HDMI cables, expensive vs cheap

[ImRizzo]

Originally Posted by bpl123

As Joe Kane (Digital Video Essentials) says; "You can spend a buck a foot or $100 a foot. If you're getting picture and sound
it's working". Bruce

100% agreed and monoprice has 'em all.

[largedoor]

It's not entirely as simple as so many like to make out, although it's close.

There are advantages to buying higher quality cables in some instances.

HDMI cables easily slip out of their connectors. A self-locking cable will prevent this from happening. HDMI cables have many fine pins, and once one gets bent, as sometimes happens when they are re-connected frequently, the cable is then unusable. Things are even worse if the connections on the component itself becomes damaged. I've known of manufacturers to refuse warranty claims regarding damaged component HDMI connectors.

I've frequently seen longer runs of HDMI properly pass 1080p, but merely substituting a better cable has cleared up this issue.

There are no differences in image or sound performance between quality and low-quality cables at short runs, like we've grown accustomed to seeing with analog interconnects. For simple reliability and for longer runs, it can make sense for some to get better built cables.

[Daniel-a]

Last year I bought a Sharp Aquos at BB. The saleman gave me a cheap hdmi cable.

While watching tv, the picture became distorted ( top 2 inches) everytime there was ads.
I was puzzled. Tv set defective only for ads?

I decided to use the hdmi cable that came with my oppo plaver. No more distorted pictures.
Maybe there was bad connection. So I tried again the cheap cable. Distortion came back.

So much for picture or no picture with hdmi cables.

[rbinck]

Originally Posted by Daniel-a

Last year I bought a Sharp Aquos at BB. The saleman gave me a cheap hdmi cable.

While watching tv, the picture became distorted ( top 2 inches) everytime there was ads.
I was puzzled. Tv set defective only for ads?

I decided to use the hdmi cable that came with my oppo plaver. No more distorted pictures.
Maybe there was bad connection. So I tried again the cheap cable. Distortion came back.

So much for picture or no picture with hdmi cables.

That is a well known issue especially with SD commercials. The reason why there are areas at the top of the picture is that is the area where they send digital data in a analog picture which gets converted to noise when merged into a HD picture frame. I would guess the reason why one worked better than the other was a change in overscan that happened along with the cable change. If you had distortion all of the time, you could be right in suspecting the cable, but on only commercials where this anomaly is well known to us that have an overscan free TV, I doubt it. Digital signals are a go-no go issue for the most part.

But if you found a solution that works for you, that's a good thing. Does the cheap HDMI cable work ok with the Oppo?