[michaelv]

Hi,
 I've just bought a new TV which has HDMI connection. So, i'm looking for HDMI cable which gives a good video quality. I see many brands on the market from the lowest price in monoprice.com to some medium prices from elementcable.com or signalcable.com or cobaltcable.com

  I don't have much experiences in video stuffs, so i'm asking for your opinion of which cable should i go with?  I believe in audio world that analog cable quality plays important role in the system, but i don't know about digital world.

thanks.

[Levi]

Cables makes a difference compared to the cheap cables that comes with a DVD player.  I have tried several good cables from the Monster M Series and Audio Quest HDMI cables and I cannot tell the difference between the two. Althought the difference(s) could be subtle.  I wouldn't spend too much on it.

[hometheaterdoc]

How long of a HDMI cable do you need?

I reason I ask is that unless you are running full 1080P or higher resolution, as long as the run is short, there won't be a tremendous difference in the cable you use....... provided the cable is decent to begin with.

The area that digital video cables (DVI & HDMI) really start to have differences is when the length of the cable gets longer.  I ran my own experiment a while back where I went out and bought at least a dozen of the common DVI cables on the market in 10M and 15M lengths and put them to the test.  I did some subjective viewing to see if there were blatent video artifacts in the picture, then did objective measurements with my colorimeters to see if there were any color shifts, etc.  The results were pretty startling.  Unlike audio where the debate rages on about digital just being 1s and 0s and couldn't possibly make a difference, it was very easily shown that depending on the cable used, it shifted the color balance of the image, sometimes pretty significantly.

The hands down winner of that test was Analysis Plus.  Their audio cables are pretty darn good (the really good stuff, as with most cable companies, is prohibitively expensive).  But the #1 reason I carry the line is because of their DVI & HDMI video cables.  They're very reasonably priced (not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either) and flat out work flawlessly without any degredation.  I never have to question them when I'm doing an install.

If you have a short run (2-3M), are only going to send 720P/1080I max to the display, and don't have RFI/EMI issues in your location, stick with the Monoprice.com cable (24AWG) and save a few bucks.  It's a pretty decent cable in that situation and you'll be hard pressed to see that much of a difference between it and other brands you list regardless of their price. 

I'm an anti-Monster person.  They're the Bose of the cable world.  Overpriced for what you get and usually not as good a performer as the competition.

Hope that helped....  Digital Video cables are a different animal than analog video cables (composite, Svideo and component).  Analog video cables can have a tremendous impact even in short lengths.

[Levi]

+1

That is a very good explantion.  Thanks.

p.s. Bose products works.

[michaelv]

I only need 6ft max and i will not use the audio section in HDMI since i send audio signal to my receiver through digital coax.  Sounds like monoprice.com is the way to go. Right now, i only use up-convert to 1080p to my TV which is 1080p display.  Currently, i won't go to full 1080p yet as i'm waiting for HD-DVD and Blue-Ray come down to the standard point.

thanks for the help.

[Bill Baker]

Hello michaelv,
 If interested, I have a few Monster 400 HDMI cables that I am letting go. These are for systems up to 1080i.

 There is a complete list here on AC
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=34165.0

[mjosef]

Try Belkin pure AV silver line series, very well made and very affordable.

[LightFire]

As far as I know HDMI is all digital. So there will be no difference between cheap and expensive.

Check more details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

http://www.hdmi.org/

[mjosef]

Uh huh, I checked that, but I also replaced a HDMI cable with another one and had to adjust my video settings, proving to me at least that there was a difference in those two cables. If the two cables were identical, the video balance should not have changed. I am only talking video use here. The contrast was much higher with the Belkin versus the cheaper no-name brand. And the red much more pronounced.
But like everything in cable-land...YMMV

[LightFire]

It might be because some presets somewhere got changed during the exchange. If the signal is digital there will be no difference at all.

[hometheaterdoc]

It might be because some presets somewhere got changed during the exchange. If the signal is digital there will be no difference at all.

Ummmm.. no offence intended at all... but you're wrong... and it can be proven....  this isn't an audio cable debate over sound quality.  These things are very easily seen and measured with existing devices (colorimeters)... at least as it relates to color balance.

It shouldn't matter.... digital should be digital... but it does matter....

I haven't even broached the subject of one cable being able to handshake with devices better than others for HDCP...........  HDMI is a mess out there... hopefully 1.3 resolves some things.....

[Parnelli777]

These folks make excellent cables, and the cool part is- they're less expensive than most.

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/dvi/index.htm

[mjosef]

This is the replacement cable (retail $120. but I got it for less than $40.), it replaced a real cheap cable ($14 or so) same length, 8ft. And like I said the difference was quite visible, even Stevie Wonder could see it, no setting on my NEC plasma was changed.
All I am suggesting to the OP is to avoid the real cheapo cables, no need to go overboard either...I bought the cheap one to see if the HDMI output would be better than the component outputs, and it was...

[michaelv]

thanks all for opinion.

I actually bought Elementcable HDMI cable from my friend. He has a spare cable. The new cable has more depth in color even though it's not day and night

[rbrb]

Hello michaelv,
 If interested, I have a few Monster 400 HDMI cables that I am letting go. These are for systems up to 1080i.

 There is a complete list here on AC
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=34165.0

The Monster 400 series cable will also pass a 1080P signal, as does the Belkin Pure AV mentioned alsewhere in this thread.