HDMI cable importance

[Zeebedy]

Hey guys,

loving my new tv, but through my Sky Q mini box, not often, but now and again, there is a slight (don’t know how to describe it well) distortion on screen for about one second..

now, I haven’t properly configured the settings yet, and also running to the tv the standard HDMI cable, I have just ordered two coming tomorrow, one for Sky and the other for my series X.

can older / sub standard cables affect your setup significantly or not really?

 

[Zeebedy]

The mini doesn't output anything better than 1080i/p. It's not 4K UHD. This means any regular high speed HDMI cable will do just fine.

What's more likely to be happening is a brief glitch in the wireless signal between the main Q box and the mini.

Minis have no big internal hard drive storage. In PC terms, there a bit like a thin client. Most of the power if you will is in the server end, and that's the main Q box itself. This is the device with the signal cables and the hard drive. This does the recording and live channel tuning for itself and any connected minis.

The mini gets its signal from one of the tuners in the main Q box. The signal is streamed via wireless to the mini which unpacks it and buffers some to help bridge any interruptions in the wireless signal.

Where you have glitches in playback its likely to be because the wireless signal between the boxes isn't great.

You can test this for yourself if you wish. Buy a long Ethernet cable and hook up the mini to the same router thatbthe Q main box is attached to. You'll need to go in to the service menus to disable wi-fi so that only Ethernet is used.

Once you have your connection then try playback and see if its still glitchy. My guess is it will be just fine.

Switch everything back to Wi-Fi and repeat the test. If the glitches are back then you have your answer.

The only other sneaky problem is interference from dirty power supplies affecting a poorly shielded HDMI cables. However, that would manifest as continual interruptions rather than just at the start of playback.

I have my mini box connected via Ethernet to my sky router, I will connect up my main sky q box today so it’s all intertwined.

Probably not the case but a few random TVs and some AOC monitors (mostly circa 2014) have a glitch in the audio power saving circuitry where if you aren't using the internal speakers will cause the image to wobble for half a second every 5 to 15 minutes depending on the display unless the volume is set to 0 and/or the audio disabled in the display OSD.

Hmm, interesting, I don’t use the internal speakers I have some bookshelf speakers and have disabled the internal speakers on the tv.

 

[Zeebedy]

Quick question,

if I disable WiFi on the sky Q for Ethernet only..does this disable the WiFi boosting features on the sky mini box in the back room?

meaning, I need the router connection to get WiFi for the phone and iPad etc..?

 

[Zeebedy]

Well, since the new HDMI cable and Ethernet connections on the sky Q boxes..it seems to have rid (so far) the glitching, and I still get a good wireless signal..

if anything my internet on my iPad seems faster? Is that because the Q boxes are no longer hogging the WiFi bandwidth?

also, I don’t know if it’s me, but the menu navigation seems snappier compared to before.

 

[Zeebedy]

Quite possible. That and (depending on your router) maybe now your router connection can make better use of the more advanced Wi-Fi features such as MIMO that the iPad probably supports.


Can't comment directly on that. It could be a bit placebo or real. You'd need to go back to your previous set-up to do a proper comparison. Would be interesting and useful knowledge to find out if there was a benefit though.

it’s the latest iPad Air, so hopefully has the technology you speak about. And regarding the speed of menus, it deffo feels faster, but I will leave as is, because if it is a bit speedier it’s not night and day really..

Just make sure your HDMI cables support the relevant standards and you will be fine. Don't be one of those people running a HDMI 1.3 cable on a 4K setup lol.

I was using the standard HDMI cable that cable with, it didn’t look up to much quality wise, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 1.3 or something!

 

[Zeebedy]

Like I said before, it depends on the wireless router too. Advanced features have to be supported in both the wireless device AND the router to be of any benefit.

If this is a "free with the Internet services" router, then the chances are it will be very basic. Any speed improvements will come almost by accident rather than deliberate planning, i.e. just by reducing the number of wireless devices.

It can pay big dividends to understand your wireless router's capabilities, and maybe even change to something better equipped to handle the demands of all your
wireless devices.

(see post above.) There is no HDMI 1.3 cable. But even if there were, it would still be absolutely fine for your needs.

How good is the SKY router? I’m guessing not that great?

whatever was changed has so far helped with the picture on my TV.

 

[Zeebedy]

@lucid

wow, thanks for the detailed info, I will look into that, see what I can take from it!