Technical experts Digital Foundry sought to find out, pitting four HDMI cables – a cheap one, the two official cables sold by Microsoft and Sony and a ludicrously expensive Monster brand – against each other to see which ones gave the best results.
The findings? That in the vast majority of circumstances (excepting very cheap and very long cables) a sub-$US2 cable bought over the internet gives as good a signal as the $US130 Monster cables. While of course the price differences result in varying degrees of material build – expensive cables will “fit” better and feel sturdier – at the end of the day you’re paying for picture signal, not looks or feel, so it’s clear the gulf in prices just isn’t worth it.
Some of you will of course already know this, but just in case you don’t (or are new to the high definition thing), you’re now informed. It’s especially handy to know since neither the PS3 or Xbox 360 includes a HDMI cable as standard anymore, so when purchasing your own, do the smart thing and go cheap.
Digital Foundry vs. HDMI video [DigitalFoundry]
Republished from Kotaku
David
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 9:23 AMI have tried to state this case to almost everyone around me. A HDMI cable sends a digital signal so having GOLD PLATING (at an additional cost of $50-100) will not make any difference… it is still just a bunch of 0s and 1s.
Lillee
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 10:43 AMJust buy the $2 on Ebay from Hong Kong. They are very well made, sleeved, gold coloured terminals and I cannot tell the difference in my home theatre compared to expensive Belkin and other brands that I also have.
JM
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 11:13 AMIt is amazing how much money can be made from the ill-informed.
The one that used to crack me up was gold-plated TOSLINK cables. I remember having to explain to a mate that it’s an optical signal – the gold plug itself does nothing and if he wanted quality he needed to be looking at the optic fibre…
glennc
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 11:41 AMthe rule of thumb is under 3 metres go cheap. over 3 metres start cheap.
dan
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 1:39 PMforgetting the cheap thing i would also say go for the latest version v1.4 as they add functionality to each version!
Edward Luck
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 9:45 AMDon’t get overly carried away with the “1.4″ terminology. It doesn’t mean much at all. There is a very enlightening interview with one of the core guys from the HDMI group on the Home Theatre Geeks podcast (episode 11, 10th of March 2010) where they clarify *exactly* what the version numbers mean (or more to the point, don’t mean).