HDMI cable - £5 vs £55 (discussion)

Leopard

No: to be frank I still don't. To me, if a television is showing grey where it ought to be showing black, it's got a colour accuracy problem.

But then "black level" is something I clearly do not comprehend. I've never been able to establish how "black" somebody has to be to be permitted to join an organisation called the National Black Police Association that is permitted to exist in a country that is supposed to be worthily dedicated to eliminating discrimination by skin colour, either. Would being just a bit brown be regarded as a "colour accuracy" problem to them? To me, this seems grossly offensive to those who are Asian or Oriental - let alone Caucasian.

Still, we'd better not wander off-topic into that particular can of worms.

What's true to say is that our own large screen Sony LCD produces jet-black blacks where it's supposed to and suffers from no backlight bleed or "clouding" at all. The same goes for our little 20" Sony LCD in the kitchen, too. Likewise, my 30" Hewlett-Packard monitor. But I've read (and seen) that other LCD models, including Sonys, can suffer from it.

I do appreciate you taking the time to try to explain it to me, aliEnRIK.

aliEnRIK

Trust you to 'wander off topic'

aliEnRIK

Colour accuracy is for example grass looking like it should, or skin (Which a LOT of tvs get wrong)
Black levels are how deep the black can get before it hits a limit (COMPLETELY different aspect of colour)

gjchester

It's also worth saying whilst the black level won't vary, how you see it will depending on the way the room is lit. A darkened room will show off any deficienies far more than a normal living room as your eye will notice the lack of black more.

Some sets turn down (or even off) the backlight on very dark scenes to help keep blacks black. Others don't and have a bleed around the edges.

Kuro's are the best at the moment, unfortunatly they are also one of the most expensive, but if you want the best colour fidelity you have to pay for it.

Marty_J

Very interesting article about HDMI cables:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/long-hdmi-cable-bench-tests

They tested them using a $200,000 testing rig. You can see in the article what it looks like when an HDMI cable doesn't work properly. You get "snow" or "sparkles".

Basically the conclusion was that for cable runs under 4 metres, there's no difference between one cable and another. Only with long cable runs does it actually make a difference; the difference isn't that it subjectively looks better, but that it works at all.

Marty_J

Leopard wrote: »

No: to be frank I still don't. To me, if a television is showing grey where it ought to be showing black, it's got a colour accuracy problem.

I guess "colour accuracy" would describe how well a TV mixes light to produce colours; whether or not it does this in an accurate way.

"Black level" relates to how dark the darkest parts of a picture are, and how far away this is from "true black". Black isn't something the TV produces, it's something it lets happen, if you get my drift.

Paddy2eyes

I agree with most of the advice given here. Cables with conductors of a larger cross sectional area, more pure conductor material and are better shielded will enable HDMI signals to travel further. For short lengths a cheap cable should do exactly the same job as an expensive one. For long HDMI runs, we use cat5 transmitters and receivers and send the signal down 10p per metre cat5 cable.
Expensive HDMI cables will not make your blacks blacker, your whites whiter or anything else. As an audio visual professional, I have yet to see any test data which measured a difference in the performance of HDMI cables.
That said, some previous posters made a very valid point about build quality and reliability. If you plan to move equipment around it would be worth paying a wee bit extra for a more sturdy cable.

Leopard

Paddy2eyes wrote: »

I agree with most of the advice given here. Cables with conductors of a larger cross sectional area, more pure conductor material and are better shielded will enable HDMI signals to travel further. For short lengths a cheap cable should do exactly the same job as an expensive one. For long HDMI runs, we use cat5 transmitters and receivers and send the signal down 10p per metre cat5 cable.
Expensive HDMI cables will not make your blacks blacker, your whites whiter or anything else. As an audio visual professional, I have yet to see any test data which measured a difference in the performance of HDMI cables.
That said, some previous posters made a very valid point about build quality and reliability. If you plan to move equipment around it would be worth paying a wee bit extra for a more sturdy cable.

Are you asserting, in effect, that, in your practical experience as a professional, stuff like this is fabricated rubbish in regard to picture quality and should be ignored?

(Not being provocative; just trying to establish the truth about it. )

Marty_J

Leopard wrote: »

Are you asserting, in effect, that, in your practical experience as a professional, stuff like this is fabricated rubbish in regard to picture quality and should be ignored?

(Not being provocative; just trying to establish the truth about it. )

How can one stream of 0s and 1s be "more punchy" than another stream of identical 0s and 1s?

If I bought a super expensive USB cable for my iPod, the music I transferred with it would not sound any better than the same music transferred with a cheap cable.

The whole point of digital is that data can be transmitted without any data loss. That's what it's for. People who assert that different brands of HDMI cable make a difference, all things being equal, are basically asserting that digital does not work.

Not a very nice thought when you consider how much of our world is controlled by the transfer of digital information. If I believed that, I would certainly never get on an aeroplane again. Or leave the house for that matter.

aliEnRIK

A computers error protection works COMPLETELY differently to a tvs video and hifis audio