Input Calculations - HDMI and DisplayPort

Calculating Video Bandwidth Requirements

To determine whether a video resolution and refresh rate will fit within the bandwidth limits of HDMI 2.0/2.1 or DisplayPort 1.4, you need to do a basic calculation. Below is the basic formula:

Data Rate = Total width x Total height × Frame Rate × Bits per color × Pixel format 

Formula Variables:

• Total width = Active + Timings pixels

• Total height = Active + Timings pixels

• Frame Rate = in Hz

• Bits per color = color depth (8, 10, 12)

• Pixel format = 2 for 4:2:2 or 3 for RGB or 4:4:4

Example Calculation

Desired input format: 5K (5120x2880) @ 60Hz, 8-bit RGB with CVT RBv2

• Total width: 5200 

• Total height: 2962

• Frame Rate: 60 Hz

• Bits per color: 8-bit

• Pixel format: 3
  

Calculation:

5200 x 2962 × 60 × 8 x 3 = 22,179,456,000 => ~22.18 Gbps

This example format will not fit on HDMI 2.0 (14.4 Gbit/s max) but will fit on HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 1.4. 

HELIOS has an overall system pixel rate of 2,124,000,000 active pixels per second.  This limit only applies to the pixel rate and is not affected by color depth, color format, blanking, redundancy, etc.