Are hdmi cables just hdmi cables?

Are hdmi cables just hdmi cables?

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Blakeatron

Original Poster:

2,514 posts

172 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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Forgive my ignorance but i have just purchased a new blu-ray player for the play room.

With it i picked up a £5.99 "high speed" cable, at the counter the cashier asked what size telly it was going to and when i said a 42" he told me the cable would not work and then i needed a £70 one!

Was i right?

My concern is that the blu-ray will plug into a soundbar controller and then the cable from that goes in the wall upto the tv, so if i need a sooper dooper cable i need to start chisseling again...

Will obviosly check when i am home but that wont be until tomorow and i want to make sure i will be ok when i get home!

Many thanks

If it helps all the gear is panasonic, tv is maybe 18months old plasma

HTP99

22,442 posts

139 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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A £6 cable will work just as well as a £70 cable, on a home system you don't need fancy cables that cost the earth; such as "Monster" cables.

My TV, Virgin and BlueRay player have all been connected with cables in the £5 region for the last 6 years and they have never let me down.



FurtiveFreddy

8,577 posts

236 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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Without knowing the specification of the two cables, it's not possible to say whether one would work and other wouldn't or if one would give a 'better' result than the other.

There is a specification for HDMI, just like every other industry standard interface, and it includes recommendations for the types of cable used and the way the plugs and sockets are wired.

There are multiple cores required in the cable and several of them *should* be individually screened. This is where manufacturers can cut corners. They'll use cable of the wrong specification, bundle signal cables together within one screen, use cheaper contacts and conductors which could cause intermittent connections.

I'm not saying you'll necessarily see a difference in the picture quality between a £5 cable and a £50 one, but don't think that all HDMI cables are the same, because the vast majority of the cheaper cables do not follow the prescribed standard, so there is a chance they will not work at all or give problems with some equipment.

Oh, and I'm not an HDMI cable re-seller before you ask! I know this from experience and dealings with a company who specialise in HDMI.

Laurel Green

30,770 posts

231 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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I seem to remember a programme on TV not so long ago(perhaps Watchdog) whereby high street shops were found to be pushing punters to purchase expensive HDMI cables where a £5 one would suffice. As above, not all cables are the same but, in most cases the cheapo is all that is required.

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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There have been some extensive tests that have proved that digital cables are essentially all the same. Ignore certain websites with cable reviews that seem to have been written whilst under the influence. The cheapest supermarket HDMI will work just as well as a Chord / Monster cable. The only caveat is that above certain lengths, you get signal degradation, 10-12m seems to be where they start to show up. I tend to go for QED cables these days, good price and very good build.

Cables such as Monster are a PC World accessories gem (used to, and possibly still is, a good commission payer). At the end of the day though, their own brand cheapo cable will work just as well. Gone are the days of gold plated SCART leads and such making analogue signals better.

VEX

5,256 posts

245 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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The problem is that HDMI signals are digital, so you actually have no way of knowing how good or bad it is performing without very expensive test equipment.

The issue is more how well the electronics in your hardware is able to recover the signal. So if the cable that connects the two bits of kit is poor then the electronics have to work extra hard to recover the signal. If it is able to do it fine, but you have no way of knowing how close to failure you are.

My advice is don't spend silly money but do spend more than a £5. My ones trade cost me between £5 and £10

V.

TheInternet

4,703 posts

162 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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VEX said:
The problem is that HDMI signals are digital, so you actually have no way of knowing how good or bad it is performing without very expensive test equipment.
Or...you can just look or your TV. It's pretty obvious if it's working or not, and there's not much more to it than that.

Blakeatron

Original Poster:

2,514 posts

172 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
quotequote all
Thank you gents, put my mind at ease!

I was a bit worried as he was very serious and actually a bit intimidating, he was obviously cross when I refused the cable and the extra cover!

I wonder how many people will of paid the extra?

ymwoods

2,177 posts

176 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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fuelracer496 said:
There have been some extensive tests that have proved that digital cables are essentially all the same.
This. The signal is digital so the signal is either on or off unlike analogue signals where it could be anything in-between.

In an analogue system the quality of the cable of of utmost importance and can make a state of the art system look like a cheap one. In a digital system it makes no difference aslong as the quality of cable used is good enough to get the signal there. Think digital TV, you either have a signal, or you don't. you don't get a snowy picture or anything in-between nothing and decent.

As the digital signal is either on or off you only need good enough quality to ensure that the signal gets there, the strength of the signal (as long as it does not keep getting lost) is of no concern. The difference between a £6 cable and a £100 cable will be almost impossible to tell with the naked eye as a digital signal. The only thing it will do is be a bit more resilient to being bent and wrapped then the cheaper cable (which will eventually break as its lower quality) the connectors will also be more likely to break and will probably be cheaper plastic construction but unless your un-plugging and plugging it back in constantly that is unlikely to cause a problem.

Troubleatmill

10,210 posts

158 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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There are different specifications of HDMI. 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 etc

A cheap 1.3 HDMI cable will perform the same as a £200 1.3 HDMI cable.

http://www.hdmi.org/consumer/finding_right_cable.a...



For a 42" telly - £5.99 is fine smile

Edited by Troubleatmill on Saturday 26th July 19:20

warmfuzzies

3,961 posts

252 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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I have a 10m generic eBay item. For my setup, works a treat, for about £15...



K.

Martin4x4

6,506 posts

131 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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Blakeatron said:
With it i picked up a £5.99 "high speed" cable, at the counter the cashier asked what size telly it was going to and when i said a 42" he told me the cable would not work and then i needed a £70 one!
He lied, screen size is immaterial (compared to pixel resolution). If you were using WUXGA, WQXGA or higher screen resolution or a very high refresh rate screen, or a very long cable run it _might_ prove necessary to buy a superior cable. Blue-Ray to 1080p not necessary.



Edited by Martin4x4 on Sunday 27th July 08:53

anonymous-user

53 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
quotequote all
When it comes to digital signals like hdmi and cable cost, cheap ones will function perfectly well, where better quality but not necessarily more expensive cables may perform better is they will transmit the signals over a longer distance and still be decoded correctly.

As most hdmi installations are a few metres in length this issue is unlikely to affect many people, if you are trying to transmit hdmi over 30m then cheap cables won't be adequate. Where cable quality is important is with analogue signals and before digital became ubiquitous it was an issue for best audio quality.

ladderino

727 posts

138 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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I clicked on this thread expecting to groan, but actually all replies are really sensible.

Go over to the What Hi Fi forums to see what the 'experts' have to say and you'll see a different story altogether, with claims that an HDMI cable costing several hundred pounds provides far 'better insight' and 'improved staging'.

I have no idea what either of these mean, but have so far had no issues with assuming that a 0 is a zero and a 1 is a one.

So, yes, no need to spend huge amounts of money on digital cables. I have the Amazon Basics ones and they are fine. Really cheap cables may give drop outs, and if running a long length it's worth going for a better cable as this can become more prevalent.

oilslick

901 posts

185 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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ladderino said:
I clicked on this thread expecting to groan, but actually all replies are really sensible.

Go over to the What Hi Fi forums to see what the 'experts' have to say and you'll see a different story altogether, with claims that an HDMI cable costing several hundred pounds provides far 'better insight' and 'improved staging'.

I have no idea what either of these mean, but have so far had no issues with assuming that a 0 is a zero and a 1 is a one.

So, yes, no need to spend huge amounts of money on digital cables. I have the Amazon Basics ones and they are fine. Really cheap cables may give drop outs, and if running a long length it's worth going for a better cable as this can become more prevalent.
I love the What HiFi forum. If your cable isn't made of oxygen-free unobtanium and braided with the pubes of virgin unicorns then you're apparently not making the most of your system.

VEX

5,256 posts

245 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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TheInternet said:
Or...you can just look or your TV. It's pretty obvious if it's working or not, and there's not much more to it than that.
Actually, it can not be that obvious. The cheaper cable may produce a 1 and 0 number but it may loose quite a bit of signal definition to the point it is hard to define if it is actually a 1 or a 0.

This is where the electronics have to take over to work out what it should have been and the worse it is the harder it is to decypher. This is were the image starts to break down and get a little grainy before it actually stops working.

V.

wombleh

1,777 posts

121 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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VEX said:
Actually, it can not be that obvious. The cheaper cable may produce a 1 and 0 number but it may loose quite a bit of signal definition to the point it is hard to define if it is actually a 1 or a 0.

This is where the electronics have to take over to work out what it should have been and the worse it is the harder it is to decypher. This is were the image starts to break down and get a little grainy before it actually stops working.

V.
Shouldn't the HDMI certification process pick up on a cable that behaved like that?

TwigtheWonderkid

43,246 posts

149 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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oilslick said:
I love the What HiFi forum. If your cable isn't made of oxygen-free unobtanium and braided with the pubes of virgin unicorns then you're apparently not making the most of your system.
Unicorn pubes are so last week. It's dodo feathers now. Do keep up.

jmorgan

36,010 posts

283 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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Just plug it in and see if it works before it is in permanent. Sure they would exchange it if not. As long as it meets the min spec. (with the usual caveat there are cheap cables and there are cheap knock offs.) Seeing as there is the source feeding the cable and the electronics that needs to interpret what is coming out the cable to boot.

warmfuzzies

3,961 posts

252 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
quotequote all
wombleh said:
VEX said:
Actually, it can not be that obvious. The cheaper cable may produce a 1 and 0 number but it may loose quite a bit of signal definition to the point it is hard to define if it is actually a 1 or a 0.

This is where the electronics have to take over to work out what it should have been and the worse it is the harder it is to decypher. This is were the image starts to break down and get a little grainy before it actually stops working.

V.
Shouldn't the HDMI certification process pick up on a cable that behaved like that?
Shouldn't there be start, stop, and error bits built into the transmission? The Zeros and Ones all have thresholds, so wouldnt that allow for some irregularities?

I always try my cheapo Ebay specials before I plug them in obviously as a test.... Only had two failures over the last few years, and short ones at a pound a pop, i'm not losing any sleep.

K