Monster Cable's Noel Lee is about to play his next card: His move is to stratify his assorted cable offerings into five distinct categories, starting in the $30 range. Each category will be designated by a "speed rating," and will deliver "demonstrable difference in high-def image quality." But as many of you know, Gizmodo research has found that many cables determined too poor to carry 1080p signal in tests nevertheless do fine in real-world scenarios.
The five categories are bewilderingly named as follows:
Standard Speed - MC 500HD and U3 V500 HD
High Speed - MC 700HD and U3 V600 HD
Advanced High Speed - M650 HD, MC 800HD and U3 V850 HD
Ultra High Speed - M850 HD, MC 1000HD and U3 V1000 HD
Ultimate High Speed - M1000 HD
My guess is that these cables will all be of decent to high quality across the board, and more importantly, I will bet that even the "Standard Speed" cables will deliver 1080p video over short distances (3 to 6 feet) and perhaps over longer ones (35 to 50 feet) without trouble. Why? Because Gizmodo has already discovered cheap cables that can do this with no problem, so Monster's would have to be worse than the generics in order to prove the value of the high-end ones. This is my guess, let's call it my "educated guess," and I will be happy to test the theory out when Monster feels like sending over some test samples.
In the meantime, feel free to peruse the press release:
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