[Fallen30angel]

Hi

Home Cinema novice, just bought a Sony KDLX3500 and now looking for HDMI cables. The whole cable thing seems like a mindfield with cables having a dramatic price range. I want a cable thats capable of carrying 1080p signal and is certified to 1.3a HDMI (I think thats the lastest?). I have looking on the Sony website and they sell cables for around the £30 mark which they state are 99.99 blah blah Oxy free and 1080P 1.3a certified, so how do they differ to say a chord cable twice the price????

Blok 4000 tv stand very very close to buying, anyone bought 1?

Im planning to purchase the Panasonic Blue ray player seems to be in the spotlight at the moment and also an Onkyo 605 or 606 AV Amp, although undecided at this point in time on the amp. Again would appreciate any advice from you Home Cinema guru's out there.

Thanks for all your help and advice, greatly appreciated.

[Great Fandango]

Hi there,

I've just gone through the process of buying a tonne of different HDMI lengths for my house 'HDMI network'. Yes, it's a minefield!

On this AV forum you'll find people who tell you to go for particular brands or spend hundreds of pounds on HDMI cables. I have nothing against that for peace of mind and if you have the cash.

I work by a slightly different rationale... If it works, sends the appropriate signal without degradation and looks good on the screen, then the cable's doing its job!

I transmit various signals (including a full 1080p signal) to a number of televisions and my projector around the house. This includes HDMI cables up to 35 metres in length.

Shock horror, but I paid £42 for the longest cable! The cheaper cables still carry a full 1080p signal perfectly well.

0.5 metres = £5.00
1.0 metres = £7.00
2.0 metres = £9.00
5.0 metres = £12.00
7.0 metres = £14.00
10 metres = £19.00
35 metres = £42.00

The only thing I found is that SOME DVDs flicker once every 5 minutes or so when transmitted over the 35m cable (ie. I see the flicker upstairs in the attic room but nowhere else in the house). This was solved by buying a £20.00 'repeater'. I think you'd find this in any setup unless you purposefully bought an expensive brand cable designed to transmit over such lengths (eg.blue jeans cables?)

All my purchases were sourced from eBay.

Here's an example for a 2m cable...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=130220204900

[davepuma]

Jeez, another HDMI cable thread. A short cable will work perfectly well whether it costs £5 or £50 despite what some folks will try and tell you. They might not have "1.3a" etc. stamped on them but the chances are they will pass everything inc 1080p, HD audio etc. I have used cheapo cables from lidl and my mates have ukhdmi and some cheapies from audiovisualonline and all work fine in projector setups. At present I use 1m markgrant and 5m bettercables. None of them cost the earth.

Check out the faq at hdmi.org or bluejeanscables.com which should answer any further queries you have on hdmi.

I have no idea what a blok rack looks like, have you tried the av furniture forum. If you like it, buy it. If it's an online purchase, you can always send it back under distance selling regs.

I personally wouldn't bother any bluray player other than the ps3 at the moment. While the BD30 is no doubt a decent machine, it isn't profile 2.0, you would have to wait for the BD50 etc. for that. The whole bluray market is a mess with different profiles and hd audio specs. The BD30 requires an AV receiver with HD audio decoding as it can only send it out as bitstream. Again but that's just my opinion. I would get a PS3 and use it as a bluray player, games console, internet device, media streamer etc. and then if you feel the need to get a stand-alone wait until the profiles etc. are sorted, the technology settles down and most of all the prices drop for the darn discs!

The Onkyo 605 was well received and discounts should be available on any that are left around. The 606 adds some more hdmi inputs and upscaling from what I remember. There is a review over on what hifi's site (if you believe reviews!)

[Fallen30angel]

Dave,

Thanks very much for your advice, it would seem there is a common thread on the HDMI cable front in that you dont need to spend a small fortune to get the desired results.

Yes on the bluray player front, I did consider the PS3 first of all but when I heard rumours of the slim line version I backed off but in hindsight it looks like that could be the best option, particularly on the firmwear/update side of things. Like you say the market place is awash with varying standards and specs which doesnt help the buyer.

Appreciate your feedback though

Cheers

Rich