i am so out of touch, new telly and apparently scart is no longer an option!

local supermarket has hdmi leads for 12 quid, ebay a couple of quid, do you get what you pay for to an extent like with hi-fi cables and if so can anyone recommend some please?

It’s a digital signal, so a cheap lead is fine.

Someone will be along in a minute to say directional cables knitted from unicorns’ pubes make a difference, but it’s bollocks.

Poundland has 1m for <gasp> a pound and they work just fine.

The only thing you might get from more is more rugged construction, up to you if thats worth owt, the 1s and 0s don’t care.

only reason to buy anything more than cheap is if you’re running 3D super dooper resolution, or really long cable, or if the socket on the back of the TV is vertical and the connector quality is bad and keeps falling out under gravity.

cheers guys, poundland in the morning it is and more of that great really annoying joke… ‘how much is this?’

This is a bit pricey at £8800 for 12m.

This is only £7600 for 20m.

Makes the TV come alive.

Makes the TV come alive.

I’ve seen the ring and you do NOT want that

The only thing to watch for is that really cheap cables can be a bit fallaparty, with a few caveats HDMI is HDMI.

You’ll get some that are labelled “HDMI 1.3” or “HDMI 1.4” or some such, but this is marketing and meaningless in cable terms as it tells you nothing about the cable’s capabilities. For example, HDMI 1.4 adds Ethernet communication to the spec, but a HDMI 1.4 cable doesn’t necessarily permit Ethernet unless it actually says “Ethernet channel” on it (it’s the one instance where it’s wired differently). Similarly, a “high speed” cable is required for pictures beyond 2D 720p / 1080i. If you don’t need these features, any cable will do.

Anything else pertaining to be “3D” or “deep colour” or “high definition” is smoke and mirrors, these are all high speed applications and implies a high speed cable.

This is a bit pricey at £8800 for 12m.

This is only £7600 for 20m.

Makes the TV come alive.

The sheer bullshit was always hard to believe with analogue signals, but with digital it’s simply asking too much now. In my book HDMi either works or doesn’t work, there is no in-between state as far as I’m aware. So a really crap cable might fail to pass a signal, but if it does then the result will be the same as the most expensive cable.

Please feel free to educate me on anything I might have missed here.

Please feel free to educate me on anything I might have missed here.

mosh – Did you think I was serious? 🙂

HDMI cables are all the same.

However, what really makes a difference is a good USB cable. £1259 a bargain!

mosh – Did you think I was serious?

No, I was just agreeing with you having read the bullshit on those links.

but with digital it’s simply asking too much now. In my book HDMi either works or doesn’t work, there is no in-between state

Not true as far as I know. Although it’s nice to think of digital as just on or off the fact is that the signal changes so fast that the first digital signal only gets about 10cm down the cable before the next one starts. The trick at the receiving end is to get the timing right to recover those signals without any errors. As long as your cable is to spec then the errors in video are tiny (<10-9) but they can still be there. It’s a bit like the number of bits of ant allowed in your peanut butter – you might like to think the answer is zero but it isn’t

I can’t see how a hyper expensive cable can be that much better that a normal one over normal (5m) lengths but I could see how a really cheap one might pass the specs in a test environment but not work that well under real life conditions where it’s jammed under the TV with a hundred other noisy cables

I’d still buy cheapish ones though – nothing fancy

The cheap usually work but they sometimes fail at the Strain relief as they use paper thin cable. They also sometimes struggle with full 1080p over a longer length (2m+).

I got some decent quality ones from ebay for a couple of quid

Best ones I’ve found that are decent quality for not much money are the Amazon Basics ones. Good bit of kit and something like £4.

got a poundland one, its made a difference, but think i’ll try an amazon one as well.

The only thing to watch for is that really cheap cables can be a bit fallaparty,

This +1, had a few cheap ones from e-buyer, 7dayshop etc, ended up with a normal one from a highstreet shop after a few of them failed. So on that bais I’d stick with paying something for it rather than nearly nothing.

As predicted, here’s the bloke who will say you’re talking nonsense when you say they are all the same. Buy an Audioquest Pearl for 25 quid and do a picture comparison with the pound shop one and then tell me they’re all the same.

I’ve had one fail and that was a £30 one, my others have been a fiver tops and have been fine.

Expensive leads carrying digital signals over a short run:

In my experience they don’t effect picture quality

But we did have a cheap one randomly stop sending any signal and that was a PITA

i’d be on e-bay looking around a fiver not pound land

hmm i wonder if my audio through an Ethernet cable will sound betterer than going through wireless..;)
anyway fwiw, ive had a hdmi cable issue from a tv to a receiver where the signal would drop out as well, replaced it for an amazon one for a few quid and that fixed the problem, picture was the same though.

Another vote here for the Amazon Basics ones – seem to be a good balance between cost and robustness/quality.

As predicted, here’s the bloke who will say you’re talking nonsense when you say they are all the same. Buy an Audioquest Pearl for 25 quid and do a picture comparison with the pound shop one and then tell me they’re all the same.

James Randi has a million dollars waiting for you if you really can see the difference.

As recommended above, the half decent moulded plug cables for a fiver are actually more robust than the audiophile junk.

Although no maximum length for an HDMI cable is specified, signal attenuation (dependent on the cable’s construction quality and conducting materials) limits usable lengths in practice.HDMI 1.3 defines two cable categories:
Category 1-certified cables, which have been tested at 74.5 MHz (which would include resolutions such as 720p60 and 1080i60),
Category 2-certified cables, which have been tested at 340 MHz (which would include resolutions such as 1080p60 and 2160p30). Category 1 HDMI cables are marketed as “Standard” and Category 2 HDMI cables as “High Speed”.[1] This labeling guideline for HDMI cables went into effect on October 17, 2008. Category 1 and 2 cables can either meet the required parameter specifications for interpair skew, far-end crosstalk, attenuation and differential impedance, or they can meet the required nonequalized/equalized eye diagram requirements.[108] A cable of about 5 meters (16 feet) can be manufactured to Category 1 specifications easily and inexpensively by using 28 AWG (0.081 mm²) conductors.With better quality construction and materials, including 24 AWG (0.205 mm²) conductors, an HDMI cable can reach lengths of up to 15 meters (49 feet).[106] Many HDMI cables under 5 meters of length that were made before the HDMI 1.3 specification can work as Category 2 cables, but only Category 2-tested cables are guaranteed to work for Category 2 purposes.
There you go

Pound land. No point wasting that Black Eye Friday bargain saving

Buy an Audioquest Pearl for 25 quid and do a picture comparison with the pound shop one and then tell me they’re all the same.

Speaking as an AV geek, they’re all the same. HTH.

Let me turn that around. You supply your best HDMI lead and I’ll turn up to your pad, with your AV setup, with an Amazon Basics HDMI cable. Choose your source, I’ll plug in one of the cables, and if you can reliably tell which cable I’m using over say a dozen trials, I’ll give you my house.

i sell em for a living.
they are indeed al the same.

Not true as far as I know. Although it’s nice to think of digital as just on or off the fact is that the signal changes so fast that the first digital signal only gets about 10cm down the cable before the next one starts. The trick at the receiving end is to get the timing right to recover those signals without any errors. As long as your cable is to spec then the errors in video are tiny (<10-9) but they can still be there. It’s a bit like the number of bits of ant allowed in your peanut butter – you might like to think the answer is zero but it isn’t

Fair enough, there is no error correction for video but the errors are minuscule when the cable is to spec. If there was a significant error level the picture would just look like complete shit. What I really don’t get is any bollocks about improved colour reproduction or contrast that some people claim. A quick Google suggests such claims are not as widespread as they were only a couple of years ago.

Buy an Audioquest Pearl for 25 quid and do a picture comparison with the pound shop one and then tell me they’re all the same.

So explain to me what was different with the picture? I’m not taking the piss, I just don’t believe it’s possible given the same HDMI spec.

Personally I now tend to buy cables in the £5-£10 category for their reliability, which has been 100% for the last 5 years. Not once has it occurred to me that I could get a better picture by spending more on the cable.

if you’re going to plaster it into your wall, you’ll probably want to buy one that’s a bit more because the quality of the plastics and polymers in the sheath (oo-err) will be of a higher grade.

but thats the only reason for spending more than a fiver.