Tried a £70 HDMI cable

Did you re-intialise tha magnetic field on the cable before connecting it? And was it parallel with the horizon? If not, your review is invalid as the state of the Earth's mavity has a noticable effect on high-bandwidth data transmission.
 
Bigpops said:
I know it's digital, but copper cable has resistance, its subject to EM interference etcetera. It's not perfect. Not all those little 1s and 0s will make it to the other end of a long run, meaning you have to rely on error checking and correction.

Maybe my 3m statement was a little short. I was going by something Robert Heron on DL.TV said ages ago. He said for short HDMI cables there's really no point spending any more than the minimum, but once you get to longer runs, it starts to make a difference. He's the one with the AV lab, so I suppose he'd know.
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Its the same as USB cables, if you get a certain length of cable and increase it to a size where bits of information don't go through it just won't work. USB cables over 4metres or so just don't work. They don't "kind of work" like your implying... if one bit of signal doesn't get through, none do. Thats why you need a repeater on the cable or better cabling for a passive setup. Having tried it myself, i know for a fact there is no difference between an expensive 10m cable and a cheap one so long as the signal gets through. Once you go over 15m you need to look at cables with either really good passive cabling or an active alternative like a repeater. This is the same with any digital cable though, not just HDMI.

The ideas of better picture or better sound though = crap. Even with long distances it just isn't true. The only reason companies like monster cables have such expensive things is because for the most part they are trying to cash in on the naivety of the general public's grasp on technology. After years of analogue cables having better images with gold plating and shielded cables etc the companies are just trying to make some money on the few people uneducated enough to fall into their little trap. Sure, they could just make cheap cables that work as intended for under a fiver each. But then if they sell one £200 cable to someone who doesn't know any better they've made far more money.
 
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It's true, but has sod all to do with resistance in the case of usb. The host has to recieve an answer from the device within 1500ns, otherwise it will assume the data was lost, that's what limits the length of the cable.
 
well, thats rubbish. i have two 10m usb cables sitting between my pc and the two usb hubs on my desk, with a total of 11 devices plugged in. i have no problems. these were £3 quid belkin usb2.0 cables from the forest by the way:)
 
Beansprout said:
Did you re-intialise tha magnetic field on the cable before connecting it? And was it parallel with the horizon? If not, your review is invalid as the state of the Earth's mavity has a noticable effect on high-bandwidth data transmission.
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Don't forget your anorak too! Or you'll nullify all results!
 
Jiffy said:
Don't forget your anorak too! Or you'll nullify all results!
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Why do you need an anorak for cable testing :confused:

I have a degree in spectrocablenanoscience-analysis, and I have more paris of hifi cable than hairs on my head. I wish people would stop spreading bad information.
 
I use gold plated USB cables when copying files across to my MP3 player and they sound much better than when I use the standard cable.
 
Bigpops said:
I know it's digital, but copper cable has resistance, its subject to EM interference etcetera. It's not perfect. Not all those little 1s and 0s will make it to the other end of a long run, meaning you have to rely on error checking and correction.

Maybe my 3m statement was a little short. I was going by something Robert Heron on DL.TV said ages ago. He said for short HDMI cables there's really no point spending any more than the minimum, but once you get to longer runs, it starts to make a difference. He's the one with the AV lab, so I suppose he'd know.
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Err digital signals aren't subject to any interference and there's no error correction.
 
AbsenceJam said:
Err digital signals aren't subject to any interference and there's no error correction.
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Yes they are, There are no 1 and 0,s travelling down a cable or in a computer system. Binary was invented to make it easy for the user to program and use. What is running down the cable is a voltage this voltage is what switches the device either on or off. Any voltage travelling down a cable is subject to interference.
 
I have a 5m USB connected to a 3m extension, both were about £1 each. How come it can still Scan, Print and Fax?

Spending top dollar on digital cables is BS. Yes if they are very long they won't work as well. I have no problems though with a cheap 10M HDMI, connected to a coupler then 2m extra on it for good measure. Image is perfect from HD-DVD to my HD-Projector.
 
I am pretty sure I am going to get mocked and called a idiot and all sorts of names but I know what I saw and this has been a fairly one sided thread so far.

First off

I tried swapping a normal free nasty hdmi cable with a qed HDMI-P on a sony 1080p lcd the one that all the mags including what hifi said was the best lcd out at the time. I can go and get the model number if anyone really cares.
This made virtually no difference to the picture what so ever, the sound was maybe a bit better but it could have also just been a bit louder.

Now here is the bit that will get me flamed

I have a award winning pioneer 426xde plasma hooked up to a pioneer lx70a bluray player both of which are fed into a isotek sigmas.
Now using a free hdmi cable I still got a good picture however replacing with the chord 1.3 hmdi cable did the following.
It drastically reduced the digital noise and also removed any grain. It also gave me better detail and depth of field and slightly smother motion, there were other improvements as well however it is nearly six am and I really cannot remember them.
Now it wasn't just me who seen this improvement and I even done blind tests and picked the chord as the better cable. It really was a nice improvement, I am not lying and I have nothing to gain by saying this other than to likely get mocked by a lot of people.

My opinion is that you have to have a high enough quality source and screen to notice the difference as my sony is not even in the same league as the pioneer. Sadly I just don‘t think the ps3 as good as it is, is a good enough source to say for a fact that hdmi cables are identical after all its just a console, I mention the ps3 as I bet that is the bluray player most people in here use. Even then I think not only is not everyone going to display the difference but not everyone is going to be able to see it either.
I will say I know several other people who have bought this cable for their pioneer plasma tv's and found a improvement, although I am not sure if they done a blind test or not.
I do know that one of them didn't tell his wife he had done anything to the tv, she came in and said what have you done to the tv as the picture is just leaping off the screen. He is not the sort of guy to make something like this up.

This is my passion and I have spent the past ten years indulging it, and I am the first to say when something I have bought was a piece of crap or was just not worth the money. The Xbox 360 hd-dvd drive being one, I have seen far better performance off of a dvd player, it had horrible motion, the black levels were bad, it had no detail and don‘t get me started on the sound quality or the volume of the console when running, just the biggest waste of cash I have spent in a while even though I only paid £50 for it.

I think this like upgraded power cables will always be a hot bed of debate, I also think upgraded power cables give HUGE improvements in quality in certain systems as well, having just got a award winning [hifi choice, not those muppets what hifi, although they liked it as well] Russ Andrews power cable. It was one of the biggest improvements to my stereo setup I have used since I bought a pair of grado gs1000's.

I understand the logic that says it will either not work or be perfect, but as is the way of the world lots of things go against what the logic should be. Like flying, or why a medication works or any number of things. In the end I have to go with what I myself have seen and experienced for is that not what life is about ?

I am not saying that you are all blind or idiots, I am just saying it took me quite some time to realise what I was looking at and what I was looking for and even then I have seen that it makes no difference at all on some screens.
I am also not saying that cheap hdmi cables are all rubbish, I am just saying that on my Pioneer tv I did notice a difference although I did not on my Sony Lcd.
 
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