[100949football]

Can someone tell me - in layman's terms and without technical waffle - how Curry's and Comet can justify £84.00 and £99.00 () for 2M lengths of HDMI lead when I got mine (gold connectors) from my local TV/Audio shop for £8.99 and appears to be working great!

I appreciate Comet and Curry's cables come in super-dooper fancy packs and they are brightly coloured red/green/blue etc but that is one helluva difference. ()

I did ask my local audio guy and he simply said it was a "rip-off' - my Virgin installer said the same!

I was also told the "Gadget Show" ran a test on these some time ago and testified that there was not a lot of discernable difference in these cables at vastly differring prices!

Over to the "boffins" who no doubt will justify this!!!!!

B

[Trollslayer]

Because they can fool people who don't have AV Forums.
Did I say that?

[100949football]

Originally Posted by Trollslayer

Because they can fool people who don't have AV Forums.
Did I say that?

Thanks mate.....you shoulda heard the Comet "nerd" tryin' desparately to justify a £99.00 HDMI cable - I felt embarrassed for the guy!

[norge]

Are HDMI cables all capable to transfer data from and to devices with HDMI 1.3? Or they have to be advertised so?

[tbeachly]

HDMI is backward compatible so it an older cable will be able to transmit data. I may not however do all that HDMI 1.3 can.

Safer to choose one that says HDMI 1.3 (imo) but would imagine they all are now

HDMI 1.4 is on it's way HDMI :: Manufacturer :: HDMI 1.4


HDMI 1.0

Single-cable digital audio/video connection with a maximum bitrate of 4.9Gbps.
Supports up to 165Mpixels/sec video (1080p at 60Hz or UXGA)
8-channels of 192kHz/24-bit audio (PCM)


HDMI 1.1

Added support for DVD Audio
Slight mechanical and electrical spec changes

HDMI 1.2

Added DSD (Direct Stream Digital) support, allowing native transmission of Super Audio CD (SACD) content at up to 8 channels
Enabled HDMI Type A connector for PC-based sources
Allows PC sources to use native RGB color-space with the optional ability to also support the YCbCr color space for consumer electronics applications
Mandated that HDMI 1.2 and later displays support low-voltage sources such as those found with PCI Express technology (the current display interface standard for PC video cards)


HDMI 1.3

Increased single-link bandwidth to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbps)
Optionally supports 10-bit, 12-bit, and 16-bit "Deep Color" per channel (over one billion colors) up from 8-bit
Allowed the use of xvYCC color space (previously just sRGB or YCbCr)
Incorporated automatic audio "lip" syncing capability
Supported output of native Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio streams for external decoding by AV receivers
Made available a new Type C "mini" connector for devices such as camcorders
Added gamut Metadata transmission capability
Added Reference Cable Equalizer mandate to high frequency displays to recapture degraded copper cable signal

[deadmonkey]

If you value 1.3, then best check it specifies it

[MarkTaylor]

Originally Posted by deadmonkey

If you value 1.3, then best check it specifies it

Actually you are better checking it specifies 'Cat 2' or 'High-Speed' as 1.3 is an equipment specification rather than a cable spec.

For short distances you will struggle to find any properly constructed cable that will not handle the needs of 1.3 level equipment.

[LINDY Chris]

Originally Posted by MarkTaylor

Actually you are better checking it specifies 'Cat 2' or 'High-Speed' as 1.3 is an equipment specification rather than a cable spec.

For short distances you will struggle to find any properly constructed cable that will not handle the needs of 1.3 level equipment.

Mark is right, The cables are only CAT1 or CAT2

Soon the marketing is going to change, you will have standard and high speed. With or without Ethernet (1.4 spec)

The main reason for price is, cable quality / construction / testing / support etc as mentioned before on here.

That said, over short distance, cheaper cables will be fine, as long as they don't fall apart (literally)

Best Regards

Chris