HDMI cable advice.

[chang]

After splashing out and ordering myself a new TV that is capable of outputting 1080p(and a second HDMI socket) I went looking about for another cable. Probably a mistake but I went to Comet and the salesperson was telling me about the monster range.
They had one cable priced at 79.99 which was advertised as being able to transmit 720p and 1080p (aswell as the monster upgrade replacement if technology gets to the stage that 1080p becomes redundant). The other was priced lower at 49.99 and was marked as only 720p and 1080i. I didnt realise there was such restrictions on the cables and I currently only have the official Sony one which was nice and cheap. So the advice I need is really do I need to be looking into getting a better cable to take advantage of the 1080p goodness from the PS3? or is it all a lot of tripe and the Sony one is fine.

[Jason]

Utter tripe. Don't pay more than ?20 for a HDMI cable.

[charlesr]

I thought all HDMI cables were 1080p and any old 50p one would do the job (digital signal, so cable quality doesn't matter much).

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180198126448

I could be wrong though.

[chang]

Ok thanks for the advice.

Yea I was under the impression that any HDMI would do the job too and thought I was a bit of a tit spending 25 quid on the official Sony one, but after seeing the Monster ones it made me think twice. I guess its the name adding to it and all the guff they say they inject into the cable.

[charlesr]

Let us know what you end up with and what it's like.

[sj33]

It's just marketing gunk. The more expensive cables may have extra shielding and the like, so they can claim it's more 'capable' of 1080p's bandwidth... but don't fall for it, any HDMI cable can do 1080p, more expensive cables with extra shielding are not needed unless using longer runs (I'm talking 10 metres here).

[elaniel]

I got this one and it displays beautifully!

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/1112312/Linx-2-4m-Luxury-24k-Gold-Plated-HDMI-Cable/Product.html

[xXIShadowIXx]

http://ukhdmi.com/hdmi.php

I've just purchased 3x 1m Premium HDMI cables off this site.
?6.50 each + free delivery

Cables are very high quality and I would definatly recommend

[AllYourBase]

You can get a 2M HDMI cable from eBay for £5.50 delivered:

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/hdmi-dvi-shop

I have used this particular seller and the cables are top quality. Perfect picture!

[Brats]

A friend of mine recently bought a PS3 for her hubby from Comet and she got suckered into buying the ?80 Monster cable. The saleman told her it was the only way to get the best picture from the PS3 .

I ordered her to take it back, but she's already opened it and chucked the packaging.

[SubparMario]

I saw an advert for a poncey HDMI cable that claimed "more vibrant colours"

lolwhat?

[Profit]

It's the possible element of subjectiveness in picture quality that allows manufacturers to market such expensive cables; and why there are fewer 'high' quality USB or firewire cables.

HDCP encription in the cables means it's either a perfect or no picture.

[sj33]

A friend of mine recently bought a PS3 for her hubby from Comet and she got suckered into buying the ?80 Monster cable. The saleman told her it was the only way to get the best picture from the PS3 .

I ordered her to take it back, but she's already opened it and chucked the packaging.

In my less-informed days, I paid ?50 for a 3metre HDMI cable. I feel much shame

It's completely worth paying the extra (to a point) for analogue cables like Scart, but certainly not going to get a picture quality benefit for anything digital like HDMI, optical etc.

[Brats]

Information is often lost in the digital transfer process, but the way the data is transferred it is changed to a different digital format and the sent over as various packages that all contain the same information. Thus if one or two packages are degraded, the information still gets through and is transferred back to the original format.

If you have a very long digital cable then information can get lost from all the packages. The receiving equipment will try to put them back together, but you end up with sparkles in the image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFHbMGmu43w

So there is a good reason to have a high quality cable if you need a very long cable or you have equipment that could interfere with the signal (such as a strong magnetic field) but for most home use, standard HDMI cables will be fine.

[sj33]

It's all quite revealing when you actually learn about the technology and how it's really all cashing in on our own ignorance though. The way they feel they can market cables as '1080p' or 'HDMI 1.3 compatible' proves this.

Hell, many people have asked me why DVI looks no better than VGA on their monitor - makes sense when you consider both are sending the same 8-bit RGB signal, so if the digital-to-analogue conversion is a good one, it should look identical.