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Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

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Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#21

Post by cake »

mseebach wrote: post #16
micks56 wrote: post #10

My patience for the line, "It is digital. It either works or it doesn't" ended a long time ago. "Digital" signals are analog signals, but the only difference is that they are restricted to being above or below some threshold. But around that threshold there is a gray area where you can't really tell whether your signal will be interpreted as 1 or 0. I am not defending the need for high-end HDMI cables. But saying "It…

I think "It is digital. It either works or it doesn't" in the context of A/V refers to the quality of the converted analog signal - what comes out of the speakers or is visible on the screen. And the signal getting through can either work or not, no matter how well engineered the cable is, isn't that correct?

I think that "it either work or doesn't" only if the receiver has some kind of cyclic redundancy check before processing the signal.

My guess is that very few digital A/V systems implement this. Proof of this is the weird sound you may hear on a damaged compact disc, it half works.

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#22

Post by micks56 »

cake wrote: post #21
mseebach wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "It is digital. It either works or it doesn't" in the context of A/V refers to the quality of the converted analog signal - what comes out of the speakers or is visible on the screen. And the signal getting through can either work or not, no matter how well engineered the cable is, isn't that correct?

I think that "it either work or doesn't" only if the receiver has some kind of cyclic redundancy check before processing the signal. My guess is that very few digital A/V systems implement this. Proof of this is the weird sound you may hear on a damaged compact disc, it half works.

There probably are CRCs run during the decoding process, but CRCs only tell you "yes this is correct" or "no, something went wrong."

There are additional protection schemes that can detect and correct bit errors. Those are probably also run during the decoding process. The problem is that you can only detect so many wrong bits in a given word, and beyond that no correction can be made. That is probably why the damaged disc half works.

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#23

Post by [deleted] »

micks56 wrote: post #10

My patience for the line, "It is digital. It either works or it doesn't" ended a long time ago. "Digital" signals are analog signals, but the only difference is that they are restricted to being above or below some threshold. But around that threshold there is a gray area where you can't really tell whether your signal will be interpreted as 1 or 0. I am not defending the need for high-end HDMI cables. But saying "It…

[deleted]

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#24

Post by Sam_Odio »

Even better: An electromagnetically shielded, gold plated optical audio cable. Sold at Sears [1].

I stopped buying cables retail a long time ago. My favorite supplier: RiteAV. They're (IMHO) the Amazon of cables. Huge selection, modest prices [2], and great customer service [3].

1. http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_05750807000P?vName=...

2. HDMI cables start at $3.50 - http://www.riteav.com/hdmi-cables-c-141_147.html?osCsid=cjmg...

3. I've never seen another retailer with as high a satisfaction rating: http://www.resellerratings.com/store/RiteAV

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#25

Post by brown9-2 »

smackfu wrote: post #3

It's rare to see even a $10 one at retail. Often the lowest priced one is $20-25, and there are a bunch of $40 options. And not even talking about Monster which this article is singling out.

the same idea about retail markups applies to these cables as well

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#26

Post by dhyasama »

joezydeco wrote: post #7
singer wrote: post #2

Monoprice.com. That is all.

Except when you're buying a new TV and you're at the checkout, you realize you need a cable to finish your hookup. This is why you never see a $10 cable in a retail store, like the poster above mentioned. It's all about the psychology of needing it now instead of being able to wait 4 more days.

HDTV was new enough to me the last time I made a purchase that I assumed an HDMI cable would be in the box. It wasn't and next time I will plan ahead. Not everyone will do that so, so maybe a little business for same day delivery of cables to people would earn an enterprising college student a few extra bucks for beer. It could work where the population is sufficiently dense.

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#27

Post by cake »

gstar wrote: post #12

Shame! I thought we were going to get analytics from Mint showing their users net worth closely correlated with purchasing low-price HDMI cables.

I was expecting some comparaison of the renewal interval from users buying cheap cables vs users buying expensive cables.

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#28

Post by micks56 »

[deleted] wrote: post #23
micks56 wrote: post #10

My patience for the line, "It is digital. It either works or it doesn't" ended a long time ago. "Digital" signals are analog signals, but the only difference is that they are restricted to being above or below some threshold. But around that threshold there is a gray area where you can't really tell whether your signal will be interpreted as 1 or 0. I am not defending the need for high-end HDMI cables. But saying "It…

[deleted]

Are the colors 0026FF and 8026FF the same?

No, they are not. And the difference between blue (0026FF) and purple (8026FF) is a 1 bit error.

You will see an image, but not the image your DVD told your TV to display.

edit: This comment makes a lot less sense with the deleted comment removed.

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#29

Post by matwood »

micks56 wrote: post #10

My patience for the line, "It is digital. It either works or it doesn't" ended a long time ago. "Digital" signals are analog signals, but the only difference is that they are restricted to being above or below some threshold. But around that threshold there is a gray area where you can't really tell whether your signal will be interpreted as 1 or 0. I am not defending the need for high-end HDMI cables. But saying "It…

I think the point of the "either works or it doesn't" is a comparison versus analog. With an analog signal you could get slightly better results by getting better cables (or worse with worse cables). If you have a poor digital cable it flat out doesn't work. If the cable you're using works, buying a more expensive cable isn't going to make it work any better. Either the 1s and 0s made it from the source to the destination or they didn't.

No one is claiming that there isn't engineering that needs to happen to make a digital signal reliably travel from the source to the receiver.

Re: Why you should never pay more than $10 for an HDMI cable (Infographic)

#30

Post by GrandMasterBirt »

micks56 wrote: post #10

My patience for the line, "It is digital. It either works or it doesn't" ended a long time ago. "Digital" signals are analog signals, but the only difference is that they are restricted to being above or below some threshold. But around that threshold there is a gray area where you can't really tell whether your signal will be interpreted as 1 or 0. I am not defending the need for high-end HDMI cables. But saying "It…

Ok when it comes to HDMI the goal was to always have good quality. The difference between an analog and digital is that digital ENCODES the information, it either gets there or not. The only thing the cable gives you is bandwidth.

Analog is different. The signal is itself the image, so a poor signal = poor image.

MAYBE if you have a projector projecting onto a movie theater screen will a better HDMI cable matter... maybe? because of bandwidth limitations if the sender is smart enough it might send info at a lower resolution. Other than that I can't see theoretically why a good HDMI cable will help.

Also on my 42'' tv, I've yet to be shown a performance improvement when connecting my XBOX 360 via component or hdmi. It looks identical. And if HDMI is better than component, then I don't see a reason why you would ever need a good HDMI cable unless you are a movie theater and the theoretical problem does exist.

Edit regarding bit errors... Lets assume that the cable you bought is a good quality cable. By good quality I mean most seem to be shielded and not cut and no shorts. This is a reasonable expectation. I've yet to see an argument for buying more expensive super gold plated uber network cables. Hey why is your network cable that handles SO MUCH DATA not gold plated shielded etc.?

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