Poll: POLL please: Will Aa £50 HDMI cable give me better IQ than standard 360 one?

Will a £50 1m HDMI cable give me better IQ than standard XBOX 360 one?

  • Yes

    Votes: 23 8.7%

  • No

    Votes: 242 91.3%
  • Total voters
    265
Would everyone answering "yes" make you go out and buy one? Until someone proves that such cables can make a difference (and no-one has) then sleep safe in the knowledge that your friend has wasted his money.
 
No it won't.

Unless, as others have said it's a unusually long cable.

The other thing to note is that you can get these monster cables that cost £60-£100 on the high street for around £20 online if you shop around. I bought one of them from a well know auction site a few months back for £15, and do you know what, I can't tell the difference between it and the cheap one that came with my Sky HD box. Funny that.
 
No difference whatsoever. I'm not even sure how long you'd need to start worrying either. I have a 15m cable from eBay that cost me about a tenner, and it spouts out 1080p quite happily.
 
To be honest, unless you've got a microwave generator sat next to your telly, I really doubt there would be enough interference to cause any issues at all.

Over at one of the TV & entertainment forums I frequent someone ask the question about overpriced HDMI cables every other bloody day. While the staff of certain high street stores are IMO the main cause of the problem, supposedly trust worthy magazines such as stuff telling people to spend "at least £50" on an HDMI cable doesn't help the issue. If they don't change that advice soon I'll be cancelling my subscription that's for sure.
 
No from me.

In fact, last night my mate brought around his 'premium' £60:eek: HDMI cable to compare against my SKY HD box one I got when it was installed, as I wanted to see for myself if it was worth upgrading.

By looking at the build quality of the two you think there would be a difference, but whilst watching The Verve at Glastonbury on the BBC HD channel we couldn't see any at all. It looked fantastic on both.
 
I hate the sense of superiority you see in the eyes of many that have fallen for this trap. Friend of mine had bought a £30+ one and talked to me as if i were a fool for buying a cheap £5 ebay one.

Lines such as 'the colours are just so much warmer on my setup' and 'at least i know my cable won't degrade within a year' were spoken. I didn't even bother putting the effort in to explaining why the adoption of digital signals results in signal loss being much less of a problem, i just let him enjoy his ignorant bliss.

A resounding 'bullpoop' from me. However i never bother explaining to anyone who has already fallen for the guff why they're wrong, it typically upsets them, i simply advise those considering a purchase
 
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For the love of all that is HDMI!

Right, a sticky may be in order here.

As someone who has spent 4 years working FFTs, DFTs and all other types of wave forms can we get one thing straight. HDMI is not digital. Its a digital interface which converts the signal to analogue to travel down the cable and then back again. In which case, in theory, it is susceptible to degredation like any other signal over length as the amplitude of the signal decreases.

HOWEVER: The amplitude frequency of the signal at Tx (Transmit) is quite large therefore meaning, as long as the cable fits snugly you'll get a signal at the Rx (Receive) which is exactly what was transmitted. Some interfaces (1.3a) also use error detection and correction to make sure the signal is accurate. This is all done before you can even blink.

So to summarise, the price of your cable will have no reflection on the signal quality you receive unless you are laying down some serious cable lengths and we're talking probably 20m +. The only price reflection point should be in the quality of the connectors and how snugly they fit in the port.
 
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