HDMI (1 Viewer)

Is there any difference when using HDMI cables? I've seen some at Best B*ys that go as high as 100 bucks! While I've stayed in the 20-30 bucks range, is there really a reason to buy such expensive HDMI cables? Thoughts?

Also, I remember that quite some years ago if you had the proper equipment you would be able to get the "INTRO SOUND" as you would see at the movies... "DTS Digital,Dolby ProLogic, Dolby Sorround, THX, IMAX (IMAX being the best intros )" anyhow... Do Blu Ray's have that built in them or they are just recorded in different formats without any ''sound" intros??

Literally, no. It's all a marketing scam.

Best Buy makes very little money on the vast majority of the things that they sell. What they DO make money on, however, is stuff like HDMI cables. A lot of money. I worked at Best Buy for three years, and our discount was "Cost +10%." My price on those $100+ HDMI cables was around $4 and some change. So what does that tell you?

They hope that you'll buy the big HDTV that they make very little money on, and while you're at it they can whip three HDMI cables at you and make a profit somehow.

HDMI is also digital, which means that the cable either works or it doesn't. "Nickle plating, wrapped in gold, covered in diamonds, blah blah blah" doesn't matter. And I'm not saying that in the "Well, you need to be a true videophile to see the difference..." kind of way. It literally makes no difference because it's a digital signal. The video is nothing but 1s and 0s. It either gets from the Blu-ray player to the TV or it doesn't.

Moral of the story: never pay more than like $3 for an HDMI cable, unless you need one that's like 200 feet. Then you'll probably have to pay more.

Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong about this next part, but I believe back in the old analog days there was a pretty big difference. More expensive cables were generally of a higher quality. But that was analog. And those higher quality cables that they could charge more money for were still dirt cheap to produce. So companies like Best Buy developed a nice little racket selling those cables to people who wanted them with a price marked up like a million percent over cost.

And now, everything's digital. So expensive cables make no difference. But they had already fallen into the business trap of "Well, if we take a loss on the TV we can make it up on the cables!" And you can't just suddenly raise prices on literally everything you sell or risk alienating people. So those companies continue to sell their high priced cables that are exactly the same as the ones you can get for like $0.99 on Amazon.com.

Yes in the digital age there is no reason to buy expensive cables.

But, there is a point where "too cheap is too cheap". I worked for a CE distributor(the largest one) that had a brother in the company who's job(literally) was to find the cheapest crap out there to corner and sell it for max profit.

His last(before I left) was an HDMI cable that we "clerked" to our clients(the people you buy stuff from) for $2-$15 per cable(1 foot through 75 feet). This time frame was "BD had won the war" and HDMI 1.3 was new...The "digital transition" hadn't happened yet...so HDMI were still new-ish.

They darn near all broke. Not kidding. The plug end snapped off on over 80% of the cables we actually did sell. When you opened the package to actually use the cable you could "feel the craptitude".

The leftovers were all thrown in the trash. The 20% that managed to "not break"(or just not show back up for return) still turned a profit of 500% of all the cables...

What does that tell you?

As for HDMI cables, I have successfully used cables from Amazon Basics and Monoprice--and did not break the bank.

Correct; digital is on or off, it works or it doesn't.
That having been said, don't get the cheapest digital cables because their shielding can be poor; meaning you get "noise" on the ground.. where it's not sending anything; this can result in speckles, blank areas, etc. But uber-cheap doesn't mean that you have to buy high end. I also buy pretty much Monoprice with no big issues; but on LONG runs of cables, where shielding will be more important, I do get a bit higher quality (I like Blue Jeans cable, the right divide of affordable/quality).

There are two kinds of HDMI cables which can both be purchased cheaply from monoprice .com. High Speed (1080P and higher) and Standard Speed 720P and 1080i). High Speed is for blu-ray, 3D, and 4K. Standard Speed is for cable or satellite TV which only delivers 720P and 1080i. If you only have cable you just need standard speed but if plan to go with blu-ray or 3D you need High Speed.

mccambley said:

There are two kinds of HDMI cables which can both be purchased cheaply from monoprice .com. High Speed (1080P and higher) and Standard Speed 720P and 1080i). High Speed is for blu-ray, 3D, and 4K. Standard Speed is for cable or satellite TV which only delivers 720P and 1080i. If you only have cable you just need standard speed but if plan to go with blu-ray or 3D you need High Speed.

Click to expand...

And even at that, on cables of less than 2 meters...standard and high speed makes zero difference. Granted...I'm going by my experience...

I have an old RCA 12foot cable that said HDMI 1.2(if I recall...from the package which is long gone...and from before the "HDMI spec" finally went with standard/high).

Not even supposed to be able to send lossless audio...at the time HD-DVD was 720P/1080i.

That cable has no problem with BD players sending 1080P/lossless. I have not tried it 3D...as I have no 3D. I bet it won't have a problem.

wow it all makes sense now lol.. i wish id posted here before buy that 15bucks HDMI lol... it also said it had "Ethernet" capabilities and I was wondering "Why"!! hehe thanks for all the comments/ help.