HDMI cable ?'s

[YoungPUP]

Whats the difference between the $250 dollar HDMI Cable from Best buy (35' Monster cable)
and the $40 dollar one from Aururm(sp)  from Amazon.   Teach me about HDMI cables please...

[jer0177]

Other than the price tag, not a lot. A digital signal is a digital signal, and as long as it makes it from one end to the other, it's all good.

There may be some difference in quality of materials used, which may affect longevity, but there's no reason to spend $250 on an HDMI cable.

[cookiedough]

Unless you have one of those higher tech LED TV's costing 1,000's, you won't notice the difference between 200 and 15 dollar HDMI cables.  Have heard though that the brand 'Monster' cables are slightly better than the off brand cheapo ones.  Black Friday after turkey day I got 3 sets at walmart Monster cables 6' for like 10 bucks each - good deal worth like 30 bucks.

[Serk]

Even with a high end system, there's not gonna be any difference between HDMI cables. They cable a digital signal, it's binary, literally and figuratively. It either works or it doesn't.

[Phil57]

I got several HDMI cables on line and have never had a issue with them. The longest I have is a 10 meter that really had me worried. Thats a long way with HDMI. I found a deal on Amazon HDMI 3 meter for 1 dollar each, I bought 6 and it cost 11 dollars with shipping. There is a standard that the cables must meet and so far I would say the cheaper the better. I don"t buy into the gold end BS.

[wiggydotcom]

Someone mentioned it a week or so back that they shop at Monoprice.com

I second that. Great product for a great price. They're located in California but I usually get my stuff in 2-3 days(to Illinois).

I would go with the 24awg cables due to the increased size of the wire over the 28awg.

Keep them in mind if you need cables for phone, tablets, etc. They carry most everything.

Not affiliated, yada, yada.

[Titan]

Here's an excellent article on the differences in expensive vs cheap HDMI cables.


http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20056502-1/why-all-hdmi-cables-are-the-same/

[tonyfan70]

As stated prior, there is no difference picture or sound wise between cables. Monoprice is good for prices online. I found that my cable provider would sell me cables cheaper than local stores but more expensive than Monoprice...but I kinda needed them right now, so it worked good for me.

AVSforum is an excellent, knowledgable site for just about any home theater type question a guy could possibly come up with. I researched my tv, sound system, hookups, picture tweaks etc on that site...and soooo much more. Highly recommended. Lots of pictures of theater systems to drool over, some people have absolutely astounding setups. Check it out, I spend alot of time on there in the off season.

[YoungPUP]

Hell yeah for monoprice!!!!  Just ordered The tilt/swivel bracket and the 40' cable for what I wouldve payed for just the bracket locally!!!! Thanks!!!

[wiggydotcom]

Hell yeah for monoprice!!!!  Just ordered The tilt/swivel bracket and the 40' cable for what I wouldve payed for just the bracket locally!!!! Thanks!!!

   Bookmark em...you'll be going back there in the future.

[Tim H]

The C|NET article is good.  Basically more expensive cables have shielding or heavy materials for constructions... or not.  They can be built well without the extra cost.  IF you're going with 3D you'll need to look into "high-speed" cables.  If you're not, then pick up the lowest price on your installation needs.

I get all my cables for me, and jobs I've done from Monoprice.com.  The build quality is great and the cost is low.  If you're wall mounting you can mimic the output of the back panel to lower wall jacks by your equipment and you'd only be out for the cost of a couple of retail cables.

I mounted a TV for a friend and ran all the cables in the wall through two studs, having to drill out (2) 1 1/2" holes to pass all the cables through.  I wish I would have gotten the thinner cables so I would have had so much trouble getting them all through.  Still, it's a clean install and he has all the hookups on the back of the TV at ground level of the equipment.

[The Anvil]

In theory if they're all constructed to the same quality standards then they should be the same. But they're not.

You don't need a 200 dollar cable but the really cheap ones (25 dollars and under) suffer signal loss and RF interference from poor shielding, the terminations can be of poor quality and the connectors themselves can have poorly aligned pins. When I first went HD I had cheap-ish cables and really wasn't happy with the picture quality. I borrowed a Rocketfish double shielded cable from a friend and the difference was considerable. I went out that day and bought a few. You can get well terminated cables (very important) that are properly shielded for a very reasonable cost (40 to 60 bucks). But the really cheap cables tend to be that way for a reason.

[Titan]

In theory if they're all constructed to the same quality standards then they should be the same. But they're not.

You don't need a 200 dollar cable but the really cheap ones (25 dollars and under) suffer signal loss and RF interference from poor shielding, the terminations can be of poor quality and the connectors themselves can have poorly aligned pins. When I first went HD I had cheap-ish cables and really wasn't happy with the picture quality. I borrowed a Rocketfish double shielded cable from a friend and the difference was considerable. I went out that day and bought a few. You can get well terminated cables (very important) that are properly shielded for a very reasonable cost (40 to 60 bucks). But the really cheap cables tend to be that way for a reason.

Your description of your experience is in direct conflict with the information in the article posted earlier.

[gordorad]

Whats the difference between the $250 dollar HDMI Cable from Best buy (35' Monster cable)
and the $40 dollar one from Aururm(sp)  from Amazon.   Teach me about HDMI cables please...

$ 210.00    

I concur with what most others say.....It's all zeros and ones.  A digital signal.  It is simply a link carrying the source material between two components.

The better ones might have better shielding, etc.  

[The Anvil]

In theory if they're all constructed to the same quality standards then they should be the same. But they're not.

You don't need a 200 dollar cable but the really cheap ones (25 dollars and under) suffer signal loss and RF interference from poor shielding, the terminations can be of poor quality and the connectors themselves can have poorly aligned pins. When I first went HD I had cheap-ish cables and really wasn't happy with the picture quality. I borrowed a Rocketfish double shielded cable from a friend and the difference was considerable. I went out that day and bought a few. You can get well terminated cables (very important) that are properly shielded for a very reasonable cost (40 to 60 bucks). But the really cheap cables tend to be that way for a reason.

Your description of your experience is in direct conflict with the information in the article posted earlier.

The CNET article? It's wrong. All cables are not the same. You MAY get good results from a cheap cable (I have a relatively cheap cable connecting my XBox to the TV at my desk for instance and it looks pretty good) but then you may not. QC at the source is very important and the writer of the article assumes too much about the cheap cables being built to the same minimum design requirements.  

A couple years back the guys in our shop got together on a Saturday and replicated looms for an aircraft STC package we were selling. Some kind of enhanced vision system for a helicopter. Well they made fifty of them and each one had to be tested for speed and signal. For some reason four of the 50 failed and had to be re-made. They were all made by hand by experienced techs with the best materials possible (and boy did we charge the customers for it) and when visually inspecting them nothing obvious jumped out as being a problem. Why did they fail? Because cables can be tricky. The difference though between what we were doing and what some TV cable manufacturer does is the QC. I'm willing to bet that the $15.00 Wal Mart cable wasn't tested thoroughly. I'm also willing to guarantee that the unshielded wire can pick up RF from dirty electrical power and that the pot-metal connectors and prone to corrosion non-plated pins are no help either.

OTOH, a mass producer like Belden has a solid QC program. I've been to the factory and seen the bins upon bins of rejected Cat5e patch cables (and HDMI cable are pretty similar) that didn't pass QC. A less thorough manufacturer would probably send those to market. In fact, for all I know Belden sold them to some schmuck who turned around and sold them to WalMart.

For my part I had ghosting and obvious signal noise from the cheap cables. It was especially noticeable while watching hockey because of the white background. The switch to decent quality cables cleared it right up. I personally think it was RF from all of the power cords (which themselves are often under-shielded).

[ptgb]

We have the "Digital cable" packages from our Cable provider (Time Warner) with DVRs and the like. They provided HDMI cables with all the boxes. I can only imagine they are the cheapest cables that the cable company can get.

I have no problems whatsoever. Pictures on both the LCD (cheap, raffle won) and Plasma (big $) flat screens are great.

[Serk]

*Sigh*

I won't argue with you about aircraft maintenance, but please don't argue with me about digital electronics. It's a digital signal, it's binary. It works, or it does not work, there is no artifacting, ghosting or other signal degradation possible. If the signal is not making it over the wire, you won't get a picture, if it is, you will get a picture, and that picture will be the same no matter how shielded the cable is, how good the connections are, etc. There's no degradation of picture quality on a digital image, it's there, or it's not there, simple as that.

[jer0177]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385272,00.asp

http://www.pcworld.com/article/203732/technologys_biggest_myths.html

PCMag article does say that for runs over 30 feet, you need to watch out for signal degradation (just because there is "electrical resistance" in the wire - we haven't come up with a feasible superconductor yet - at least one that can operate above 0 degrees K), but that plunking down >$100 for a cable isn't required.  There are quality cables to be had for much, much less.

Here's a quote from the PCWorld article:

However, digital audio/video standards like DisplayPort, DVI, and HDMI don't have this problem because the data be­­ing transmitted over the cable isn't as sensitive as an analog signal; it consists entirely of ones and zeros, and a tremendous drop in signal voltage has to occur before a one starts to look like a zero at the receiving end. When this does happen, you'll usually see some kind of white static "sparklies" on your TV, as the set attempts to fill in the blanks itself, but this typically happens only over very long HDMI runs (8 meters and up). For shorter cables, the cable quality shouldn't matter.

[Jess Tolbirt]

i paid a dollar each for my cables from ebay,, they work perfectly for me,,,,

[The Anvil]

I won't argue with you about aircraft maintenance, but please don't argue with me about digital electronics.

Why's that? What's your level of expertise? Because I also happen to be certified to manufacture, terminate test and certify twisted pair, Coax, fiber optic. etc.

In my previous life I sold and designed and installed telecomm systems and enterprise networks. That now comes in handy when dealing with avionics suites and installing large scale modifications.

Sorry dude, but I know what I know. Digital signals and packets can be corrupted by RF and termination quality matters.

[Robert]

As with all things there are problems with some cables manufactured regardless of quality control. Some times its the shielding but some times its the wire itself. The copper wire that is in the actual cable is bad that is why Anvil checks all the cables because its mission critical. The wire construction or failure can cause a degradation or change in a signal and not a hard failure even in a digital signal. RF interference is a big problem in some situations and will also change a digital signal. Sometimes things work in their parameters and dont show a problem even though they dont work right as seen in RF interference. Have seen it many times but with audio/visual stuff its really not to much of a problem. You wont see this on most wires though and the wires from Monoprice are really good and inexpensive. I have put the wires from Monster and  RCA and the rest next to them have not done a actual resistance signal test and seen not a stitch of difference, except the price. On my network connection cables I only use 6a cables just because I do worry about shielding and noise. I also feel that the extra shielding helps the wire to hold up and not break. On my optical cables I get the ones with the netting on the outside to stop abrasion and tight bends to help the signal stay consistant over the length of the cable.  With the price Monoprice sells these wires for I couldn't go into the store and get a cat5 cable of less quality. The moral of the story all are right sometimes cheap or expensive wires have problems shielded or no. HDMI cables are a shame at 75 to 100 dollars and more than likely they are manufactured at the same place that the cheap wires are from. Just another sales gimmick to fleece you out of your money. I dont work for Monoprice just a happy customer  

[Robert]

As a side note I remember when Monster cable first came out that they had a problem with the wires they had made. You paid big bucks for this cable and after a few years the cable would corrode and turn green on the inside of the cable under the insulation and would run the full length of the wire. They never made good on replacing the wire and said it wasn't a defect, yet when they made the wire their claim was the signal travels on the surface of the wire the very surface that was now corroded. Yet their claim after this came down was that it didn't hurt the quality of the signal. I only say this because without the sizzle there is no sale of this high priced stuff. Can you hear a difference I say sometimes yes, will most ever notice not really. But today things have changed a bit because of offshore manufacturing, they have become cheaper not necessarily lower in quality though.

[wiggydotcom]

Let me put my spin on this. YoungPUP asked about an alternative to high priced Monster cable. We gave him an alternative and he's happy. Now, to make this Valk related, for those of you who are claiming the Monoprice cable must be inferior because it's one sixth the price, I guess we'd have to say that Harleys are twice the bike of the inferior, cheaper Valkyrie(based on initial prices). Their engines probably go twice as long before rebuilds. Their engines must go about 400k miles between overhauls. It must be so. Any Harley dealer or mechanic will tell you so! Believe the hype...or...or...could someone be blowing unsubstantiated "smoke"?

So go ahead and shell out your money for Monster cable.

I'll put a challenge out to you audio/video experts. We can set up a challenge at IZ this yr. I'd like to use about 8 cables...6 from Monoprice and 2 from Monster. Let's see if the experts can pick out the two Monster Cables out of the 8? Sounds like a fair challenge to me. Maybe we could take side bets and the losing team donates their money to the IZ charity.  But bring the Monster cables cuz I sure ain't buying em. 

[fon1961]

Sometimes I think that most of our debates come from hair splitting lol. Sounds like several people have found sources for lower cost cables that work very well.

Seems to me that anvil, and maybe others, agreed with the idea that cables don't have to be outragiously expensive to work well.

If the economical cables work great (which is at least somewhat subjective, which is cool) why upgrade something that doesn't need it.

There are HDMI std's/protocols on the internet if you really want to make a science project out of it. Heck break out the logic and spectrum analyzers lol.

If it was me I'd just use the ecconomical cables and enjoy my favorite programming. If you experience problems then start worrying about cable lengths, shielding, data rates, terminations, etc.