HDMI Cable Debate: Does price really dictate quality?

[Omegatronacles]

I work in TV retail. My store sells Monster HDMI cables. We also sell no name brand HDMI cables.

I have set up tests using two identical TV's, two identical Blu Ray players, running identical Blu Ray movies, one set using the Monster HDMI and the other set using the no name brand.

At a distance of 1.5 meters, there was absolutely no difference in picture quality between Monster and No Name.

At a distance of 5 meters, there was absolutely no difference in picture quality between Monster and No Name.

At a distance of 15 meters, Monster showed a marginally better picture quality over the No Name brand. And when I say marginally, I mean that if they hadn't been sitting right next to each other, I would never ever have noticed.

At a distance of greater than 15 meters, I stopped the test, because quite frankly if your TV is 15 meters away from your HDMI device, you either need to rethink the arrangement of your loungeroom, or you should have had someone professionally wire up the house with HDMI.

So, for a typical TV user, there is no advantage to "premium" HDMI cables. I would personally recommend that you buy your cables from a local store than online, simply because these cables do come with a warranty, and it's far easier to claim a warranty from the store you bought it at as opposed to trying to get some faceless person online to honour a warranty.

Although, since it's possible to get cables online for less than a cup of coffee, sometimes even the warranty doesn't matter.

Do you get commission on the ridiculously priced cables?

I bought a 3DTV from comet and the salesman tried to sell me a "HDMI 1.4" cable for £80, he was pretty insistant that my set-up just wouldn't work if I didn't have it...I knew that not to be true. Anyway, he wouldn't drop it until I threatened not to buy the TV.

I am a commissioned salesperson, but the hoops I have to jump through to get the commission make it completely not worthwhile caring about that.

Besides, I have several repeat customers who come back to me because I always recommend what's best for their setup, not what's best for my wallet.

HDMI 1.4 is recommended by Samsung and Sony as being vital for 3D TV, so it might be worth considering cutting the salesman a little slack. Depending on how Comet market themselves to the public, the guy may not have known any better.

All my 3D display models all use 1.3 without any problems. 1.4 does have a slightly faster data transfer rate, but again, this would only be an issue if you were using stupidly long lengths of cable.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I work in TV retail. My store sells Monster HDMI cables. We also sell no name brand HDMI cables.

I have set up tests using two identical TV's, two identical Blu Ray players, running identical Blu Ray movies, one set using the Monster HDMI and the other set using the no name brand.

At a distance of 1.5 meters, there was absolutely no difference in picture quality between Monster and No Name.

At a distance of 5 meters, there was absolutely no difference in picture quality between Monster and No Name.

At a distance of 15 meters, Monster showed a marginally better picture quality over the No Name brand. And when I say marginally, I mean that if they hadn't been sitting right next to each other, I would never ever have noticed.

At a distance of greater than 15 meters, I stopped the test, because quite frankly if your TV is 15 meters away from your HDMI device, you either need to rethink the arrangement of your loungeroom, or you should have had someone professionally wire up the house with HDMI.

So, for a typical TV user, there is no advantage to "premium" HDMI cables. I would personally recommend that you buy your cables from a local store than online, simply because these cables do come with a warranty, and it's far easier to claim a warranty from the store you bought it at as opposed to trying to get some faceless person online to honour a warranty.

Although, since it's possible to get cables online for less than a cup of coffee, sometimes even the warranty doesn't matter.

Do you get commission on the ridiculously priced cables?

I bought a 3DTV from comet and the salesman tried to sell me a "HDMI 1.4" cable for £80, he was pretty insistant that my set-up just wouldn't work if I didn't have it...I knew that not to be true. Anyway, he wouldn't drop it until I threatened not to buy the TV.

I am a commissioned salesperson, but the hoops I have to jump through to get the commission make it completely not worthwhile caring about that.

Besides, I have several repeat customers who come back to me because I always recommend what's best for their setup, not what's best for my wallet.

HDMI 1.4 is recommended by Samsung and Sony as being vital for 3D TV, so it might be worth considering cutting the salesman a little slack. Depending on how Comet market themselves to the public, the guy may not have known any better.

All my 3D display models all use 1.3 without any problems. 1.4 does have a slightly faster data transfer rate, but again, this would only be an issue if you were using stupidly long lengths of cable.

I have a hdmi 1.4 cable...I got it for £3 online.

I'm not rude to staff. But, by the time I had repeated "I don't want the cable" 4 times and he was still trying to push it...even if he just didn't know, he was still being an ass.

I'm going back to buying things online.

 

[Voodoo_Person]

My HDMI cable cost me £2 off of ebay, and it hasnt failed me yet

 

[Atomic Skull]

At a distance of 15 meters, Monster showed a marginally better picture quality over the No Name brand. And when I say marginally, I mean that if they hadn't been sitting right next to each other, I would never ever have noticed.

The only "quality difference" you are going to see is bit dropouts in the image called "sparklies". HDMI is a digital signal, the pixel data either gets through or it does not, there is no "in beween" like there is with an analog signal.

With HDMI/DVI (they use the same video signal) and DisplayPort you either get a 100% perfect image or you get an unacceptable image with dropped pixels. There is no "in between" quality at all. It's either good or bad, period.

DisplayPort is much better than the DVI (and HDMI) signal because it's a packet based signal and can work over much longer cables without dropping pixels. The DVI/HDMI signal was designed to be able to drive a CRT display and is basically just a digital VGA signal while DisplayPort was designed for digital panels.

 

[Fenring]

The only difference is between HDMI output/inputs and length of certain other cables. HDMI is digital, so it either works or doesn't, there is no "kind of works."

 

[Worgen]

if you want a better reason to avoid monster products, look up some of the lawsuits they had a few years ago, they started suing anyone with the word monster in their name because they said it hurt their brand

 

[Atomic Skull]

The only difference is between HDMI output/inputs and length of certain other cables. HDMI is digital, so it either works or doesn't, there is no "kind of works."

You can get pixel dropouts but that is very obvious and results in an unacceptable image and so can be considered "not working"

 

[x EvilErmine x]

Short answer No. Long answer yes it can do to an extent