How Much Are HDMI Cables?
In my seemingly endless travels in doing research for competitive prices of audio/visual equipment, I came across an interesting little revelation. It is a waste of money to pay the inflated prices of name brand HDMI cables. (HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface and is used for almost all HD signals these days. See picture at right.) There is absolutely no good reason the average person should pay some of the insane prices that vendors like Monster Cable are proposing. Let me tell you my story…
I was at Myer Emco browsing around at different TV’s that my buddy was interested in and saw a rack of HDMI cables. Knowing that was going to be needed down the road regardless of whether we bought one there or another store like Best Buy, I was curious to know what they might go for. The first one I picked up was for 4 meters (don’t ask me why they are in metrics) and had a price tag of (ready?) … $175 dollars. For an approximate 13 feet of cable, it was $175. One hundred and seventy-five dollars. Plus tax.
Needless to say, I slowly put it back on the rack and backed away. Then I thought, well maybe it was a special cable or a typo. I walked around and saw the other prices were just like it. Outrageous. But what was even more mind boggling was the fact that there was a market out there for them. There was some sector or demographic of people that are getting suckered into buying these things.
I knew that I needed one, but I would have had to completely delete this blog due to the amount of shame I would have from making such a ridiculous purchase. So I went on Amazon and did a quick search for an HDMI cable. Guess how much it was for an off brand HDMI cable? 4 meters for $8 bucks, plus shipping. Now lets get into why it doesn’t matter what brand you buy…
To begin with, we need to understand the difference between analog and digital. Analog is like a radio signal, it is subject to interference and can be manipulated by varying degrees of tuning. A digital signal is made by 1s and 0s (known as binary) and works because of the concept that it is either on or off. Now I know, what about when we hear something that we know is analog (like speech, music etc) coming through a digital medium? Well a signal can be generated initially in analog, then converted to digital, and after it has arrived at its destination, it is converted back to analog. In fact, most things work that way.
So now we have a digital source (like a cable box or VCR DVR) that is outputting something (movie, TV etc) and we have a choice: transmit these signals to our TV by an analog cable or a digital cable. Remember the analog one is subject to any electromagnetic interference. You know how your listening to the radio and you drive by some one and its gets static until you pass? Thats interference. Would you want that going to your TV? Of course not. By using digital, we are able to have a (near) lossless signal. All those 1s and 0s start at one end of the cable, and for the picture (or whatever) to work you must have all those 1s and 0s arrive intact at the other end. THAT is why it does not matter what brand of cable you are using. Its a weird concept to be sure, but believe me, its true. If you were to take both the expensive cable and the cheaper one, you would not be able to tell the difference.
The one caveat that you could argue that this digital scenario might come to fault would be if you were running the digital signal through a cable that was so long that the power driving it ran out due to the inherent resistance in the metal inside the cable itself.
Don’t buy an expensive cable, get a cheaper one. I did it and can tell you that it looks just as good as any other. Check this out for more information from another perspective. $
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Comments
[...] from Milk Your Money asks, “How Much Are HDMI Cables?“ These things can be expensive. Learn how much you should really pay for [...]
my question to you Ben would be have you tested the more expensive cable with your $8 dollar cable? If not how can you make such a bias statement. I would also love to know when they started making digital VCR’s I need to get one.
@jeff: Actually I have tested them both and saw no difference. There might be a few reasons for that: signal source was not stretching any sort of bandwidth limitations and the length of the cables themselves. Perhaps the more expensive cables are better over longer distances due to the the fact that they have better shielding, but for shorter distances, there is no way you can justify the prices of Monster cables; its simply a rip-off.
And digital VCR was supposed to be DVR, oops!
@Sam: Good call, here it is: http://reviews.cnet.com/hdmi-cable/?tag=rb_content;rb_mtx
[...] would love to hear someone try and defend these cables as a worthy expense. Keep in mind that I do believe in decent shielding over longer [...]
@jeff:
There actually was a digital VCR back in the mid/late nineties; even had Dolby Digital audio. But production costs and the cost to consumers were prohibitive and the idea was trashed. It was being developed parallel to the DVD format. I believe Victor Company of Japan (JVC) was pioneering the effort. The cheaper production costs, higher profit margin, and packaging of DVD pretty much sealed the fate of the digital VCR.
edit:
I did some quick research and turns out it wasn’t just digital, it was HD; a better format than DVD. It was still expensive, though.
I’ve been a huge proponent of cheaper cables for a long time. I get all my cables at monoprice.com. I got my HDMI cable there for $5. At best buy? Close to a hundred for the same type cable.