Do I need new HDMI cables for 3840 x 2160 UHD?

Belenus

For many years I had a 1920 x 1080 HD TV fed by a HD Blu Ray player and a HD Sky+ box. Last year I replaced the HD TV with a 3840 x 2160 LG LG-OLED55C14LB UHD TV. I did not upgrade to UHD sources and I used the same HDMI cables as before. The images from the Blu Ray and Sky sources looked very good but were still only 1920 x 1080 HD.

I have just purchased a Panasonic DP-UB9000 3840 x 2160 UHD Blu Ray player as my 15 year old Denon 3800BD HD Blu Ray player failed.

I don't yet have any UHD Blu Ray discs but will now be getting some. I may also switch to Sky Q sometime. Meantime all my sources are still 1920 x 1080 HD apart from occasionally looking at 3840 x 2160 UHD on YouTube etc.

The manual for the new Blu Ray player states that

Use the High Speed HDMI cables. Non-HDMI-compliant cables cannot be utilized.
and
To enjoy images in 4K (50p/60p), you need an HDMI cable that supports 18 Gbps.

My HDMI cables are at least 10 years old. They were not £1 cheapies but nor were they esoteric cables costing mage bucks. I think I paid under £10 each for them from a well reviewed supplier.

I don't mind spending £10 or £20 on two new cables if they will noticeably improve the image and sound quality. However I am well aware that there is a lot of snake oil marketing associated with HDMI and other cables.

Comments, advice and suggestions please.

Thanks

k_man

Better HDMI cables won't improve* image and sound as such as the signal is digital, so either works or doesn't.
 However they may be required to allow 4k images and HDR.

If you are currently able to feed 4k HDR (not sure if your YouTube source), then you will be fine*.

*Some other Hdmi features, e.g power control etc can be a bit finicky about HDMI cables.
Likewise your new Blu Ray player may need these features to run stably.

PS: someone may be along soon to advise oxygen free, filtered gold plated cables with mains isolation....

Ayr_Rage

@k_man, stop it, I nearly choked on my coffee.

@Belenus have a look at this article, lots of good information, please do scroll down to the "gold plating" section too.

https://www.techhive.com/article/583596/do-i-need-a-4k-hdmi-cable.html

and their link to this

https://www.techadvisor.com/article/724300/best-hdmi-cables.html

DullGreyGuy

Ayr_Rage said:

@k_man, stop it, I nearly choked on my coffee.

@Belenus have a look at this article, lots of good information, please do scroll down to the "gold plating" section too.

https://www.techhive.com/article/583596/do-i-need-a-4k-hdmi-cable.html

and their link to this

https://www.techadvisor.com/article/724300/best-hdmi-cables.html

Have to say I dont understand the Tech Advisor results.... so Amazon Basic was the best overall and the cheapest cable but another more expensive cable won Best Value? Doesnt add up in my head.

Belenus said:

My HDMI cables are at least 10 years old. They were not £1 cheapies but nor were they esoteric cables costing mage bucks. I think I paid under £10 each for them from a well reviewed supplier.

I don't mind spending £10 or £20 on two new cables if they will noticeably improve the image and sound quality. However I am well aware that there is a lot of snake oil marketing associated with HDMI and other cables.

For normal cable distances the only thing to look at is the speed the cable supports. 18gps for 4k and 48gbps for either very high framerate 4k (only applicable to gaming) or 8k

I wont say how much my home cinema cost, inc because my wife might see, but for the HDMI cables I bought myself they are all Amazon Basic and never had a problem with them. I have two expensive (£59 each) HDMI cables that I was given free with some of my kit and there is no difference at all... couldnt even tell you which devices are using the Amazon and which are using the AudioQuest.

RumRat

Just replaced my main HDMI cable with a new 2.1 version (This one) to future proof it somewhat and it was on offer....Works perfectly and the picture is excellent, that said, it was before....

Neil_Jones

Belenus said:

For many years I had a 1920 x 1080 HD TV fed by a HD Blu Ray player and a HD Sky+ box. Last year I replaced the HD TV with a 3840 x 2160 LG LG-OLED55C14LB UHD TV. I did not upgrade to UHD sources and I used the same HDMI cables as before. The images from the Blu Ray and Sky sources looked very good but were still only 1920 x 1080 HD.

I have just purchased a Panasonic DP-UB9000 3840 x 2160 UHD Blu Ray player as my 15 year old Denon 3800BD HD Blu Ray player failed.

I don't yet have any UHD Blu Ray discs but will now be getting some. I may also switch to Sky Q sometime. Meantime all my sources are still 1920 x 1080 HD apart from occasionally looking at 3840 x 2160 UHD on YouTube etc.

Buying a UHD player doesn't make everything better picture wise and doesn't guarantee a 4k picture anyway.

Your DVD is just an upscaled 720x576 anyway no matter whether your TV is 4k, 8k, 16k or 32k.  Nothing you do will make a pretty 3840x2160 picture from what was compressed mushy 720x576 in the first place anyway.

What I can tell you though is I haven't bought HDMI cables in probably nest part of 13 years now and I can get a 3840x2160 picture out of my desktop PC and the TV will show it at that resolution using the cables I already have.

I suspect what's probably the issue with your resolution is you've told the TV to always lock to that 1920x1080 resolution, or you've told the player to always output in 1920x1080.  The whole point of HDMI is handshaking to say I can support this that and the other so if you wave a 4k source at me and I can play it in 4k, I'll play it in 4k, unless something down the line is stopping me from doing that.

Your Sky+HD box won't output any higher than 1920x1080, so don't worry too much about that.  You'll probably get a new HDMI cable if you go for Sky Q.

[Deleted User]

You need one of these cables, if you don't buy one, you are missing out on the best picture quality:

https://www.futureshop.co.uk/nordost-valhalla-2-4k-uhd-hdmi-cable

k_man

Neil_Jones said:

Belenus said:

For many years I had a 1920 x 1080 HD TV fed by a HD Blu Ray player and a HD Sky+ box. Last year I replaced the HD TV with a 3840 x 2160 LG LG-OLED55C14LB UHD TV. I did not upgrade to UHD sources and I used the same HDMI cables as before. The images from the Blu Ray and Sky sources looked very good but were still only 1920 x 1080 HD.

I have just purchased a Panasonic DP-UB9000 3840 x 2160 UHD Blu Ray player as my 15 year old Denon 3800BD HD Blu Ray player failed.

I don't yet have any UHD Blu Ray discs but will now be getting some. I may also switch to Sky Q sometime. Meantime all my sources are still 1920 x 1080 HD apart from occasionally looking at 3840 x 2160 UHD on YouTube etc.

Buying a UHD player doesn't make everything better picture wise and doesn't guarantee a 4k picture anyway.

Your DVD is just an upscaled 720x576 anyway no matter whether your TV is 4k, 8k, 16k or 32k.  Nothing you do will make a pretty 3840x2160 picture from what was compressed mushy 720x576 in the first place anyway.

What I can tell you though is I haven't bought HDMI cables in probably nest part of 13 years now and I can get a 3840x2160 picture out of my desktop PC and the TV will show it at that resolution using the cables I already have.

I suspect what's probably the issue with your resolution is you've told the TV to always lock to that 1920x1080 resolution, or you've told the player to always output in 1920x1080.  The whole point of HDMI is handshaking to say I can support this that and the other so if you wave a 4k source at me and I can play it in 4k, I'll play it in 4k, unless something down the line is stopping me from doing that.

Your Sky+HD box won't output any higher than 1920x1080, so don't worry too much about that.  You'll probably get a new HDMI cable if you go for Sky Q.

I don't think the OP is expecting 4k from existing HD sources (HD Blu Ray and Sky HD), just from the new, soon to arrive, UHD Blu Ray:

Meantime all my sources are still 1920 x 1080 HD apart from occasionally looking at 3840 x 2160 UHD on YouTube etc.

flaneurs_lobster

[Deleted User] said:

You need one of these cables, if you don't buy one, you are missing out on the best picture quality:

https://www.futureshop.co.uk/nordost-valhalla-2-4k-uhd-hdmi-cable

From the specification details :

• Velocity of Propagation: 86%

It is utter bollix

facade

Just get new 18 Gbps cables for the UHD bluray and anything else 4k, and keep the standard ones for 1080 sources- make sure the 4k cables are labelled in case of tidying up.

You won't see any improvement in picture quality, but you might get a stable picture.

I use 99p HDMI 1.0 cables, and never had the slightest problem (apart from they won't work with the ARC) until we got a PS4 and the cable got mixed up with the others in the box when I moved everything around (now see why I said to label them?) The picture flashes on and off- obviously I had it connected with an identical 99p cable to the 99p high speed cable that came with the PS4.

I ended up nipping down the bargain emporium and picking up a £2.99 fancy anodised alloy plugged 8k cable to get it working again.

(I could have worked through all the cables in the box, and stood on my head swapping cables with the blu ray, xbox, cable box, freeview box etc. but it was much easier to get a new one.)

DullGreyGuy

Neil_Jones said:
Buying a UHD player doesn't make everything better picture wise and doesn't guarantee a 4k picture anyway.

Your DVD is just an upscaled 720x576 anyway no matter whether your TV is 4k, 8k, 16k or 32k.  Nothing you do will make a pretty 3840x2160 picture from what was compressed mushy 720x576 in the first place anyway.

What I can tell you though is I haven't bought HDMI cables in probably nest part of 13 years now and I can get a 3840x2160 picture out of my desktop PC and the TV will show it at that resolution using the cables I already have.

Well... if the TV is a 4K screen then yes it technically does "guarantee" a 4K picture because that's all it can display irrespective if you feed it a 8K or 720i image. The TV has to upscale or downscale if it receives anything other than a 4k signal. 

There will always be a question on if the chip in the TV or in the disk player will be better at upscaling and so in theory a different player with the same media can improve image quality if its upscaler is better than the one built into the display. Image processors seem to have fallen out of fashion but knew guys who spent more than your average car on such tech when 1080p screens came out. 

The OP however seems to suggest they intend to buy some 4k sources and so the question becomes more about what format the material was recorded in originally and how much effort has been put in upscaling if not at 4k standards.