I'm thinking of buying the Samsung DVD-HD860 sometime next year, and it's quite a big upgrade for me (having only just gone HD!). Not like ye olde days where I could just pop down Argos and get any old SCART lead, I now have to thoroughly research all of the innards and cables and so on...

So, can anyone tell me where to get a cheapish HDMI cable to connect this player to my TV? Would anyone recommend using a different cable? If so, what, and where could I find one of them? I want to get the best quality out of it, as well as futureproofing it so I don't have to shell out for anything else in years to come.

To throw a complete spanner in the works ( ), is there anyone who'd advise against the Samsung DVD-HD860 for any reason?

Thanks!

it comes with a perfectly decent cable. I can't tell the difference between it and the one telewest provides free and a £80 cable I stupidly bought

The key is the fact that it is a DIGITAL interconnect. The only requirement of a digital cable is that the ones and zeros in the source reach the destination without getting garbled.

Any competently designed cable using the correct impedance wiring and properly terminated should do the job. So with that in mind it matters not one jot that the cable cost a quid or a million quid there will be no difference at all between the two.

Mmmmmmmm, I'd beg to differ

Go on then. Tell us why.

£5 from Lidl for a decent HDMI cable

Lidl

A digital signal is a stream of ones and zeros. Essentially it is a squarewave flowing through the cable (very simplistic generalisation I know).

A cable can affect the characteristics of this squarewave in a number of ways. The resistance, inductance and capacitance of the cable can modify the shape of the wave form. It can cause "ringing" - where you see spikes along what should be a smooth top line on an oscilloscope. You can get reflections of the signal in the cable.

All of these can blur the distinction between a one and a zero or affect the relative timing of the digital bits. All of which can make the error correction circuits work hard to reconstruct the original data stream.

But provided the effects of cable imperfections are minimised then you will get out of the cable exactly what went in at the other end. And that can and often is totally independent of the cost of the cable. And if two cables produce exactly the same sequence of ones and zeros then they will look and sound (as appropriate) exactly the same.

It depends on whether you want 'Real HD' or just an upscaling standard def DVD player, which is what the Samsung DVD-HD860 is.
Last edited by JonUK : 02-12-2006 at 13:41

Do tell why. Because whatever you say is going to be wrong, for the basic reason that theres no analogue signalling involved. Do you get better prints with a gold plated USB cable on a printer? Do you get better web pages over an oxygen-free copper ethernet lead? No, becuase IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

The Lidl lead will do just fine - as well as anything else can.

Well 'Real' HD players are far too expensive, and it seems to me like that a lot of movie companies aren't really bothering with HD-DVDs yet, and won't for a long while.

Say I bought Movie A on DVD and played it on an upscaling DVD player, then say I bought Movie A on HD-DVD and played it on a HD-DVD Player.

Would it look any different or better? The item descriptions I've read seem to say that it wouldn't be...

I have a Denon upscaling player (£800) and a Toshiba A1 HD-DVD (£400) player and there is a huge difference on my Toshiba 37" LCD. Comparing the DVD's and HD-DVD's of Serenity and Batman Begins the HD-DVD's are CLEAR winners!!

Ah. So are upscaling DVD players really worth it?

There's no way I can afford a HD-DVD player.

There are those that believe good cables make a difference, there are those that don't, if you don't fine, I'm not going to try and convince you.

However I do take the point that in digital cables the effect of better cable is less noticable than using good analogue cables on analogue sources such using good interconnects etc on audio systems.

But as Chrisjr says;


Therefore I still advocate that a decent cable cable (the freebies with equipment generally aren't) will enhance any transfer of data, but I can't agree that quality is independant of cost.
Last edited by Birdie18 : 04-12-2006 at 10:28

I got one of these on Friday and it is superb quality. 2m gold plated-What more could you ask for?

By the way kndusr19,welcome to the forum!

I have been around Trev, but unfortunately did not have anything useful to say for the last 8 months......no, Silent Bob is not my favourite character

I have been thinking of jumping on the HD bandwagon, but still didn't think that buying my first HD item would be the cable! ......so I gave it a miss this time.