HDMI cables?

JasX

I think what we all can agree on and as per Alienrik's link above you CAN get a very decent HDMI cable for around £5

sillywilly

When we were in Richer Sounds the other day another couple were buying a TV and asked if they would need anything else. The salesman said an HDMI cable and said "will this one do"?

They just went along and said yes. I don't think they had a clue to be honest.

The price - £30 !!! I think that was their cheapest one too.

We have bought some off Play that were reduced to about £3 each with and RRP of about £14.99. Never had any problems with them and as long as you have an HD source and display the difference over scart is amazing.

Esqui

The cheaper ones tend to be made of cheaper stuff (I had a really cheap one and it wouldn't stay in the socket!), but no difference in what they do as the HDMI is a standard.

Also, I discovered yesterday that the cheap ones make more profit as a percentage than the more expensive ones (but of course, less £ overall)

sillywilly

We got ours from a seller on Play -

Here is the link to a big choice

http://www.play.com/HOME/HOME/6-/Search.html?searchstring=hdmi+cable&searchtype=ELEC&searchfilters=s%257bhdmi%2bcable%257d%252bc%257b211%257d%252b&pa=search&page=search&d=1&ob=4

CHR15

sillywilly wrote: »

We have bought some off Play that were reduced to about £3 each with and RRP of about £14.99. .

I think that sums it up quite well. Play are not going to sell at a loss so you can see the markup Play were making on them.

It would be nice to see people who have paid £40+ for a HDMI lead take a punt on one of these £3 jobs and see if they can really tell the difference.

There are, of course, differences in quality, the same as audio leads, but if you are "into" these things, then you will already know what you are looking for and pay accordingly.

For the layman, a cheap lead is just as good.

robocop79

Remember that you need to make sure the cable you use is capable of what you want it to do - especially with new technologies such as 3D TV coming about which are more bandwidth-hungry than ever! EG Many applications require HDMI v1.3a or even v1.4. Some of these cheaper cables might not be able to cope if they aren't certified to the required standard.

patman99

It's a bit like the old USB1/2 chestnut. I have a USB1 cable that, when connected to a USB2 port & USB2 HDD, still works happily at 480Mb/s.
HDMI will be the same. It is down to the thickness of the individual strands of wire, the thicker the wire, the more bandwith they can ship. So in theory, a cheap cable made with 0.8 swg wire will out-perform the most expensive 0.6 swg cable when running high-bandwith stuff.

SurferDan

1m length HDMI cables:- Poundland or 99p store

thescouselander

aliEnRIK wrote: »

HDMI facts
ALL digital cables have a 'cliff edge', the point at which they fail
HDMI cables have been measured to produce errors but not completely fail (ie, theres still a picture)
The longer the cable the more likely you are to reach its 'cliff edge'
Ive know 1m long cables fail

Why am I posting this? To tell everyone that all HDMI cables are NOT equal

Indeed, the expensive cables are most probably a better spec than the cheapo ones however, the specification of an expensive cable is usually well in excess of what is actually required for the average application.

jaydeeuk1

thescouselander wrote: »

Indeed, the expensive cables are most probably a better spec than the cheapo ones however, the specification of an expensive cable is usually well in excess of what is actually required for the average application.

They'll be made to the 1.3 HDMI spec, regardless of a £5 or a £50 cable (assuming its a 1.3 cable of course).

http://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/faq.aspx#27