Over priced HDMI Cables - Explained

Thanks, bob.

lol. Not sure why the commerce commission hasn't done anything :O

This = awesome... Harvey Norman are the worst for pushing these cables

I would imagine because there is no law against selling something at an inflated price

You can't lie about what it does though. Would be interesting to see some ads for the overpriced cables.

My mate bought a complete home theatre system from them which included a Pioneer DVD player for $250, and an HDMI cable to connect it to the TV for $300.

I got a Belkin HDMI cable a few months back for $150

If I had paid that I wouldn't be admitting to it on a public forum.

appliance stores struggle to make a decent margin on the bulk of their inventory so charge hefty margins where they can

I applaud their profit driven motivation to exisit

Shit happens

Good thread

My mate in Australia works for an importer of some cheap ass made in china cables (cost is like $3.50) and he gave me one. I must admit I noticed that when I switch between HDMI ports on my TV it picks up the more expensive cable I have allot quicker?

When I first started in IT sales cables were always a great margin product as people usually didnt argue the price. Cable margins are usually 2-300% as opposed to most products circa 10% these days

Is that due to the cable itself or the device it's been plugged into though?

Basically, most people are going to confine their research and decision making to the main item (eg HD tv - which if you want to make a well informed decision is a hugly time consuming and complex process), and will not know to be wary about things like cables. In none of my extensive research (which included but was not primarily focussed around discussions on biggie) did i come across info or warnings about this rort. Oh well. I can live with it.

"Works perfectly or not at all" eh?

Being digital, either the 1s and 0s come through, or it doesn't work. Half the data getting though wouldn't help.

I understand that but it's a bit of an oversimplification isn't it? Quite happy to be corrected if this doesn't make sense!

At the end of the day the video payload part of the data-island is still a stream of 1s and 0s which represent pixels, yeah? They are encoded with 8b/10b, but corruption could occur and I don't think this would break the entire transmission?

For example if you got 7 zeros in a 10 bit code group (due to some weird signal corruption in the cable) it's not valid 8b/10b, but you can't ask for a retransmission so you have to either display something (which is probably incorrect) or die. I really doubt the die option would be taken?

Either way the pricier cables still aren't justified, especially over short lengths, but less signal corruption would always be comparatively "better" in time-sensitive applications like HDMI I would assume? I'm not trying to defend cable-companies like Monster, but just because it's digital doesn't mean that corruption can't be a problem.

Or am I missing something critical here? As I said maybe I am?

It's such a blatant scam I though educated people would question it at least

Harvey Norman has ditched Monster in favour of Belkin. I'd imagine it gives them a lower price point whilst maintaining margin.

As an experiment, take a cheap HDMI cable, strip back some of the sheath, plug it in and play something through it. Then start messing with the exposed conductors. Nothing happens until one breaks, and it stops working. No degradation, just the die option.

Have you tried that? It doesn't give very granular control over what you corrupt but I suppose it's more real world.

I would suspect the difference there is in HDMI spec between the cheap and expensive cables and the delay is in protocol autonegotiation between devices.

Yes. And it gives you ultimate granular control, if you know the pinouts of the cable.

No it doesn't. How can you corrupt one particular bit like that?

It does demonstrate that in practice it is all or nothing though.

Hmm probably. Don't actually have the packaging to check



Same device different cable.

Jamie from Mythbusters tweeted this.
MYTHBUSTERS PEOPLE!

I think there can be picture degradation with poorly made HDMI cables. I've certainly seen a number of people report improved picture when switching from very cheap to better quality cables on the Whirlpool forums. This is probably just because the original cable was not made to spec or faulty though.

Monster cables etc are definitely a practical joke and they have made a lot of money out of peoples ignorance.

As I've mentioned before I once saw an actual set-up of two LCD's side by side in Dick Smiths comparing 'generic cables' to 'monster cables' however what they failed to inform the customer was that the 'generic cable' was RCA and the 'monster cable' was HDMI.

That display probably broke some kind of law and in retrospect I should have reported them to the commerce commission or whatever they have here in Aus.

Having worked in electronics retail for a good four years I can tell you there a lot of shysters out there and you should take anything they say with a gain of salt, all they want is your money and their commission. Most of them really don't give a shit what you walk out the door with.

Here's a highly recommended Australian based site for quality HDMI cables. They will also deliver to NZ.

http://www.ezyhd.com.au/index.html

Interesting...

http://www.jacobsen.no/anders/blog/archives/2007/03/02/hdmi_and_error_correction_do_your_cables_make_a_difference_v2.html

Have to wonder why SDI was never used, I've seen a fair bit of head scratching over this.

I've used http://oznetics.com.au in the past and got a decent DVI - HDMI cable for $19 including shipping.

Would recommend.

Yep I've got a couple from them actually, good value for money.