with the Xbox Series X. (nij)