The high definition generation and lack of standardisation

in so much as you can get the same thing for about £7 then slightly

but honestly whats £3 ?

at least you've not paid £60 for a monster one.
 
Saw in stuff magazine that they recomend spending at least 50 quid on a hdmi cable. They said it improves picture and sound quality. They havnt been bribed to say that.

you're right, they've not been bribed, they just dont know what they're talking about
 
Oh so many faults in that i dont even know where to start. :p.

From a technical standpoint, no, not all cables are the same, wether they carry digital or analogue signals.
Whilst over short distances, your £3 jobbos might well do the job fine, but over that, and the signal degredation starts getting more noticable.
Its not all that noticable when the signals going down it are below 1080p and/or DTS-HD, but wack both of them on, effectivly using the majority of the bandwidth of the cable, and the differences would be noticable in some cases. It all depends on how well the telly/amp can do its ECC on the incoming data.
In a way, its the same how CD skips in your car. Or when a digital TV loses its reception and goes blocky for a bit. Its because the digital signal became a bit scrambled along the way and your telly/CD player is having to do ECC to try and compensate. (although, it never quite works. :p).

Personally, i saw a difference, not a big one, but a difference none the less, when i faffed between the free HDMI cable i got with my DVD player, and a £20 CA one i got a few weeks ago between my PS3 & new telly.

So while it can be said that the difference isnt there, and everyone can pat themselves on the back at getting their £3 cables over a £60 monster cable, dont for a second think you've got the best you can get out of that connection AND saved a packet in the process.

Having said all that though, those monster cables are a rip off. :p.
I sit somewhere in between, i wont use a cheap cable on something that costs a lot, but nor will i spend megabucks on something that has less than 1% difference in it. So i settled with a £20 cable. :p lol.
 
So while it can be said that the difference isnt there, and everyone can pat themselves on the back at getting their £3 cables over a £60 monster cable, dont for a second think you've got the best you can get out of that connection AND saved a packet in the process,


and what about these people telling you theyve seen no difference between their own expensive cables and cheaper varients?

if it were so easy to differentiate between cables, there'd be some sort of technical test available to prove this. where is it? here's a couple that prove the opposite

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cable-fi...iz-hdmi-cable-battlemodo-has-begun-266982.php
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hdmi-cab...erdict-cheap-cables-keep-upusually-268788.php
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hdmi-cab...ster-cable-+-grand-finale-part-iii-282725.php

take a look at the test details, they managed to fire 13.3Gbps through a five dollar 6ft hdmi cable and it passed no problem - hdmi1.3a has a maximum of 10.2Gbps and that includes 7.1/192khz pcm audio @ 36MB/sec (far higher than DTS MA). tbh audio makes little difference to the overall bandwidth. . out of those that failed on the technical test, only 1 actually failed in use. Also as he commented, problems were immediately obvious, there was no room for opionion - there was visible jitter and snow in the picture.

you arent going to get little improvements here and there from using 'better' cables. its either going to work or there will be obiously problems and break up.
 
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Saw in stuff magazine that they recomend spending at least 50 quid on a hdmi cable. They said it improves picture and sound quality. They havnt been bribed to say that.

There IS a difference between cheap and expensive HDMI cables, it's just that most people don't need anything more than a cheap one.

It's not a simple as it's digital therefore it's either displaying perfectly or it isn't displaying at all, that's a myth.

Nothing to say except 'see picture' and read the post below by james :D

roflcoptermv5.gif


and what about these people telling you theyve seen no difference between their own expensive cables and cheaper varients?

if it were so easy to differentiate between cables, there'd be some sort of technical test available to prove this. where is it? here's a couple that prove the opposite

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cable-fi...iz-hdmi-cable-battlemodo-has-begun-266982.php
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hdmi-cab...erdict-cheap-cables-keep-upusually-268788.php
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hdmi-cab...ster-cable-+-grand-finale-part-iii-282725.php

take a look at the test details...........

you arent going to get little improvements here and there from using 'better' cables. its either going to work or there will be obiously problems and break up.
 
look at this 'review' lol http://www.avreview.co.uk/news/article/mps/UAN/1170/v/1/sp/

re: the ixos tru-1080
Verdict:
Plus points
Robust construction; excellent contrast
Minus points
Expensive; colour reproduction might be a tad cold for some tastes

??????????? the cables are altering the contrast and colours of a digital, encrypted signal now? thats impressive stuff
 
look at this 'review' lol http://www.avreview.co.uk/news/article/mps/UAN/1170/v/1/sp/

re: the ixos tru-1080


??????????? the cables are altering the contrast and colours of a digital, encrypted signal now? thats impressive stuff

Wow they didn't even mention it improving black details. Sounds like a cable for Plasmas as an LCD really needs a HDMI that improves black levels and shadow details.

I've heard that the new HDMI cables will remove womens clothes in films, all because of an added 'specially designed filtering' cable braided into the original cryo'd cable. Review next month in 'What Tv'




;)
 
look at this 'review' lol http://www.avreview.co.uk/news/article/mps/UAN/1170/v/1/sp/

re: the ixos tru-1080


??????????? the cables are altering the contrast and colours of a digital, encrypted signal now? thats impressive stuff

Well, I think it was IXOS that basically did a marketing 'stunt', where by they took a cheap no-name HDMI v1.1 cable, and compared to to their own HDMIv1.3a cable into a DeepColor compatible HDMI 1.3 display..

Oddly the HDMI1.3a cable which supports the DeepColor extended colour depth looked better then using the HDMI1.1 cable that didn't...
Nothing really to do with the quality of cables etc, a complete 'scam'... but they where careful with their claims..
 
Well, I think it was IXOS that basically did a marketing 'stunt', where by they took a cheap no-name HDMI v1.1 cable, and compared to to their own HDMIv1.3a cable into a DeepColor compatible HDMI 1.3 display..

Oddly the HDMI1.3a cable which supports the DeepColor extended colour depth looked better then using the HDMI1.1 cable that didn't...
Nothing really to do with the quality of cables etc, a complete 'scam'... but they where careful with their claims..

Obviously missed your point - as the results are exactly as you would expect (the IXOS -more expensive - cables to come out on top)

As stated before I have bought £15 hdmi cables (cant honestly remember the name) and compared them to a free one given away with my EP35 HD-DVD player.

The £15 one came out ontop both connected direct to the tv and via my onkyo 805 amp - both sound reproduction and colour clarity was better over the same range of clips

It wasnt a lot better, and maybe some wouldnt think it was worth it (everyone after all is allowed their own opinion :)) but considering I have around 200 HD discs , the outlay in the cables is considerably less than what Im playing to its worth it imo

With different equipment other people may well percieve differing results (hell even with the same equipment :))
 
Personally, I think 1080p is about the perfect res for TV at the moment.

Most of the TVs that are appearing and 1:1 pixel mapping, with an exact 16:9 picture (1920x1080).

The combined with HDMI is bliss.

I own a PS3 plugged into a Samsung 1080p LCD via HDMI, and its about as good as I could ask for. Outstanding picture, correct res and aspect ratio, one single clean digital cable. Borrowed a 360 from work and wanted to puke, none standard MS connector to 5 cables for component, worse picture quality, overscan, 2 channel sound.

Really, HDMI and 1080p is the way forward, everything else should be going in the bin.

Actually, I'll edit and say that at the moment it appears that the PS3 (and probably the 360) aint powerful enough to push true 1080p games - however, the groundwork the ps3 has put in, using standardised industry components like bluetooth, HDMI, 2.5 sata drives etc, along with the 1080p support is just outstanding.
 
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and what about these people telling you theyve seen no difference between their own expensive cables and cheaper varients?
Personal preference. Simple.

if it were so easy to differentiate between cables, there'd be some sort of technical test available to prove this. where is it? here's a couple that prove the opposite...
Must be true if its on Gizmodo. ;)

take a look at the test details, they managed to fire 13.3Gbps through a five dollar 6ft hdmi cable and it passed no problem
How about we try all cheap cables then? Results from one line of cables does not equal the results of all cables.

omg... I think that's so ironic it's actually physically hurting me!
Ironic how?
 
Personal preference. Simple.
lol! if people are going to claim one cable provides a better picture than another they should be prepared to prove it. as it stands from my own testing it will either work or it wont. there's no in between, no shift in colour, no better contrast.

How about we try all cheap cables then? Results from one line of cables does not equal the results of all cables.

every cheap cable ive tried holds up that theory. they are for all intents and purposes, identical.

Must be true if its on Gizmodo.
is that really all you can say? prove me wrong!
 
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Nothing to say except 'see picture' and read the post below by james :D

roflcoptermv5.gif

???

Which part of those test results disprove anything that I said? I didn't say you'd see a difference in quality between cheap and expensive cables where there isn't image corruption. The fact is that there are differences in certain circumstances, as well as the fact that some cheap cables don't support 1080p...etc. Some cheap cables in certain circumstances can potentially experience image corruption due to a number of factors.
 
It's not a simple as it's digital therefore it's either displaying perfectly or it isn't displaying at all, that's a myth.


^^^ what did you really mean by this?
Which part of those test results disprove anything that I said? I didn't say you'd see a difference in quality between cheap and expensive cables where there isn't image corruption. The fact is that there are differences in certain circumstances, as well as the fact that some cheap cables don't support 1080p...etc. Some cheap cables in certain circumstances can potentially experience image corruption due to a number of factors.

youve just said made conflicting statements here. remember the argument here is that it'll work untill things go badly wrong - nobody has denied that, except BoomAM. the point of those tests was to show that even $4 6ft cables were capable of passing above the full requirements of hdmi 1.3a. if you need a longer run obviously, it pays to get a better cable. again, nobody has said otherwise.
 
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The fact that under certain circumstances you can get image corruption with cheap cables. It'll display but it won't be perfect.

But yes as I said before, most people don't need anything more than a cheap one, an expensive cable will make no difference.

I was getting confused by your posts a little as well, but I was too busy hovering around in my Roflcopter, as I just love these threads.

I have seen no difference between all the cables I have tried. They work displaying 1080p and all look the same, it's as simple as that. I'm not going to sit around debating tests and image corruption. Even expensive cables are not needed for long runs, what you need is a well made cable that has been tested to display 1080p at that length with no loss of signal.

I'm off back to research chord, and nordost Fibe optic cables ;)
 
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