Why all HDMI cables are the same.. Very useful article!

[ranj]

Found this article and thought I would share.

 

It was an eye opener for me!

 

Why all HDMI cables are the same | Crave - CNET

 

Detailing why all HDMI cables are the same...

[JJonas]

interesting article also this....

 

5FWD - HDMI Cable Test video from The Gadget Show

[sonofsanta]

Actual technical proof here: Digital Foundry vs. HDMI video Article • Page • Articles • Eurogamer.net

 

(summary: data received is identical on the £1.50 cable and the £100+ cable. Paying silly money for digital cables is silly, especially for SATA cables that claim to improve audio)

[jinnantonnixx]

£5 Ross cables from Sainsburys are good.

 

For more fun,

Audiophile Deathmatch: Monster Cables vs. a Coat Hanger

[elsiegee40]

Being a skinflint, I always try the cheapy option first anyway. The HDMI we use all cost less than a fiver including postage from eBay!

[rich_tech]

I never understood ever, why a friend of mine used to waste the cash when he bought stuff in currys/comet buying the "gold plated" cables they used to offer for stupid money, its always the same stuff as the ones I bought from a £1 shop, picture differences are never better or different on the end results.

[elsiegee40]

I never understood ever, why a friend of mine used to waste the cash when he bought stuff in currys/comet buying the "gold plated" cables they used to offer for stupid money, its always the same stuff as the ones I bought from a £1 shop, picture differences are never better or different on the end results.

Don't get me started on the prices charged by PC World for USB cables... I can't believe how much people will shell out for them!

[ZeroHour]

I never understood ever, why a friend of mine used to waste the cash when he bought stuff in currys/comet buying the "gold plated" cables they used to offer for stupid money, its always the same stuff as the ones I bought from a £1 shop, picture differences are never better or different on the end results.

 

Digital cables yes its no different but analogue is better with high quality cables. Also I believe longer run HDMI needs better shielding (>15m) to ensure it has no loss but thats it.

 

The funniest thing I saw in Currys was a gold plated optical cable, it just had gold around the end lol.

[sparkeh]

Thanks! I knew I was right buying the ASDA Smartprice HDMI cables

And don't get me started on the prices of network cables in PC World >:-o

[pcstru]

Digital cables yes its no different but analogue is better with high quality cables.

 

The fact that manufacturers of expensive cables refuse time after time to step up and do proper double blind testing, suggests they may not be as confident about that as you are.

[jinnantonnixx]

I never understood ever, why a friend of mine used to waste the cash when he bought stuff in currys/comet buying the "gold plated" cables they used to offer for stupid money, its always the same stuff as the ones I bought from a £1 shop, picture differences are never better or different on the end results.

 

Gold has a higher resistance than silver or copper (but resists corrosion), so unless you're installing your cables in a sauna I'd go for the plain ones.

[rich_tech]

Don't get me started on the prices charged by PC World for USB cables... I can't believe how much people will shell out for them!

 

Ebay is king for anything like that usually, failing the pound shop lol, had my hdmi and ethernet cables for the house from them, 5 meters cat5e for a £1, cant go wrong and theres nothing wrong with being a skinflint !

[Chris_]

Went into Richer Sounds to buy a Freeview HD PVR, the guy tried to sell me an expensive HDMI cable and told me to throw the included one away(!). I explained to the guy that HDMI is digital and as long as the cables meet the HDMI 1.4 spec the picture quality will be the same. He was having none of it and thrusted a Cambridge Audio flyer under my nose explaining why I was wrong.

 

TL;DR - Richer Sounds told me to buy an expensive cable. I didn't.

 

Cambridge Audio

[sted]

an analogue cable (or a long digital cable) there is probably some merrit in better cables but a digital cable should either work or not surely i know all my hdmis are cheapo ones from ccl/amazon never seen a need to buy a monster cable at £90 lol

[pcstru]

an analogue cable (or a long digital cable) there is probably some merrit in better cables

 

Beyond completely unsuitable cables (incapable of carrying current or with impedance or capacitance issues), ABX and double blind tests continually show that if there is some merit, no one can actually tell the difference.

 

Here's an interesting summary of some testing.

[Norphy]

There is (very occasionally) something to be said for not buying the uber cheapy cables, I have seen a couple of the £2 specials from Amazon fall apart in no time at all because their connectors are made from tissue paper and crimped by someone with an RJ45 crimp tool. That said, there is still no reason to pay more than a fiver for a 1m HDMI cable!

[Oaktech]

In general, I agree, but there IS a lower limit at which cables do not perform the same. In the analogue domain, generally more copper the better, but if you get cheap cable with about 3 strands in the core and 5 strands in the shield, then they won't perform the same as a cable with 30 strands in the core and 50 in the shield, but mainly you will notice this in the form of interference. The interference rejection qualities of the cable will be compromised and you will notice audio anomalies caused by EM interference, and also static/shadows/artifacts on video signals (this is also why it is not a good idea to put analogue video down an analogue audio cable) It is not really necessary to have much more copper, you won't notice the difference!

 

In the digital domain this is very much less prominent, as there are standards that people adhere to, because their product won't work if they don't.

 

However, i did go to fix a customers digibox install which had a reported picture break up, they'd bought a 50 foot hdmi cable from ebay that was about as thick as a piece of cat5 and was so poor that there was a significant measurable resistance from one end to the other, a better cable (cost £20 from ebay rather than £9.99) all was well!

[sonofsanta]

Went into Richer Sounds to buy a Freeview HD PVR, the guy tried to sell me an expensive HDMI cable and told me to throw the included one away(!). I explained to the guy that HDMI is digital and as long as the cables meet the HDMI 1.4 spec the picture quality will be the same. He was having none of it and thrusted a Cambridge Audio flyer under my nose explaining why I was wrong.

 

TL;DR - Richer Sounds told me to buy an expensive cable. I didn't.

 

Cambridge Audio

 

I like the way that you need the top end cable for a projector even though a lot of projectors are lower resolution than a fairly standard TV.

 

"Each piece of home cinema equipment has different demands – a DVD player for example transmits fewer pictures per second and less bits per colour channel than a games console passing seven channels of high resolution audio and 1080p video." - and the games console doesn't saturate a bog standard HDMI cable at that point. So yes, they have different demands, but conveniently all those demands are more than met by whichever £5 cable you found in Tesco.

[Oaktech]

I like the way that you need the top end cable for a projector even though a lot of projectors are lower resolution than a fairly standard TV.

 

 

generally this is because you are asking the signal to go a long way and you need better quality shielding to make the signal impervious to things like flourescent tubes, and fire alarm activity signals. If it was on the desk next to you you could throw the signal down a piece of wet string.