HDMI cables - What should you spend really ?

So why ask for opinions? You've dismissed opinions from 1) a guy who shoots television news and whose job depends on equipment working properly (a broken cable at the wrong time and he's fucked) 2) a guy who is an IT expert and repairs computers for a living 3) a guy who used to sell fucking Monster Cables. You could have saved yourself and us a lot of time and aggravation by just buying the fucking cables that you want instead of asking to justify your purchase for you. I'm with Elwood spend whatever it will take to make you happy. Life's too short to worry about whether you've got the right cables. Oh and FWIW I ordered the cheap ass HDMI cables from Amazon and they work great.

I seriously doubt your 60Hz power cables are going to radiate enough power at frequencies high enough to interfere with HDMI.

It may well be that there are older cables on the market that won't support 1080p; 1080p is TWICE the data rate of 1080i. But anything you buy new at an electronics store will certainly do the job. If it says it's good for 1080p, it probably is.

What's "better?" If you pay less and get an adequate result, you're ahead of the game. The signal either gets from your PS3 to the TV with adequate strength or it doesn't. I wouldn't even consider a $69 or $99 Monster HDMI cable to do the job when the cheap stuff--notice several people in here found cables for less than a dollar--do the job perfectly well.

The money you save can go into movie purchases or rentals.

I seriously doubt your 60Hz power cables are going to radiate enough power at frequencies high enough to interfere with HDMI.

It may well be that there are older cables on the market that won't support 1080p; 1080p is TWICE the data rate of 1080i. But anything you buy new at an electronics store will certainly do the job. If it says it's good for 1080p, it probably is.

What's "better?" If you pay less and get an adequate result, you're ahead of the game. The signal either gets from your PS3 to the TV with adequate strength or it doesn't. I wouldn't even consider a $69 or $99 Monster HDMI cable to do the job when the cheap stuff--notice several people in here found cables for less than a dollar--do the job perfectly well.

The money you save can go into movie purchases or rentals.

Cheap cables are fine unless you have bad luck and get a really bad one.

I bought my first HDMI cable from a local computer store really cheap and it worked fine at 720p, but at 1080p the signal would flash out every few seconds. I bought a second cheap cable from a different store and that one was fine. All up I still only paid $10. It could have been much cheaper getting it from online but I didn't want to wait.

The point is that if you have a bad cable it will be immediately obvious. It will either work properly or it won't.

You obviously didn't look very hard. I think the cable you must have looked at was something like 25 feet long, which I highly doubt you need.

Have a look at this one:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10240&cs_id=1024008&p_id=3993&seq=1&format=2

I've been swapping HDMI cables to my monitor for a year and a half now. Going between my Xbox and my Media Center. I'm not saying that it's a good idea by any means, but I've yet to have any problems.

And the fact remains that HDMI is the simplest fucking AV cable system that has ever been created. It just fucking works. I seriously question the competency of anyone who manages to damage or destroy an HDMI cable in anything approximating normal use.

Anyway, back to Para. Get off your high horse and stop trying to prove everyone wrong. If you want to go buy your expensive cables, go for it, man. You've already thrown down at least a thousand dollars on your setup, why not get some magic cable.

By the way, I threw 'hdmi category 1' into Amazon, and you know what happened? THE ENTIRE FIRST PAGE OF RESULTS LISTED CATEGORY 2 CABLES. That's right, the Category 1 cables are so common that Amazon gave up on trying to show them to me and just went back to Category 2 cables.

You're trying to play a game of "gotchas" over a fucking video cable. You asked what our thoughts were on a "good cable" and, y'know what? They're exactly the sort of cable that you are convinced are shit because a couple of chuckleheads at Amazon can't figure out that they aren't supposed to plug it into their asses, and the very reviews you quote acknowledge that the thing has nearly a flawless record. In fact, there are so many positive reviews that, even with all the negative ones included, the product is still rated at five stars. Hell, the five star reviews account for 90% of the reviews for the product you quoted. The one star reviews account for 2%.

Trust me, companies are shit-their-pants satisfied when 90% of customers who buy the product are perfectly happy with it. My God, imagine if 90% of laptops never had an issue. If 90% of automobiles never experienced a part failure.

But, please, continue to grasp at straws. And after you're done with that, I've got some fantastic wooden knobs for you to install on your stereo equipment.

I really don't see the point in buying any kind of cable for a television that's bound to be repossed by the credit card company any day now.

Look, this is all I'm trying to say.....

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There is a middle ground people. Construction matters. If you buy one of these 45 cent cables then don't be surprised if it doesn't work. I'm willing to concede that you're right, it seems most people won't see a problem. But with a lower price cable comes a lower level of quality assurance. I don't see how anyone can completely dismiss hundreds of reviews claiming that their cable came apart or that pins were broken right out of the box.

It may not be a widespread problem, but that's not to say the problem doesn't exist. And who wants to wait 2 weeks on a cable that might not work (even if it's a small chance)?

I pitty the fool who buys s ome dumb gold tipped hdmi cable. My blueray setup works fine with cheap ass cables from target...

^
How much were they?

Rule number one do what paladin does when it comes to AV needs.

My HDMI cable was purchased for me as a gift along with my PS3. Didn't save the package, have no idea how much it cost, but it was the only way to get the HD single to my 1080i projection screen. I thought it was pretty nifty that the PS3 talked to my Sony TV and determined the max resolution it could handle.

The cheap vs. expensive cable argument for digital signals I get, but I balk when people tell me the HDMI connection is better than the component video (not RCA, component ) cable I use to connect to my DVR cable box. I don't need sound to the TV at all. Running optical cables from the PS3 and PC to my receiver, and a digital coax (another point of contention) cable from the DVR box to the receiver. I notice no difference in signal quality between HDMI/component video and optical/coax digital audio.

So fucking what if there is a higher rate of failure? At 45 cents buy 10. You've sill saved 75%.



Or, buy the nice cable and enjoy the extra boom to your bass that you're after.

I've been using a cheap as chips HDMI cable with my PS3 from day one and never had any problems with it. Razor sharp 1080 high definition.

Parallaxis, you're going to get defrauded brutally if you buy one of those triple-digit cables.

^
I never said I was.
I'm talking 10 to 30 dollar cables.

There's about 4 cents worth of material separating a 48 cent cable and a $10+ cable. Mediabridge (the $10 cable) touts that they use metal shielding in their cables. Example:



You're paying for that dinky little piece of metal "shielding" that offers no real performance boost or durability at all, because it stops right there at the connector head. If you're okay with that, buy it, but don't think that's somehow superior in quality.

Take a look at the 1 star ratings, since you deem them important. They make up 3% of the overall score, whereas the cheap 48 cent/15 cent cables make up less than 1%. Doesn't sound too good in favor of paying more, does it?

J.

People who buy expensive hdmi cables are losers.

1080p is 1080p is 1080p.

Whether it's Component or HDMI does not matter. HDMI is just a little more simple because it's one plug as opposed to several. There's zero chance of plugging the wrong plug into the wrong port.

Not entirely accurate.

In theory a component cable can carry a full 1080p signal but for devices like the PS3 it is an analog signal, meaning you can more easily get interference (although unless you are running a bloody Tesla coil next to your tv you probably won't notice it without doing a side by side comparison)

Many televisions can not accept a 1080p signal from the component ports, being limited to 1080i. For most practical purposes that doesn't matter though as the Blu-Ray licensing rules mean that no Blu-Ray player is allowed to send 1080p video over component cables. If you have component cables the maximum Blu-Ray resolution will be 1080i.

For the PS3, the dvd upscaling option is only available when using HDMI cables.

So if Uncle Alberts tv maxes out at 1080i anyway, component is perfectly fine for Blu-Ray playback and games, the only down side is no dvd upscaling.

^
Well.... component is an analog signal and therefor can be adjusted slightly. See the video I posted above.

And component doesn't do that wacky copyright protection thing that sometimes fucks up and makes you download an update.
And there's that whole hdmi tv/player "handshake" thing. That f'd up many a ps3 users when it caused flickering and loss of sound in some games.

edit- bailey got a post in before me. dang. Forgot about the ps3-no-upscale-in-component

Parallaxis,

I wouldn't put much stock into those anonymous Amazon reviews because if I worked for Monster, the first thing I'd do is try to convince people looking to buy $3 cables that they are shit and you need the $90 variety in order to experience the full capacity of your TV.... or that the cable might even fuck up your mutiple thousand dollar investment. Anonymous Amazon reviews are perfect for that sort of viral retro-marketing.

Paladin gave you good advice. try the cheap cables. If they are unsatisfactory, return them. I had the same concern when I went HD... My TV was delivered a few days before my TV came, so I ran out to BBY and bought a set of some $60 cables... When my $3 cable came, I had a chance to do a comparison and let me tell you, I returned the $60 set right away. There was absolutely no difference that I could ascertain.

Right now, after a year, if one of my cables crapped out on me, I know exactly where I'd buy my replacement. The price is so good, I might just buy a few spares to keep handy, but I really don't think I need to.

Well... AlphaMan, you seem like the type to plug and unplug. Those cheap cables WILL wear out after a few hundred thousand plugins. Let me warn you! I recommend you therefore spend 20x the cost of two cheap cables.

I believe the cable I linked to in Forbin's thread were 1.3a category 2. They were $3 each.

http://www.bing.com/search?q=hdmi 1.3a category 2&form=QBRE&qs=AS&pq=HDMI 1.3&adlt=strict

Second of all, very few games use 1080P nowadays... Most are 720P... but I always get 1080P from Blu-ray through my PS3. My TV display tells me whenever this changes... I haven't had a problem.

You should start a site about HDMI cables. You could call it "HDMIPARALLEL.COM."

I declare, I've heard hdmi logic from you I've heard from no one else!