HD Question from a technophobe

[haggis1984]

Quick Q,

 

Got an Hd tv recentley. Shop staff seemed pretty clued up and said I should buy and HD cable to connect my PS3 to it to get an HD picture. Then they said it'd be £60-70?!

 

Since looked online and they seem to be available for under a tenner which seems a pretty huge price difference.

 

Are there different qualities of HD cables or are some just a massive rip-off? Would the £10 cable actually make a differencen to my picture quality?

[geoff1248]

So far as I know HDMI cables either work or they don't, differing materials eg gold plated, make no difference to the quality of signal.

It is said that other cables,ie SCART, do improve with gold plating but frankly I have never noticed the difference.

I have bought the cheapest HDMI I could find and they work just dandy. Some gold plated ones currently on ebay for £3 + postage.

[haggis1984]

Thanks geoff.

 

So you actually notice a difference in pic quality between scart conncetion and cheap hdmi?

[geoff1248]

In simple terms yes you can see a difference but remember that the picture/sound quality will only be as good as the weakest part of your system.

I notice that the difference is most obvious on animated input. Things like Shrek and Cars (and no doubt Avitar) plus certain nature progs look very good but other things the difference is not quite so noticeable.

However if you have HDMI inputs it makes sence to use them and for the sake of £3-£5per cable it's hardly a major outlay.

Go for it.

[haggis1984]

Cool, thanks

 

Can't help questioning about a £3-5 outlay - its my inner Scotsman!

[My Real Name]

Thanks geoff.

 

So you actually notice a difference in pic quality between scart conncetion and cheap hdmi?

SCART and HDMI are completely different.

 

Can you tell the difference between a cheap SCART cable and an expensive SCART cable? Possibly, as it's an analogue signal.

 

Can you tell the difference between an HDMI and a SCART cable - it depends on the resolution of the signal, but, in theory, HDMI would give a better picture.

 

Can you tell the difference between a cheap HDMI cable and an expensive HDMI cable? No. Because there is none. It's a digital signal (either a 1 or a 0 is sent). Anyone that tells you different is either a liar, or an idiot.

[haggis1984]

Thanks for your input My Real Name.

 

Ordered today, ill report back on difference in pic quality.

[Yorky2008]

HDMI is digital so either it works or it doesnt, dont go spending large amounts of money as you wont notice any difference! Go for the £10 one.

 

SCART is different and better quality cables do give a better pic.

[haggis1984]

Might help someone in future:

 

Cheap cable works fine. Good picture quality but biggest difference for me is the sound quality as I play a lot of music off my PS3 thru the TV. Well worth a few quid

[qa19]

I know this post is a little old now but there is a massive difference between scart and HDMI on a PS as scart is not HD but £60 is a complete rip off. In fact you'll be pretty amazed at the difference.

On another note high quality cabling (gold plated etc) have been proven to be a complete rip off and offer next to nothing in terms of higher quality picture or sound. They may however be more durable and less prone to cable stretch etc. but then how often do you move cabling at the back of your TV?

My favourite story was the one about the audio cable test where they gathered some of the biggest names in music and audio engineering ( a few famous names but cant remember them) and got them to assess the quality of the sound from a wide range of cables without telling them which one was which. Some of the £2k cabling recieved some of the lowest marks and unbelievably one of the highest scores was from a make shift cable from coat hangar wire that someone made as a joke.

[Conniff]

My favourite story was the one about the audio cable test where they gathered some of the biggest names in music and audio engineering ( a few famous names but cant remember them) and got them to assess the quality of the sound from a wide range of cables without telling them which one was which. Some of the £2k cabling recieved some of the lowest marks and unbelievably one of the highest scores was from a make shift cable from coat hangar wire that someone made as a joke.

 

I've noticed the same in a lot of products and especially wine tasting, they usually say "this is definately the expensive one" and it turns out to be the cheap one

[StormWarrior]

There can be a difference with HDMI cables when you start using longer lengths.

 

Althought HDMI uses ones's and nought's, when cable length gets longer, cheaper cables tend to suffer from capacitance effects. ( the difference between a 1 and a 0 get harder to measure.)

Many modern items of AV equipment, are starting to get data error correction functions in the logic systems.

This means that they don't just freeze when there is a small data loss, they will try to 'guess' the missing data, this can result in reduction in picture quality.

 

The question is, Can you see these differences, and how long do the cables have to be, before its starts to become a problem?

[merlin100]

I found some on ebay for £2.50 each and the seller only lived a few miles away so I went over there and bought six. They work fine.

I have a 32" flat screen HD monitor and HD PC. If I download a HD film ( just got Bladerunner) and play it back through the PC, the quality is outstanding using one of those cables.

BUT! I also have a 50" LG HD flat screen that has a 600htz refresh rate ( most major brands Sony, Sanyo etc only come with 100htz) and on this Tv its very hard to notice much difference when switching between standard channels and HD channels - so not all that impressed with HD from that aspect when it seems the refresh rate tends to mimic the benefits of HD.

[iccarus1969]

as far as i am aware the expensive cables that they charge £60+ for are made from optical fibre this is how they supposidly justify the cost.The expensive ones make quicker response times although in most situations there not needed as the delay is minimal and constant. So unless you are playing online games you probably wont notice that difference and if you are playing online games it may only improve slightly.

This actually takes me back to the old printer lead con when i used to work at a cumputer company (now not trading) you could buy there gold plated green printer lead for £30 or standard one for £10 .There was no physical difference in quality just the look of the cable.