HDMI cables What's the difference between...

[mark]

A ?2 lead 'v' ?52 lead.

If they work on a digital signal, to my thinking either they work or they don't, I can't think of how they'd be different. Are they?

mark

[Brian Gaff]

Well, probably, or should I say hopefully, better plating of the pins etc, but as the sockets are going to be poor quality anyway who cares. Brian

[Theo Markettos]

Assuming they're both 'high speed' HDMI (which many of the cheap ones are) then not a lot. Either they meet spec or they don't (in which case they don't get HDMI certification).

Amusingly I read that the upcoming USB+Displayport standard is trying to get the marketing names right to make clear to users that a cheap cable is all you need, and retailers like Best Buy are really not happy with this...

Theo

[Andrew Gabriel]

You are correct. BTW, you can buy £1 HDMI leads in Poundland, and they work fine too.

A better one might last for more plugging/unplugging cycles, rolling up and unrolling, etc, but what they cost mostly has to do with what people will pay and not so much with the product quality.

[polygonum]

Probably little real difference. I bought mine online and they were fairly cheap and work fine. Cable flexibility can be poorer in cheap cables. However do check the version supported.

[Peter Parry]

£52? Cheapskate cable. Kimber HD29 HDMI cable is only £358 for 3m (£826 for 15m) and _supports 3D images_ . As they say " [we have]seen clear improvements in image quality, with less noise and finer colour detail; sound was also more detailed and has better three-dimensional resolution." so it must be true'cos it's on the Interweb.

Mind you his KS6068 speaker cable at a mere £28,328.00 per speaker for

11ft of cable (speaker not included) is an absolute steal at the price. " Craig and Ben developed a clever way of terminating every single wire optimally, using a series of perforated discs and passive, non-ferrite components to electrically terminate each of the separate woven conductors. The discs tune and enhance the already impressive performance of the woven cable, and are housed in wooden pods that can be seen at each end of the cable."

[Tim Watts]

Isn't it funny how they apply the concept of analogue noise to a digital line!

I'm not a comms engineer but I would imagine the line between perfect digital transmission and so many errors the link collapses is a fairly fine one.

Makes Russ Andrews look like an east end spiv selling cigarettes.

[alan_m]

Quite often there is a massive difference - in the commission the salesman gets from selling to a gullible public. It goes without saying that a £200 cable will give you more vibrant colours and three-dimensional sound.

Often there is no correlation between price and performance when it comes to interconnecting cables. Yes, there are some crap products out there but for the same low price you can get something that meets/exceeds the specification.

Pay no more than £2 to £5 depending on the length of cable.

[soup]

There are at least umpty gazzillion videos on YouTube exploring this very thing.

Seems quality ones have better connectors(and may have thicker wires which possibly affects longevity) and may be a BIT dearer, but certainly not the multiple times dearer that some are.

[Richard Tobin]

You're right that if two cables both transmit the bits correctly, there won't be any difference in the resulting picture quality. And in my experience there's no reason to suppose that an expensive cable will be better than a reasonably priced one, but I wouldn't go for an ultra-cheap one.

There *are* differences between cables, and some of these are likely to be related to price. For example, I had a cheap HDMI cable that worked perfectly until this happened:

Also, "either works or it doesn't" is not necessarily true. I have HDMI cables that work perfectly for video, but when the audio return channel (ARC) is used they have brief audio dropouts a few times an hour. Of the three cables I have attached to my TV, only one works reliably for ARC, even though all HDMI compliant cables must. The one that works is an Amazon Basics one which cost 4.49. One of the ones that doesn't is a more expensive one sold as "professional".

-- Richard

[charles]

and, as once read in what I thought was a reputable magazine, gold plated mains plugs improved the stereo separation.

[Bill Wright]

We've found the very cheap ones to be slightly more prone to 'out of the box' faults. We use CPC ones that cost about a fiver I think from CPC. They are physically very well made. What's more they have gold coloured ends so we can sell them for £79.99 (joke*).

Bill

*actually it's £99.99

[Andy Burns]

That's how I see it, Tesco Value HDMI leads as good as any other, unless you're talking silly lengths etc ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oddly enough I thought 'all audio cables are the same' until I needed a new guitar lead the other month.

Bought the cheapest. Looked OK, carbon loaded outerr to prevent handling crackles...but it hummed like shit.

turns out they had just run a wire down the cable in the carbon bit, not braided it at all as a sheath. Anyone want a 2 meter jack to jack lead cheap?

[Another Dave]

I'm pretty sure you're right about HDMI. However, I think you should be careful about extending the argument to USB cables. These are also used to transmit power and some, in my experience, have such thin wires that the voltage drop can prevent the powered device from operating properly or, indeed, at all.

Another Dave

[stuart noble]

All the various leads I've had from Poundland have worked just fine

[PeterC]

From a reputable supplier, the cables at, say, £5 for around 1 - 1.5m will be more robust and longer-lasting than Pound* ones, but after that they're a rip-off. After looking at AV Forums for opinions and feedback I bought some from

and they're flexible, thicker than the really cheap ones and no problems after a year or so.

[tim.....]

The USB hub I bought was almost CFU - it works, but only just

The front lamp of a front/rear bike lamp combo was CFU (it was impossible to "snap" the lens back in once you put the batteries (not included) in it). The rear works OK so I kept it

The "all in one" remote control didn't have pre-programmed codes for for any brand of PVR (which is what I wanted it for). Anyone want a new remote for their TV?

The "night light I bought was DOA (that was so unarguable I took it back for a refund! - I was passing anyway)

buying "electrical" stuff from the pound shop is pretty hit and miss IME

tim

[John Rumm]

More to the point, do they have any conception of the processing required to take a digitally encoded (and probably encrypted) video stream, decode it, manipulate RGB values, re-encode etc and send it on its merry way all with no more computing power than available from a lump of wire!

[Another Dave]

It was a USB lead from one of the Pound-something shops (I can't remember which one) that led me to comment. I used it to connect a powered USB hub to a Raspberry Pi with rubbish results. Replacing it with the lead which came with my HUDL cured the problem.

Pound-something HDMI leads have been fine.

Another Dave