tbourner Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 There've been a few threads about HDMI and how much to spend, most people just say "It's digital, any old cable will do", but one missing 1 or 0 doesn't mean no signal, it means a pixel of snow, so a degraded signal means a messy picture. Anyway, here's an interesting article, although a little old now, about testing HDMI cables with various signals over various lengths: http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/long-hdmi-cable-bench-tests If you don't want to read it all, here's the basic conclusion: Your take-away from all this should be the following: At lengths less than 4 meters you can just about use silly string (OK, not really) and get HDMI to pass at any current resolution. At less than 3 meters you'll even extend that to 12-bit color and possibly the next crazy idea HDMI Licensing decides to throw at consumers. Don't spend a lot on these cables and if you want to save money you won't let anyone at a big box store talk you into buying from them. At long lengths (over 10 meters) you really need to pay attention to the manufacturer if you don't want to risk running into potential problems with 1080p and future formats such as Deep Color. With that said, just about any cable at or under 10 meters will pass 720p/1080i and nearly everyone will pass 1080p at 8-bit color as well. If you have an existing HDMI cable and are running into problems, we'd suggest at least attempting the insertion of an active component at the sink (display) side. This is going to be far cheaper than ripping out your walls and re-running new cables - and likely just as effective. HDMI has proven to be a moving target and there is no telling what crazy (likely unnecessary) format they will try to push down the cable next. Due to this, it's always good to "overbuild" your cable install, especially if it's a longer distance and going to end up behind drywall. If you're not prone to upgraditis and think 1080p will be your maximum resolution for the life of your install, don't sweat it... There are going to be exceptions to all these "rules" but in the end I'd have to say that I really thought I'd see more differences in the real-world performances of longer-length cables. Since we're all basically pinned at 8-bit 1080p, I didn't. It's likely you won't either. So all those people saying "buy any cable you want, it doesn't matter" are, for the most part, correct - at least until manufacturers advance to 12-bit software and signal transmission. Where they are not accurate is in assuming HDMI (since it is digital) is either "on" or "off" (it either works or doesn’t). HDMI signals can be partially corrupted as you saw above. The other area in which they are off concerns the future. If and when 12-bit "Deep Color" video truly comes to market (as more than just a listed spec) individual cable situations can (and likely will) change. For this reason take all of the above measurements and principles into account and make sure you build your installation wisely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt H Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 Nothing we didn't really know already then (in a round about fashion)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted January 14, 2011 Author Share Posted January 14, 2011 Nothing we didn't really know already then (in a round about fashion)? Pretty much, just clears up some confusion people have where they may think it's a cable with loads of 1s and 0s going down it, whereas it's actually much more complicated than that. I used to do eye diagram tests on HDDs in servers (our test scope was just over $100k!) so I understand it a bit better reading the article, and just thought it was quite interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt H Posted January 14, 2011 Share Posted January 14, 2011 Pretty much, just clears up some confusion people have where they may think it's a cable with loads of 1s and 0s going down it, whereas it's actually much more complicated than that. I used to do eye diagram tests on HDDs in servers (our test scope was just over $100k!) so I understand it a bit better reading the article, and just thought it was quite interesting. Tis interesting. I think HDMI cables are going to go down in history as one of the 'noughties' consumer rip offs / screw jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobsta_01 Posted January 15, 2011 Share Posted January 15, 2011 I bought mine for just under £6 delivered following this thread: http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?225349-Does-it-matter-which-hdmi-cable-i-use Thanks guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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