I bought a new Warfdale 1.5M HDMI to link my Panasonic DVD-HDD combi to my Sony LCD, and it works fine - only £14.99 from Argo's. I see now that some HDMI wires have a speed rating - like some are much more expensive and offer high speeds, designed for blue-ray/ps3.

So how can a cable have a speed rating. What does it all mean, and I am missing out on anything with my setup in terms of quality, or otherwise.

Is it not the same as choosing a cheap USB printer wire over an expensive one-same result.

Dave

There has been upgrading of HDMI over the last couple of years.

1.3 is the latest.


You can get decent HDMI leads for under a fiver from Amazon

I have seen HDMI wires costing £50 in places such as Comet - who buys this stuff!

What I mean about speed is like some wires are rated at 2.23GBps, while others are at 4.95GBps, and some are 6.68GBps. The argos book has a "HDMI 400" wire, 6.68GBps rated (ideal for PS3/BluRay/HD-DVD it says), and in 4M length it's £129.95.

So what do you miss out on if you use a 2.23GBps rated HDMI on a PS3, as the book implies you should be using one at 6.68GBps.

Dave

**Gets out calculator**
Is the answer 4.45 GBps ?

But seriously, I don't get it either. It's a digital signal, so it either has enough bandwidth and works or it doesn't work at all. It's not like data cabling where speed really can be an advantage is it? Can anyone else explain?

when you see the ratings in the shops there is only 1 real reason.

To sell a £1.99 product for £10 and a £3.50 product for £50.

Am sure that a 5012 by 2024 resolution TV that most of you dont have may 'occasionally' need more than the 2.23GBps.

If you check the HDMI wiki it states a maximum of 10.2 Gbit/s bandwidth for HDMI 1.3 which is the latest one. This is approx 1.3 GBps!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dont blame manufacturers. I thinks its the shops that are the conmen.
Just like drug sellers who are worse than the drug growers.

It's whether it will work at all without sparklies etc that's at stake not "how well". The different qualities are a reflection on how much data can be reliably transferred on them.

The only time it's worth paying a lot for an HDMI cable is for very long lengths (eg feeding another room). David didn't even need to spend £15 on 1.5m though maybe the convenience if he was in Argos anyway justifies that extra money rather than waiting for an internet delivery.

I had vouchers from last Xmas for Argo's, so in reality the HDMI from Argo's didnt cost me anything at all. But also of late, a few thing's from the internet have taken a long time to arrive, which has put me off using that method for a while.

Dave

As far as I'm aware, there is nothing on the market today that won't work perfectly with the most bog standard, low-spec, version of HDMI cable you can buy.

In future, devices may appear which actually use the extra 'capacity' (not sure if thats the right word but hey) but at the moment, there aren't any.

Also, as bobcar mentioned, for longer runs, you're better off with the better cables.

But, at 1.5m ..... assuming the cable isn't flawed, a £5 cable should work just as well as a £100 one.

HDMI cables are used with digital coding, therefore the voltage in the cable is used to either represent a 1 or a 0 only. If 0V = 0 and 1V = 1, the boundary between the two would be 0.5V. This means there could potentially be quite a lot of slack with interference, where 0.3V will still represent 0, which is one of the advantages of digital connections.

Ultimately the cheapest HDMI cable will produce the same result as the most expensive HDMI cable if the conditions are right (and in almost all cases they will be in domestic use). Expensive HDMI cables are only really beneficial in cases of long runs (more than 3m) and where there is chance of major interference from power sources.

The only cables that really justify getting higher quality in most cases are for Analog connections! (Phono, Component, Scart etc.)

I must add, while interference to digital signals in interconnects aren't so likely to affect the quality, in the analog interconnects, slight interference can cause the output to deviate quite a bit from input. This is why expensive cables with proper shielding make a hell of a lot more difference to analog connections!

Apologies for off-topic post, but the shop you went to is called Argos and the plural of thing is things.

I recommend the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". Don't worry if it takes a long time to arrive, it'll be worth it!

Idiot. I recommend you go forth and multiply.

It seems reasonable to correct mistakes otherwise how do people learn. If TallDave had called David an idiot for making the mistakes then that would have been out of order.

This is not a English class.

as far as I understand it is a digital signal so there should be no difference - however richer sounds did claim there was a noticeable difference with the higher end cables.

I am not so convinced though.

To which I would have asked for a demo!

True but English is the language we both speak and write, life is an English class. Bearing in mid that most of us are no longer at school how are we supposed to correct and improve our English if mistakes are not pointed out to us? (In a friendly manner of course).

This is not the place to correct people on their use of English, it only serves to belittle the OP. The poster clearly had the opportunity of sending a Private Mail, but purposely chose to do it in a public forum.

It isn't clever and it certainly isn't new, idiots have been hijacking threads in such a manner on USENET for years. Should people attempt to do so here, then I will continue to respond how I see fit.

If you wish to continue the discussion, then please start a thread in a forum for the English language. We shall discuss it there, not here.

This is my last post on the matter. Please remain on topic.

To be frank it was you who took the thread off topic in a major way by calling another poster an idiot. This is my last post on the matter.

£4.95 2m long from Aldi. I have 2 of these one feeds a 1080p output from a Sony PVR to a Samsung 1080p TV very good no problems.
I tried a couple of £9.95 ones from Woolworths at Xmas they gave very poor results with ignition type sparkles across the screen. Took these back and got a refund.

Lidl have started selling a new range of items this morning, including a HDMI cable for £4.99. Doesn't say what length it is in the picture, but from the image it looks to be 1.5m or 2m.

Paddy

Apologies for my pedantic nature; it would have been much more helpful of me to point out a similar thread covering this topic - to which I've already contributed:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=760948

and perhaps to link to the HDMI faq:

http://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/faq.aspx

That second link answers the questions as to how a cable can have a speed rating and what it means.

The OP is not missing out on anything in terms of quality, because his products only require a Category 1 cable to operate to their best quality.

Hope I'm forgiven.

Q. What’s new in the HDMI 1.3 Specification?
Higher speed: Although all previous versions of HDMI have had more than enough bandwidth to support all current HDTV formats, including full, uncompressed 1080p signals, HDMI 1.3 increases its single-link bandwidth to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbps) to support the demands of future HD display devices, such as higher resolutions, Deep Color and high frame rates. In addition, built into the HDMI 1.3 specification is the technical foundation that will let future versions of HDMI reach significantly higher speeds.



if a cable states to be ver 1.3 it might be wise to go for that one , BUT it may be years before the full bandwith is used.

you have to decide if its a marketing ploy OR its like USB cables on a PC

Some Sony dvd players advertise Deep colour support but fall short of saying its hdmi 1.3, possibly for royalties to HDMI ? Or it doesnt meet the spec ?

Possibly the best independant test of HDMI cables I've found on the 'net so far:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hdmi-cabl...t-2-268788.php

Stumbled upon that when searching for something completely unrealted last night.

Hmm - Eddie calls two forum members idiots, then says we should stay on topic.

At least nobody is going to go looking for that mythical shop Argo. Of which there are multiple instances. Or Argo owns these things, therefore they are his.