How important is the quality of HDMI cable?

[mojothehut]

Hey all,
I recently bought my first monitor that has an HDMI port. Im excited , looking forward to hooking it up to my 7950 via HDMI cable instead of DVI for a change.

With that said, after doing some shopping around I've noticed an insane amount of variety in HDMI cables.
With price ranges from like $9 to $59 for 6ft, is there that much of a difference between them? Gold plated, MEGA ULTRA MONSTER 10.5gbs bandwidth blah blah blah..
I don't really want to spend that much money on a freakin cable, it's only a 24inch monitor, i'l lbe gaming at 1920x1080.

But I also don't want to get the cheapest one around. Any suggestions what sort of "specs" to look for when comparing HDMI cables?

 

[TheUnk]

Be sure it's long enough and has 2 ends that fit.

 

[mojothehut]

Be sure it's long enough and has 2 ends that fit.

Ha! That's what I figured, mostly marketing gimmicks eh?

 

[cmdrdredd]

It's digital so as long as it is the correct standard (current standard is 1.4a) it'll be fine.

I buy all of my cables from monoprice, but some people use amazon too.

There are different shieldings available like if you're doing a long run through a wall or something like that. You don't need a $100 monster cable though. It's all the same copper.

 

[mojothehut]

Hmm from the tech specs of the monitor
PC Input: DVI-D/D-Sub
PC Audio Input: 3.5mm Mini-jack
Video Input: HDMI 1.3
AV Audio Input: HDMI 1.3
Earphone jack: 3.5mm Mini-jack

1.3...dun dun dunnn is that bad?

 

[Granseth]

I think that if you are going to transfer 4k signal or something like that you might want to be prepared to change to something less cheap HDMI cable. But the cheapest are always so cheap that there is almost nothing lost by buying that and test it out. If you don't notice a problem everything is fine.
If you are going to have long lengths (more than 10m) it is also a real chance of problems, especially if the cable goes close to other electrical stuff. At those lengths you should be careful about placement and quality might become important.

And then there is the AV crowd that are talking about things like jitter and things like that, but that involves the HDMI output sending sound as well as picture.

So despite all my words, buy cheap and be happy.

 

[Stuka87]

Hmm from the tech specs of the monitor
PC Input: DVI-D/D-Sub
PC Audio Input: 3.5mm Mini-jack
Video Input: HDMI 1.3
AV Audio Input: HDMI 1.3
Earphone jack: 3.5mm Mini-jack

1.3...dun dun dunnn is that bad?

Thats fine, you can use any HDMI cable that is rated for 1.3 or higher. The higher specs just support more features. Be it 3D, or higher resolutions.

 

[Granseth]

Thats fine, you can use any HDMI cable that is rated for 1.3 or higher. The higher specs just support more features. Be it 3D, or higher resolutions.

Any cable 1.0 and onwards is able to send 1080p@60, but they are probably not in sale anymore and 1.4 cables are just as cheap as everything else.

On tip though is to not buy to long cables. Less chance for signal noise.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I think that if you are going to transfer 4k signal or something like that you might want to be prepared to change to something less cheap HDMI cable. But the cheapest are always so cheap that there is almost nothing lost by buying that and test it out. If you don't notice a problem everything is fine.
If you are going to have long lengths (more than 10m) it is also a real chance of problems, especially if the cable goes close to other electrical stuff. At those lengths you should be careful about placement and quality might become important.

And then there is the AV crowd that are talking about things like jitter and things like that, but that involves the HDMI output sending sound as well as picture.

So despite all my words, buy cheap and be happy.

The cable doesn't matter. HDMI inherently has jitter. DTS and Dolby signals have built in error correction to account for this. If there is some catastrophic failure to send the audio, the decoders are designed to mute and will give no sound rather than a screwed up sound. As for the video you either get the whole picture or sparkles. There is no in between. If you don't see white noise or sparkles then you are getting the same image regardless of what brand HDMI cable you use. Here's the skinny on it and why cables don't matter.

If it's so unlikely, why do I bring it up? Because it's important to understand that it is impossible for the pixel to be different. It's either exactly what it's supposed to be, or it fails and looks like one of the images above. In order for one HDMI cable to have "better picture quality" than another, it would imply that the final result between the source and display could somehow be different. It's not possible. It's either everything that was sent, or full of very visible errors (sparkles). The image cannot have more noise, or less resolution, worse color, or any other picture-quality difference. The pixels can't change. They can either be there (perfect, yay!) or not (nothing, errors, boo!).
All the claims about differences in picture quality are remnants of the analog days, which were barely valid then and not at all valid now. There is no way for different cables to create a different color temperature, change the contrast ratio, or anything else picture-quality-wise.

Example of failing HDMI cable producing sparkles

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20056502-1/why-all-hdmi-cables-are-the-same/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385272,00.asp
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/home...-cables-make-no-difference-the-absolute-proof
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/diy-it/the-hdmi-cable-ripoff-and-why-retail-is-really-dying/533

 

[VirtualLarry]

BensOutlet has a 10-pack for $14.99 FS. I ordered one of those packs recently.

 

[mojothehut]

Thanks for the great links! Very helpful. Hello $3 cables =)

 

[Moonrise]

Yes, don't waste money on expensive digital cables. Just get ones that meet the current standard and if you care about looks go buy some heatshrink tubing or weave to dress it up.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Basically in the old days of analogue signals over cables like VGA the quality mattered, especially over distance.

But digital signals aren't like that, they don't degrade linearly like analogue does, they tend to be perfect or not working at all, so quality of digital cables doesn't really matter. For HDMI I always go for whatever is cheap but fairly sturdy.

 

[Phil1977]

I had some very cheap HDMI cables of eBay and I would get image blank outs at Full HD (Image going black every once in a while).

Got new cheap cables from eBay and they are fine. So must have been a bad product.

720 worked well though

 

[alexruiz]

Don't spend money on a monster cable, but don't go the cheapest you can get either.

Yes, it is digital, yes, it is supposed to work 100% or 0%, but a cheap cable will get often have image degradation as blank screens because the TV / monitor will see at lapses "0%" so goes blank, then sees 100% again, etc. A cheap cable will also not be enough for 2560 x 1440 or higher.

The monoprice ones are very nice, and at their price is hard to argue with them. If you already got a cable, even a very cheap one, don't sweat it, likely you will be perfectly fine.

 

[Attic]

Yea, get the cheapest cable you can find. Mono price is good, great, for this.