Do You Need 4K HDMI Cables?

Viper16 said:
I bought a 45' HDMI "High Speed" cable off Monoprice for like $25.00. It works great, it is CL-2 so I ran it through the walls/ceiling to my Tele. Not one issue!
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So you're guaranteeing that CL-2 $25 cable will work at 45 feet?

I can tell you that a mid-range HDMI cable at 25' won't reliably operate a PS3, and cheap one crashes every 5 minutes.
 
My eyes are getting older..I doubt 4K will be noticeable to me, so as long as I have an HDMI cable that works with 3D 1080P I';m good
 
ol1bit said:
My eyes are getting older..I doubt 4K will be noticeable to me, so as long as I have an HDMI cable that works with 3D 1080P I';m good
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Very noticeable! You have to see those demos at that the Sony 4K TVs. Granted my old 55 inch 1080P wasn't that great to begin with. But the 4K with 3D is pretty amazing. I thought 3D was a gimmick till I saw it myself.
 
Qinsp said:
I learned the hard way. While $100 cable for HDMI aren't necessary, $10 ones will give you issues.

Short runs are very important. The longer your cable, the better it has to be. A $10 x 2' will work most the time, but a $10 x 10' won't.
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You probably won't believe this...but I ordered an 8' HDMI cable from Amazon for the incredible price of $.78; that's uh, seventy-eight cents! No free shipping there--drat. The shipping cost 4x what the cable cost. lol! The shipper was out of country and previously unknown to me and I believe it was something like two weeks from the day I ordered to the day I got the cable. It's fairly thick, though not overly so--a bit thicker than a "fat" mouse cable.

Oh, yea...that was *two years ago* and I'm still using that darn cable--it's great! Right now it's pushing 32-bit color (and HD sound) @ 1920x1200 (my monitor's highest res) at frame rates in the 100's when running the right software and vsync off! I like the cable a ton better than my previous DVI cable (longer and far thinner than the DVI cable.) The cable does a splendid job of carrying my 2GB HD 7850's 1.4a HDMI output--without a squeak of protest. The cable matches the DVI cable's output handily.

When I first got an HD set years ago (1080P) I bought some 3'-4' HDMI cables from Best Buy--their own cheap brand--and what a "bargain" they were at $30 ea. This cable blows it away in length, flexibility, and of course price. Remember we are dealing with digital transmission, not analog, where cables had to be thickly insulated against electrical and magnetic interference of all kinds--HDMI is a whole other ballgame and the rules have changed. This cable has proven to me that one absolutely cannot judge an HDMI cable by its price--it just won't work and you'll get burned every time. Knowledge can be a two-edged sword: if I had known what I know now about HDMI in general I would not have bought that cable--and I would have been the loser hands down.
 
Mr Mean said:
Very noticeable! You have to see those demos at that the Sony 4K TVs. Granted my old 55 inch 1080P wasn't that great to begin with. But the 4K with 3D is pretty amazing. I thought 3D was a gimmick till I saw it myself.
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Hey, guy, I'll have you know that I have one big eye in the center of my forehead! What's your precious "three dee" gonna' do for me, buddy? What's it gonna' do, huh? HUH?


(j/k:D)
 
Qinsp said:
So you're guaranteeing that CL-2 $25 cable will work at 45 feet?

I can tell you that a mid-range HDMI cable at 25' won't reliably operate a PS3, and cheap one crashes every 5 minutes.
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I've run Monoprice midrange HDMI cables up to 50 feet and not had issues. However, at that length you're better off using cat6e through the walls.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Look in any home theater magazine and see some nice $200-$1000 HDMI cables. I'm sure I couldn't tell a difference, but there is a market for these 'super duper high end' cables. Even those that are fairly educated but like spending money are going for them. Do they notice a difference? I would doubt many of them would. But, with high end components, why cheap out on the cables? To each his own, I guess. I'll stick with Monoprice for my cables. Haven't let me down yet...
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They buy them, because they think it matters. This debate has gone on for decades, and the people who buy/sell this crap are never willing to do a double blind test. Sellers would lose sales and buyers would feel like the chumps that they are. I'll always remember selling a Grado cartridge for a turntable for 90 bucks. It was 1/2 off retail. Cost was 7 bucks. I got 20 bucks cash that day, 20 bucks on my check and 2% of the sale.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I've run Monoprice midrange HDMI cables up to 50 feet and not had issues. However, at that length you're better off using cat6e through the walls.
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I have a 25' cable that has never given me a problem.

Its too long but hey, now I have some slack.
 
WaltC said:
Hey, guy, I'll have you know that I have one big eye in the center of my forehead! What's your precious "three dee" gonna' do for me, buddy? What's it gonna' do, huh? HUH?


(j/k:D)
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LOL! 4D maybe?
 
Digital for current HDMI either works or it doesn't. There's very little range of fault tolerance. That's by design, really. You know if you have a good signal or not. Unfortunately that's one of the reasons cable companies switched to set top boxes. They wanted to switch their formats to something with more fault tolerance so degraded signals result in diminished quality instead of a flat out corruption. Because flat out corruption can't be disputed, but diminished quality can be.

But they could in the future for 4k pick a standard with broader fault tolerance, too. I wouldn't be surprised. In which case someone could make crappy cables which work with a degraded signal. At which point the whole cable quality thing could start to matter again.
 
We install 30-40' hdmi runs all the time, for high end theater systems.
We buy our cables from OSD,
a 30' 3D 1440p, in-wall rated for $14.99 is cheap and we have never had any customer complaints.
not too worried about 4k yet.
 
octoberasian said:
So, there will be more of these?
http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-Ch...2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1373393335&sr=1-2

Lol
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Hey don't knock that cable.....It is life changing, it makes a difference when your playing video from your phone to your Television especially when quality is all that matters. Even though you have to use a Lightning to HDMI adapter it doesn't matter when you own a gold plated iPhone http://www.fancy.com/things/297550207208396635/24kt-Swarovski-Gold-iPhone-5
 
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I might have just gotten a crappy HDMI cable.

But here were the symptoms:

We would play that Rock air-guitar game with all the kids. The game would crash at random. We swapped out PS3's, same thing. Swapped disks, nothing, reflashed, nothing, etc.

Finally by switching the cable brand, the game worked flawlessly. But it was a bitch figuring it out, because I couldn't understand how a cable could crash a console. I was not aware the cable was bi-directional.
 
Qinsp said:
I might have just gotten a crappy HDMI cable.

But here were the symptoms:

We would play that Rock air-guitar game with all the kids. The game would crash at random. We swapped out PS3's, same thing. Swapped disks, nothing, reflashed, nothing, etc.

Finally by switching the cable brand, the game worked flawlessly. But it was a bitch figuring it out, because I couldn't understand how a cable could crash a console. I was not aware the cable was bi-directional.
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HDMI is indeed, but you should always check the cable first, no matter how weird the case is.

I own over 20 HDMI cables, paid $30 for the most expensive one and that was the one that failed. Had it hooked up to my 360 thinking "hey lets use the better built cable for this thing" and less then a year later the connector got corroded.
 
Wish tv manufactures would support it already so you could actually input 120hz into all these 120hz tv's.
 
With this talk of bad HDMI cables crashing consoles - can it cause the following?

Sony AVR connected to a Panny projector occasionally has to have all settings cleared to get audio to work from any input. I do notice that when the projector is turned off, the audio stops for a few seconds and returns. But, when starting everything to watch a movie, the audio does not play until the settings are cleared (which erase all my speaker settings). Video always works. I do have a 25' HDMI cable (mid-range) from the AVR to the projector.

I have no problems on the small runs, but this is the longest and now that I'm thinking, it could be the issue. Didn't have any issue with the old Yamaha that was hooked up...
 
Ur_Mom said:
With this talk of bad HDMI cables crashing consoles - can it cause the following?

Sony AVR connected to a Panny projector occasionally has to have all settings cleared to get audio to work from any input. I do notice that when the projector is turned off, the audio stops for a few seconds and returns. But, when starting everything to watch a movie, the audio does not play until the settings are cleared (which erase all my speaker settings). Video always works. I do have a 25' HDMI cable (mid-range) from the AVR to the projector.

I have no problems on the small runs, but this is the longest and now that I'm thinking, it could be the issue. Didn't have any issue with the old Yamaha that was hooked up...
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If it's a system that requires 2-way communication, I would test with a short cable to troubleshoot.
 
Do You Need 4K HDMI Cables?
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If I had 4 thousand TVs I would definitely need 4 thousand HDMI cables...well, more like 3992 since I have 8 or so in a box somewhere.
 
jpm100 said:
Digital for current HDMI either works or it doesn't. There's very little range of fault tolerance. That's by design, really. You know if you have a good signal or not. Unfortunately that's one of the reasons cable companies switched to set top boxes. They wanted to switch their formats to something with more fault tolerance so degraded signals result in diminished quality instead of a flat out corruption. Because flat out corruption can't be disputed, but diminished quality can be.

But they could in the future for 4k pick a standard with broader fault tolerance, too. I wouldn't be surprised. In which case someone could make crappy cables which work with a degraded signal. At which point the whole cable quality thing could start to matter again.
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Could be, but there's at least as good a chance that they do it so they collect rent on the box. I'm not sure why the cable would matter anyway. In most cases, it's only gotta go from the box to the TV or the receiver, which is probably sitting next to it.
 
I don't really get why people get so up in arms over overpriced cables. We all obviously know better. However there are many people who don't or just don't care. Frankly if people in the age of smartphones and internet in your pocket cannot be bothered to do a little research before spending that kind of money. Then let them blow their money stupidly. Why we feel this intrinsic need to protect the unthinking majority is beyond me.
 
doug_7506 said:
hmm which to buy

http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-Ch...e=UTF8&qid=1373393335&sr=1-2&tag=hardfocom-20

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024002&p_id=2893&format=4
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I'd swear that 15 years ago I bought an Audioquest spdif cable for a price that was considered exceptionally cheap (no more than 20 bucks, but it might have been 10). Can't find it now, so I'm not sure if that's who made it or not. I can't paying the prices they want for any cable. Even in the world of analog, the only way I might be convinced is if I operated a recording studio. I don't hangout on gearslutz, so I don't know what they buy, but my guess is that they're not buying $1000 interconnects.
 
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Pfffft. I don't need a monster cable or one of them fancy Monoprice ones neither. I use a 30" floppy drive ribbon cable with 2 re-purposed mini Altoids tins for my 4k video needs.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I don't really get why people get so up in arms over overpriced cables. We all obviously know better. However there are many people who don't or just don't care. Frankly if people in the age of smartphones and internet in your pocket cannot be bothered to do a little research before spending that kind of money. Then let them blow their money stupidly. Why we feel this intrinsic need to protect the unthinking majority is beyond me.
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Empathy is hard for you, I guess. It's okay, most psychopaths have that problem.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
So I am a psychopath because I have no sympathy for people who are to lazy to price shop? Wow..that is a first.
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No, you're a psychopath because you apparently have no sympathy for people who are deceived and defrauded.

That the government hasn't cracked down on those perpetuating this particular type of fraud is a failure of our system. That you've decided some people deserve to have frauds perpetrated upon them is your failure as a human being.
 
Babbster said:
No, you're a psychopath because you apparently have no sympathy for people who are deceived and defrauded.

That the government hasn't cracked down on those perpetuating this particular type of fraud is a failure of our system. That you've decided some people deserve to have frauds perpetrated upon them is your failure as a human being.
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So again..Because people are too "LAZY" to do a 20 second google search, they are being deceived and defrauded? Wow, you seriously need to learn what those terms mean. The fact that you want the Government to step in on something like that is far more scary than and the possibility of me being a psychopath.
 
Babbster said:
No, you're a psychopath because you apparently have no sympathy for people who are deceived and defrauded.

That the government hasn't cracked down on those perpetuating this particular type of fraud is a failure of our system. That you've decided some people deserve to have frauds perpetrated upon them is your failure as a human being.
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Must the USA become a "nanny state" and protect uneducated consumers from everything :confused: ... at what point does a person become responsible for their own purchasing decisions ... if you purchase something that doesn't work (that is fraud), if what is given you isn't what you purchased (that is fraud), buying an overpriced product when lower priced products are available that you chose not to buy is not fraud (since you knew the price when you bought it) ;)
 
Azhar said:
I disagree. SATA is the worse when you get cables without the clip at the end. It falls out when the tide changes in Singapore and you're living in Missouri.
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Huh? I have boxes with no clips on the SATA drives that have yet to come off. Are you running this computer in an tank or something?
 
Babbster said:
No, you're a psychopath because you apparently have no sympathy for people who are deceived and defrauded.

That the government hasn't cracked down on those perpetuating this particular type of fraud is a failure of our system. That you've decided some people deserve to have frauds perpetrated upon them is your failure as a human being.
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Life is hard. Its harder if you are stupid.
 
Babbster said:
No, you're a psychopath because you apparently have no sympathy for people who are deceived and defrauded.

That the government hasn't cracked down on those perpetuating this particular type of fraud is a failure of our system. That you've decided some people deserve to have frauds perpetrated upon them is your failure as a human being.
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Actually, anyone who is buying those cables has a stereo system that costs more than most people's homes and certainly more than their cars. High-end audio has always had this type of snake oil, and the buyers of these things believe they're better and when a writer in a an audio magazine said it was BS, the called him a liar and a fraud.

kbrickley said:
Must the USA become a "nanny state" and protect uneducated consumers from everything :confused: ... at what point does a person become responsible for their own purchasing decisions ... if you purchase something that doesn't work (that is fraud), if what is given you isn't what you purchased (that is fraud), buying an overpriced product when lower priced products are available that you chose not to buy is not fraud (since you knew the price when you bought it) ;)
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Taking the other side, if they claim something that's not true, and I don't feel like reading through their marketing material to figure that out, then it's an issue for the FTC. My guess is that even if there is misleading info, the people who buy it feel good when they buy it and so few buy it, it doesn't matter. Seriously, who pays 500 bucks for a 2 meter cable, or $400 for that Denon CAT-5 cable from a few years ago?

Answer: people with more money than god and no sense at all. Alternatively, they got an installer to put the system together and put it in. And the latter would be troubling, but IME, installers are very reasonable places to buy AV equipment and they don't tend to try and up sell you on useless crap.
 
Qinsp said:
So you're guaranteeing that CL-2 $25 cable will work at 45 feet?

I can tell you that a mid-range HDMI cable at 25' won't reliably operate a PS3, and cheap one crashes every 5 minutes.
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Yep! Ran it through two vertical walls and ceiling. I get it isolated from any power wires. I can play Xbox 360, PS3, 1080P Media, with no error/glitches. No pixel loss or fragmentation. I got my cable at Monoprice. I did make sure it had the ferrite's on them.
 
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