Besides which, what if an “on” does not get transmitted?

Then it’s as good as an off like I said. Least that’s how I understand it.

Just get this one and you’re done.

At first I thought that cable was £799, which I thought was stupidly expensive, then I realised it was in fact originally £7999.95. Had to look a few times to confirm that, thinking it must be a typo error, but no…

SEVEN THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE POUNDS AND NINETY FIVE PENCE.

For a bit of wire.

And there’s children starving around the World.

FFS….

They can’t eat hdmi cable tho can they elf?

Just make suer the cables are directional – and whatever you do don’t tangle them up or have loops. teh elecy gets stuck in the loops

Then it’s as good as an off like I said

which will make a difference. In binary 11 is a very different number from 10 (as it is in base 10 as well of course)

Just because a cable is carrying a digital signal doesn’t mean it isn’t susceptible to rf interference, crosstalk etc.

Digital kit has error checking stuff like parity bit encoding etc which should sort out any losses afaik. I just set up our new hd tv stuff with “cheap” cables and the picture is perfect as they’re only about a metre long.

I don’t know how the people at comet etc are allowed to get away with what they were trying to sell us which was basically completely made up nonsense – the guy was trying to make us believe that a “slower” cheap cable will make things appear more pixelated and that only the £70 monster cable and monster power supply with noise filtering will give you the highest resolution and colour reproduction. When asked to demo this cable compared to the cheaper cable he wouldn’t, yet insisted the monster was “just better.”

I am wondering whether a “better” cable would work better in our home cinema system though – not for picture but for sound sync issues. The sound from our tv goes through Panasonics ARC (audio return channel) which sends it from the telly via hdmi lead to the bluray/sound system and then out through the 5.1 speakers rather than crappy tv ones. We sometimes experience the audio being out of sync (comes out slightly after the picture so the audio delay thing is useless, we need a picture delay!) using Sky+HD and just wondering whether something more expensive would help with this or whether the sound just can’t be processed quick enough by the receiver? ton, any thoughts?

They can’t eat hdmi cable tho can they elf?

No but they could eat you. In fact, I might just come up there, chop you into little bits then prepare tasty, nutritious and exciting ready meals with your choicest cuts.

TandemJeremy Cobblybobbler and Corriander Soup.

Devilled TandemJeremy’s kidneys.

Roast leg of TandemJeremy in a red whine and shallot sauce, with garden vegetables and spicy roast Yam.

And for desert; Glazed TandemJeremy Eyes in Raspberry Jus.

I’m not messing about you know.

You would not be able to find me – you would go all dizzy getting outside of the M25

something more expensive would help with this or whether the sound just can’t be processed quick enough by the receiver?

Probably not a cable problem – if you had a cable long enough to cause an audible delay, you’d have several miles of cable.

I’d try plugging an analog audio lead to your amp from wherever you have an audio out (tv, sky plus box ) to try and work out where the delay is coming from (sky plus, tv, amp )

Someone, please come and put me out of my misery

you could try wrapping the cable very tightly round your neck…

you could try wrapping the cable very tightly round your neck…

You need a good quality one for that…

its digital its fine

if you transfer an xl spreadsheet using a USB stick you dont loose any columns if you use a cheap one

i lol’d when the guy in richer sounds tried to tell me that i should spend 10% of the price id just paid for the tv on an hdmi cable

While what’s running over the cable is notionally digital, it’s effectively an analogue signal that’s being transmitted. That signal’s being sampled at the receiving end to work out whether a 1 or 0 was being sent, and the longer the cable or the poorer it’s design/construction, the more degradation of the signal, and the higher the probability of errors. As a generalisation, error correction works, but only to a degree (tho’ it’s not the only way to get around errors).
Think of how freeview reception quickly goes from ok to a little bit crappy to completely unviewable, whereas analogue reception was always vaguely viewable even with all manner of reflections/interference, on the whole.

As previously said – short cable, anything cheap and nasty ought to work. A long run – you may need to spend some (sensible) money but I wouldn’t have thought any more than a short way into double figures.

>I’d try plugging an analog audio lead to your amp from wherever you have an audio out (tv, sky plus box ) to try and work out where the delay is coming from (sky plus, tv, amp )

Yup, what Joe said.

a cheap one from a reputable source. You can get ones that work well for <£5 and certainly <£10. £18! They’re taking the mickey. And as for ones more expensive than that 😆 Check out Amazon for some fair priced bargains at just a few quid. Longer runs (several metres), it’s worth buying a more robust cable as you don’t want it to break mid-run if someone runs the vacuum cleaner or a chair over it. All this ‘OFC, directional blah blah blah’ is marketing nonsense.

It’s worth paying a few quid for build quality, rather than buying crap that’s going to fall apart after five minutes. Other than that, as others have said, quality (in terms of signal quality) is largely irrelevant, in contrast to the analogue interconnects of old.

HDMI has tight specifications that define how the cable (and everything else) performs. If a cable meets these specs, it’s good whether it’s a fiver or a hundred quid.

One thing of note, the HDMI spec gets revised. The revision of cable / component will till you what it supports (note – this is not the same as what features it has actually implemented). For instance, 3D TV requires HDMI 1.4.

I think the PS3 uses HDMI 1.3 (google thisto be sure – I’m in the Xbox camp so I’m not 100% sure off the top of my head). Whatever it is, get a cable that matches or surpasses it.

So in summary, you want the cheapest HDMI 1.3 cable you can find that isn’t made out of tinfoil and spongecake.

This looks the business.

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/9556399/Sovos-Gold-Plated-1-5-Metre-Professional-1-3b-HDMI-Cable-1-5-Metre-PS3-Xbox-360/Product.html

Comes with a free TOSlink cable too, should you have an older amp kicking about. Bargain.

Maplin wanted £35 for one, so I bought one off ebay for a quid and a half posted which is just as good…

Just done a bit of reading.

The PS3 doesn’t use the HD audio streams (which would require HDMI 1.3), but does support something called Deep Colour (which does need 1.3).

Also, there’s category 1 and 2 cables; category 1 supports 720p / 1080i, whereas category 2 supports full 1080p.

In other words, the link I posted above is perfect, get it bought. (-:

I am wondering whether a “better” cable would work better in our home cinema system though – not for picture but for sound sync issues. The sound from our tv goes through Panasonics ARC (audio return channel) which sends it from the telly via hdmi lead to the bluray/sound system and then out through the 5.1 speakers rather than crappy tv ones. We sometimes experience the audio being out of sync (comes out slightly after the picture so the audio delay thing is useless, we need a picture delay!) using Sky+HD and just wondering whether something more expensive would help with this or whether the sound just can’t be processed quick enough by the receiver? ton, any thoughts?

Send the audio direct from source to av amp via optical if your souce/amp has it.

And you can set an audio delay on a sky box – have you tried that?

And if a digital signal is just a digital signal why do all CD transports sounds different when plugged into the same DAC?

That’d be the “C” bit of the process.

I said the same DAC…

Mia culpa, I can’t read. (-:

Anyway what I’ve noticed after getting into various discussions about the best bike cleaner, the best cables etc etc, it that there’s two groups of people.

The first is interested in learning and finding out what the best possible performance and quality they can obtain is. And is willing to pay for it.

The other is interested in getting something that works and is good enough.

No problem with either approach. Except the latter probably wear cheap suits. 😉

The only problem I have with that statement is the assumption that the two groups are mutually exclusive.

In this case, you can satisfy both criteria for under ten quid.

Except the latter probably wear cheap suits.

Oi, I’m watching you…. 😉

I’d say they are, something that “works and is good enough” is not the “best possible performance and quality”?

Unless you mean some people from both groups may wear cheap suits. 😮

Reminds me I must start a thread on bespoke suits.

Anyway what I’ve noticed after getting into various discussions about the best bike cleaner, the best cables etc etc, it that there’s two groups of people.

I suspect there’s a 3rd group, those that swallow advertising bumph & fuzzy scientific claims – hook, line & sinker

I suspect there’s a 3rd group, those that swallow advertising bumph & fuzzy scientific claims – hook, line & sinker

True. At least they’ll be wearing good suits though. 😉

There’s three groups. The first likes to absorb all the sales guff, has too much money and equates “best performance” to “best marketing”. The second is the “works and is good enough” group. The third group is happy to spend the extra if there’s evidence that it really is better.

I’d say there’s always evidence something is better. Its just the extent of how much better – and what that means to you.

Beaten to it!

Regarding the difference in CD transports, I had no idea what one was so Googled it, and came up with an article on timing jitter
http://www.stereophile.com/features/368/

@sas – well done, that was exactly what I was on about.

Some people just don’t appreciate quality.

I don’t know much about video but in audio systems it’s worth spending money on cable if you have high end equipment. True the price may seem incredible but when I listen to ‘Down in the tube station at midnight’ on my hifi I can actually hear Paul Weller’s take-away curry hitting the platform. It’s very moving & something completely missed using cheap cables.

just a quick heads up for you guys that think a costlier hdmi lead is a better one.
i buy them in 100’s.
ones i sell at £1.99 cost me £0.79p
ones i sell at £49.99 cost me £2.50……….. 😳

just a quick heads up for you guys that think a costlier hdmi lead is a better one.
i buy them in 100’s.
ones i sell at £1.99 cost me £0.79p
ones i sell at £49.99 cost me £2.50

Where do you work? Do tell.

That to me isn’t an issue with cable quality, its an issue with unscrupulous retailers.

danmo……..my prices are trade………just think of the mark up people like richers/maplins/currys/comet are making.

get real boys………..a cheap £1.99 one is just as good. it just aint packaged as nice…….. 😆

gold plated ends…gotta b bling

danmo……..my prices are trade………just think of the mark up people like richers/maplins/currys/comet are making.

get real boys………..a cheap £1.99 one is just as good. it just aint packaged as nice

Retailers make pretty much the same mark up across products in one segment. For example in fashion, pretty much everything is marked up by 2.7 to 3 times.

If you are buying something at £2.50 and selling at £49.99 then either you are selling way about the manufacturers RRP or selling something cheap for a very expensive price.

There is no manufacturer who would allow a retailer those kind of mark ups. They would take it for themselves if costs were so low and such a high market price (relative to cost) achievable.

I stand to be corrected though, who is the manufacturer? Or are you just passing off cheap products?

If you’re running Blu Ray to a HD Projector then yes. I noticed a massive difference changed to Chord cables.

hilarious.

And if a digital signal is just a digital signal why do all CD transports sounds different when plugged into the same DAC?

because it’s a human listening to them.