Plotloss - quick question on HDMI cables
Plotloss - quick question on HDMI cables
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Discussion

che6mw

Original Poster:

2,560 posts

256 months

Tuesday 2nd January 2007
quotequote all
Plotloss (or anyone else in the biz),

I know the answer could be "how long is a piece of string" but how much should I expect to pay for a HDMI cable? I've seen them range from £15 to £80 and above. I know with cabling the more you pay the better you get (especially for audiophiles) but what do you recommed for below two setups???

I'll be connected one DVD recorder to a 42" plasma, and another DVD recorder to a 27" LCD.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Ta
Matt

Plotloss

67,280 posts

301 months

Tuesday 2nd January 2007
quotequote all
Broadly speaking, any will do.

No sense in going mad on pure silver etc etc etc cable nonsense.

You want a fair level of quality to ensure the connections twixt plug and cable are good to reduce reflection and you want to keep them as short as possible to eliminate skew (as the R, G and B are carried on seperate conductors so you have the potential for one of the component parts to arrive at the screen before the others causing degredation). Also being digital the signal is prone to 'cliff effect' after a certain distance where the signal degrades so much its worthless but this only happens on very long cables, anything over 50ft or so needs injectors to boost it.

In summary, like SCART, good but not stupid.

pjskel

10,842 posts

258 months

Tuesday 2nd January 2007
quotequote all
Decent one on the Plasma and cheaper on the LCD.
Wholly depends on what you're comfortable spending and if you don't mind a stiffer, less flexible one.
Personally (ex-audiophile) I'd opt for £30-60 mark depending on the above. The more costly on the Plasma, but only after checking both to see if there's any discernible difference on either display.

che6mw

Original Poster:

2,560 posts

256 months

Tuesday 2nd January 2007
quotequote all
thanks guys.

mr_yogi

3,288 posts

286 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
How long will the cables be? If it's only a short distance any half decent cable will be fine. If you are going 10m or more the general consensus (from what I have read) is that you will need to pay for a premium cable, at least on larger screens.

vex

5,259 posts

277 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
As a business we currently try to stay away from any lead over 10m and we currently have a problem with the content protection hand shaking between to pioneer pieces of kit over a 10m lead. Works fine with a non HDCP player and Sky HD though.

However I have just been told that it could be the Pioneer kit rather than the lead

che6mw

Original Poster:

2,560 posts

256 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
well the plasma is Pioneer and the LCD is Samsung. Both hooked up to Sony RDR-HXD860's. The plasma is also hooked up to Sky and amp/receiver, PS2 etc, etc. Not sure we'll bother with multiroom as Samsung has freeview built in and that should be good enough. The Plasma is wall mounted in space cut in to chimney breast, with all additional kit on stand in alcove next to chimney breast. And Samsung LCD will probably remain on its stand, sat on the DVD recorded.

As such distance to kit isn't going to be more than a couple of meters for the plasma and less for the LCD.

Plotloss

67,280 posts

301 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
Pioneers have a known issue with Sky boxes over HDMI.

ThatPhilBrettGuy

11,810 posts

271 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
Plotloss said:
Broadly speaking, any will do.

No sense in going mad on pure silver etc etc etc cable nonsense.

You want a fair level of quality to ensure the connections twixt plug and cable are good to reduce reflection and you want to keep them as short as possible to eliminate skew (as the R, G and B are carried on seperate conductors so you have the potential for one of the component parts to arrive at the screen before the others causing degredation). Also being digital the signal is prone to 'cliff effect' after a certain distance where the signal degrades so much its worthless but this only happens on very long cables, anything over 50ft or so needs injectors to boost it.

In summary, like SCART, good but not stupid.

Are you sure about the RGB bit with it all being digital? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Def

Plotloss

67,280 posts

301 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
Yes, its a digital version of the Red, Green or Blue signal.

The same information is being carried but in a digital format.

Its less of an issue with HDMI than Cat5e (which I use kit to carry HD signals) but skew is still an issue in long HDMI runs.

che6mw

Original Poster:

2,560 posts

256 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
Plotloss said:
Pioneers have a known issue with Sky boxes over HDMI.

The Sky box I have doesn't have HDMI (I guess only HD boxes do????? of which mine currently isn't one) so the Pioneer will be connected by Scart to the Pioneer.

Or are you saying that a Pioneer TV with HDMI to a DVD recorder will somehow screw up the compatibility with a TV and a Sky box ????

Plotloss

67,280 posts

301 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
Only that there is a known issue with handshaking between the HD Ready Pioneer boxes and the SkyHD box.

Pioneer are well aware of the issue, its an engineer visit to rectify, doesnt take long but its not DIY.

stuh

2,557 posts

304 months

Wednesday 3rd January 2007
quotequote all
Yes, i suffered with the Pioneer/Sky HD issue ;(

Re HDMI - signal is digital, so as Plotloss advises, you just want to pay for quality construction, 1's and 0's don't care if the cable was rolled on a virgins thighs.