Which HDMI cable!!!

frankieandjonney

I am planning on buying a full 1080p tv for my xbox 360 so have started looking for an HDMI cable.

I just glanced at Tesco's range but there is vast price difference between the cheapest and most expensive. Could anyone help me to see what makes these two below different apart from the legnth and if so is it worth getting the more expensive one??

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-2508.aspx £6.48

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-7072.aspx £19.55

Thanks

randomtask_2

look the same to me - same brand and the model number is just one up. The 2m cable is on a half price offer so it might explain the relatively low cost in comparison to the 3m version. Unless you need a 3m cable, it's a no-brainer between the two...

Marty_J

There's going to be zero difference in picture or sound quality between the two, so unless you need a 3m cable, buy the cheaper 2m one.

sillygoose

I got an excellent chunky, triple screened, gold plated, 1080p certified, 2 metre cable in Morrisons for £4.99 - near the TV's (ciggie desk/magazines area in ours). there is no need for anything more.

Otherwise Curry's do a 2m Belkin for £97.99! more amazing is the reviewers who all score it highly as good value. Muppetry!

trets77

i Have a very expensive HDMI cable that i got for free with a Magazine subscription .

it is a Chord Company HDMI 1.3a which go for around £75 . i can tell no difference between it and the £15 cable i got from Asda . and i have some expensive kit hooked up so don't tell me i haven't got the components to see a improvement the expensive cable can give . if you need a cable over 10m then a more expensive will be worth the outlay . less than 10 m the signal either gets there or it dosen't ...it's that simple .

That said don't go too cheap as you get lousy build quality which might cause problems . if i were buying a new cable i would get one of these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sparta-Elan-Quality-Lifetime-Guarantee/dp/B00109RDXW/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UT


it got a 4 star review at £30 so is steal at under a £10 .

Inactive

Also gold plating will not improve anything as it is going to get pushed in to nickel plated socket on the appliance.

samhale

Inactive wrote: »

Also gold plating will not improve anything as it is going to get pushed in to nickel plated socket on the appliance.

Which wouldn't matter if it was gold anyway

4743hudsonj

samhale wrote: »

Which wouldn't matter if it was gold anyway

lol i have a 99p inc delivery hdmi!:D

5 meters long

and displays signals perfectly fine

i have a 1m version of the same cable that seems to be better quality slightly probably due to the weakening of the signal over the wire and the signal being misinterperated when converted back into digital

chunter

So what you're saying folks really is that the materials generally make little difference unless it's longer distances.

So would the advice then to get the shortest cable possible, and have the shortest possible distance between the two devices?

Marty_J

Generally short cables are good. However, length won't make any difference to an HDMI cable unless it's a very long cable we're talking about. 1, 2, 5, or 10 metres won't make any difference.

Short cables look much tidier behind the TV, which is why I would use them.

Lum

With a digital cable a small degradation of quality isn't going to make the slightest bit of difference. It's all ones and zeros, so if it's arriving at the other enad as 0.8 and 0.2 instead of 1 and 0 then no-one cares as the other end can figure it out. It's not like the analogue days where any slight degration in quality would actually get displayed and therefore it was possible to justify spending £100 on a video cable that's about as thick as your arm.

However if the quality does degrade such that the digital signal is being altered, it's going to start looking pretty crap pretty quickly. With HDMI you may see effects like green or white sparkles in random places on the picture.

So basically buy a cheap cable, just don't buy a crap cable. You'll be fine.