HDMI cable question

[glen]

My cables are sort of bunched up, and I think they are finicky and dont work all the time.
1. Do these cables short themselves out easily when they are ebnt?
2. If I buy new ones, is there a type or brand that will prevent the problem by being shorter or sturdier?

 

[sdifox]

There are thicker cables, but why are you bunching them up? You want to make sure you are not damaging the ports. Cables are easy to replace, not so ports.

These are 24AWG ones

http://www.monoprice.com/Search?cp_id=10240&cs_id=1024004&keyword=hdmi%20cable

I would do stress relief of some sort to make sure your cable is not just hanging all its weight on the port.

 

[alcoholbob]

Thicker HDMI cables tend to short alot in my experience because HDMI cables have such terrible bend radius, and get worse the thicker they get; higher gauge is more likely to get detached from the connector from twisting/turning the cable. I'd say 80% of the monoprice 24awg cables I've bought (which is like 12 of them) have gone bad after 1-2 years just from occasional reseating of the cable or adjusting position once every few months. Whereas only one of my 8 or so 28awg el cheapo amazon cables have gone bad.

Thin cable with redmere signal boost is best combo ;D

 

[glen]

Thin cable with redmere signal boost is best combo ;D

Is the signal boost built into the remere cable? In otherwords, do I have to buy anything besides the cable?

 

[sdifox]

Thicker HDMI cables tend to short alot in my experience because HDMI cables have such terrible bend radius, and get worse the thicker they get; higher gauge is more likely to get detached from the connector from twisting/turning the cable. I'd say 80% of the monoprice 24awg cables I've bought (which is like 12 of them) have gone bad after 1-2 years just from occasional reseating of the cable or adjusting position once every few months. Whereas only one of my 8 or so 28awg el cheapo amazon cables have gone bad.

Thin cable with redmere signal boost is best combo ;D

I haven't had a single hdmi cable go bad on me from Monoprice. But then I make sure cable are stress relieved.

 

[queequeg99]

Is the signal boost built into the remere cable? In otherwords, do I have to buy anything besides the cable?

The signal booster is built into the cable. However, it is built into just one end. Therefore, this is one of very few situations in which a connector cable is unidirectional. I didn't realize this at first and caught my mistake just before I was about to hit "SEND" on a very intemperate email to Monoprice. However, after I corrected the direction, the cable works perfectly (a 35 foot long cable if I recall correctly). Just look closely at the cable ends. One will have a marking with something like "Display" and the other something like "Source." If not (and the cable doesn't appear to work at all), just switch the direction.

 

[sdifox]

The signal booster is built into the cable. However, it is built into just one end. Therefore, this is one of very few situations in which a connector cable is unidirectional. I didn't realize this at first and caught my mistake just before I was about to hit "SEND" on a very intemperate email to Monoprice. However, after I corrected the direction, the cable works perfectly (a 35 foot long cable if I recall correctly). Just look closely at the cable ends. One will have a marking with something like "Display" and the other something like "Source." If not (and the cable doesn't appear to work at all), just switch the direction.

he is not using a long run as far as I know.

 

[queequeg99]

he is not using a long run as far as I know.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. 35 feet is the situation I was dealing with. I don't think OP has discussed length.

If I were dealing with relatively short runs (under 10 feet), I would just go with monoprice's 28 gauge cables unless there was some other constraint. For instance, you might not want those huge ferrite cores for some reason. Or you might be extremely short of space around the hdmi plug itself (the redmere ultra slim's have tiny connectors). Once you get into longer distances (and the need for thicker gauges starts to rear its head), redmere becomes more attractive in my mind just because I don't like dealing with massively thick connector cables.

 

[Matt1970]

I haven't had a single hdmi cable go bad on me from Monoprice. But then I make sure cable are stress relieved.

I haven't had ANY HDMI cable go bad, no matter where I bought it from.

 

[queequeg99]

I haven't had ANY HDMI cable go bad, no matter where I bought it from.

With one exception, I've had very good experience with Monoprice (about 20 cables purchased so far). The one less-than-good experience was with a 35 foot run using their thickest passive cable. It was a monster and a serious PITA to run (not flexible at all). It worked well for about a year and then started to get really problematic. Essentially, the picture would randomly freeze (or develop patches of brilliantly colored pixelation). Sound would continue without interruption. I am almost certain it was a seating problem (jiggling the plug around would correct the problem). The cable was so thick and heavy that I'm sure it put too much strain on the connection to the projector. Unfortunately, I didn't have adequate strain relief. I'm not sure how I could have installed proper strain relief in my particular application (a ceiling mounted projector). The redmere replacement cable has worked perfectly. I think the long passive cables can be used effectively if you have adequate strain relief.