What is the difference between a $17 and a $150 HDMI cable? (1 Viewer)

[bigshot]

The fella who installed my ht told me that hdmi is a fairly new standard and at first there are problems with any output that complex. My bluray player was over a year old. He said that a new player would work fine, and it did.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

The fella who installed my ht told me that hdmi is a fairly new standard and at first there are problems with any output that complex. My bluray player was over a year old. He said that a new player would work fine, and it did.

I don't know his definition of "fairly new", but I would not take any more home theater advice from that particular fella.
HDMI 1.0 was released in December 2002, going on 9 years ago. In consumer electronics that is closer to "ancient" than "fairly new."
Even the latest iteration, HDMI 1.4, was release in May 2009 - still more than two years ago. The video portion of HDMI was an extention of DVI, with which it was designed to be backwards compatible. The DVI standard was released in 1999.
I'm not buying that a slightly-more-than-a-year old Blu Ray player had any kind of HDMI compatibility issue because it was "too old" and HDMI is a "failry new" and "complex" interface.
Regards,
Joe

 

[Jason Charlton]

My bluray player was over a year old. He said that a new player would work fine, and it did.

Blu-Ray spec is a whole other ball game. Blu-Ray was released as an essentially incomplete product. "Profile 1.0" players did not fully support all that was supposed to be included. It wasn't until the Profile 2.0 players hit the market that the hardware did all it was supposed to do. In those cases, HDMI wasn't the weak link, it was the players themselves.

 

[bigshot]

I'm not buying that a slightly-more-than-a-year old Blu Ray player had any kind of HDMI compatibility issue because it was "too old" and HDMI is a "failry new" and "complex" interface.

Well, whatever caused it, the hdmi out of my Pioneer bluray player wouldn't do 1080p only 1080i patched into my projection system, which includes a hdmi switcher and a long length of cable, but my Sony works fine - flawless 1080p. The Pioneer works perfectly patched with a short hdmi cable into a monitor. The problem isn't the cabling. Maybe it didn't like the switcher.

 

[SoundDoc]

If possible, get the distance between the source and the receiver and the display to a minimum, 2 meters or less. Then, unless you've bought a bootleg cable, almost any cable will work for even HDMI 1.4. As stated above, the gauge of the wire isn't as important as the connector. A poor connector will result in impedance mismatches and thus reflections back to the source and that can be seen in a carefully watch picture. The major players, Monster, etc., all see to take great care with their cables. If it's not possible to keep the distance to less than 2 meters, buy the cable with the clear understanding that you can return it with no questions asked. As for installers, make sure that the do a test, if possible, on the cables before the actual install. This means laying the cabling out and running everything to make sure that signals are getting to where they need to be unfettered by loss of bandwidth and reflections back down the cabling caused by poor wiring design and poor cable connection design. Only when the result is good should the installation proceed.

 

[Kalifazz]

Here is no difference just wasting money try eBay very cheap only $3.00

 

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[Craig W]

There may be differences between the expensive and cheap cables, BUT part of the HDMI spec requires the transmitter and receiver to perform signal equalization. This is done so HDMI works more reliably otherwise we would have a lot more problems with using HDMI. So long story short.... Try your cheaper options first before being suckered into high dollar cables. Due to the cheap prices from places like monoprice, I usually order an array of cable options so I am not completely out of luck if I get a cable that does NOT meet my needs.
I have never had a problem even with 25' monoprice HDMI cable to my projector and that's sending a 1080p signal. All my components.... 360, PS3 and SA BD player are connected to my receiver using monoprice cables. Again no issues. And all of my cables even with the extras I have on hand cost me less than one high end 6ft Monster HDMI cable.

 

[diytoolcity]

I used to the monster cable compare with noname, I do not see the difference of the image or video.

 

[mike_frontier]

I recently picked up an HDMI cable made by ACCELL UltraAV.
The length is 10m (32.5') / Claims to be 6.75 GBPS / HDMI 1.3
Picked it up locally for $30
So far it's doing a great job. Not sure how it competes with other fellow HDMI cables, but I am sure it's worthy of the $30 I paid for it.
With that being said, I am a believer in lower end cables and not going for something that is buying it for more due to brand-name

 

[televue]

I recently found 2 feet HDMI cable from blockbuster video. the price was 9.99. I bought a bunch of them. seem to work fine. thought you could be interested.. if looking locally for cheap and not going online for it.

Jacob

I bought a 25 ft cable from them and had nothing but nightmares with it. Paid 20.00 bucks for it, ended up replacing my Onkyo receiver with a sony receiver had same picture issues, (broken up picture). Replaced sony with a Yamaha receiver and still had the same issues. Replaced cable with a 70.00 dollar one and all problems went away.

 

[David Willow]

I bought a 25 ft cable from them and had nothing but nightmares with it. Paid 20.00 bucks for it, ended up replacing my Onkyo receiver with a sony receiver had same picture issues, (broken up picture). Replaced sony with a Yamaha receiver and still had the same issues. Replaced cable with a 70.00 dollar one and all problems went away.

No one said a $70 cable would not work well. It's just $50 too much.
I own some Mon$ter cable as well. I got it extremely cheap and have not problems with it. I also have no problems with my Monoprice cables.
I seems you got a bad cable. That could happen with the more expensive cable as well. Errors in manufacturing can and do occur.

 

[televue]

No one said a $70 cable would not work well. It's just $50 too much.
I own some Mon$ter cable as well. I got it extremely cheap and have not problems with it. I also have no problems with my Monoprice cables.
I seems you got a bad cable. That could happen with the more expensive cable as well. Errors in manufacturing can and do occur.

I don't care what I have to pay for a cable as long as it does the job. The cheap ones failed me, the new one for 70.00 dollars did the job, i'm happy

 

[HDTVSEAttle]

HDMI's are essential for the quality of picture and sound you don't need the most expensive cables but the super cheap ones are what you pay for cheap over the long run you will loose quality and get splotches or lose picture completley. Moderate cables are my recommendation and I install about 3 TV's a day. Check us out if your in Seattle or the north west
http://www.seattlehometheaterpros.com
http://www.seattleaudiovideosystems.net
http://www.seattleaudiovideosystems.com

 

[Nebiroth]

Coming late to this discussion but it happens everywhere.
What others are saying is right - HDMI is HDMI. All this about a "1080p" cable is BS. Officially, a cable rated for that just means that it has allegedly been certified to carry the maximum bandwidth across a minimum distance which I believe is 7.5 metres.
But any claims that you need a "1080p" cable to carry 1080p are rubbish. Any cable will do it, although the lower the quality of the cable, the shorter the cable is, the better. If you have really long cable runs (which is a bad idea anyway) then a better quality cable will probably serve better. But aside from this it's nonsense.
The same is true of all the claims about gold-plating and oxygen free stuff and all the rest of it. These cables are produced to entice those who don;t know better into paying vast sums of money when they don't need to. And at the other end of the scale, you get obssessive video and audiophile types who convince themselves they are getting a "better picture" or get a warm glow of elitism from using a hundred dollar cable - that is very much a new Emperor's Clothes type effect. After all, if you spent that much on a cable, you'd want to believe too. HDMI is digital and you just need to get the 0's and 1's from one place to another. As such it is far less sensitive to losses and outside interference than the old analogue systems.
The only thing you have to watch out for is the HDMI version - the latest incarnations of HDMI support things like 3D and ethernet. If you want to use those features, then you need a version compliant cable.
But for most people, a cheap cable is completely adequate.
It's worth noting that cables are an item that have one of the highest profit margins around. They are cheap and easy to make. A store has a much higher profit margin on a cable than it does on the TV it just sold you - and that's why they try so hard to sell new TV owners an outrageously expensive one..

 

[Zapman]

I purchased several HDMI cables from Mediabridge for a small fraction of what the stores wanted, and they work fine. They are also very helpful for questions--explained which versions were useful for what purposes. The proof is always in the picture, as is with other kinds of cables as well.

 

[kberta]

CNET has tested HDMI cables of all sorts from all kinds of makers and they say you should never pay more than $10 for 6' of HDMI cable.
Here is the article -http://reviews.cnet.com/2719-11276_7-226-3.html?tag=page;page

Crap! I paid WAYYYY to much for my HDMI chord.

 

[Johnmullen41]

Found a little known online store CheapoCables and prices are below all of the sites. Ordered a few HDMI cables and adapters and quality was pretty good. I read the CNET article about how expensive cables are a ripoff and looks to be true.

 

[Lisa Liu]

For a cheap or expensive cable good or or not depends on the length. If lengh below 5m, the quality mostly the same.

 

[Sam Posten]

I don't know if there is a language issue here but that is clearly not true at all. There are cables of varying build quality of all lengths.
None are worth $150 of course.