Sony is planning to introduce the long-awaited VRR update not only for the PS5 in December, but for all compatible TVs that will then also receive the upgrade. The President of Value Electronics is now explaining why the whole thing is taking so long to come.
PS5 VRR update coming in December 2021?
In an interview with Robert Zohn, Founder of Value Electronics, who goes apparently deeper into the matter, some changes to the CEC protocol (Consumer Electronics Control) are coming up, including the CEC-Link, Arc, and eArc. Their specifications are updated within HDMI, which Sony would like to wait and see before finally implementing VRR etc.
“I spoke a little bit on the side about the long-awaited upgrade to Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) on the x900h and x90 and x95 and all the other 2021 TVs (most recent Sony TV models with HDMI 2.1), and that’s still on target for December this year”, said Zohn. “What they are waiting for is HDMI is going to be updating some of their specs on CEC. The CEC link is going to be changing and so is ARC (Audio Return Channel) and eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel). There will be some protocol changes in the way that HDMI is configuring that and Sony engineers want to wait and see. They have one firmware update for that.”
What is ruled out is that there are also problems within the chips here, as was the case recently with the HDMI boards of some audio manufacturers, which were actually due to the hardware. That definitely is ruled out by Sony. In this respect, buyers of the previous year’s XH-9xxx models do not have to worry about it.
As is so often the case, it is a problem of a lack of communication in which one simply leaves customers in the dark as to why the promised features are not being upgraded.