HDMI Cables - Are You Serious?

I was looking for one for my 360 and I'm stumbling upon things that are 1 cent...1 cent...I've never gone through buying something this cheap, certainly not when it comes to high definition technology.

http://www.amazon.com/Dynex-DX-AV001-HDMI-Cable/dp/B00132BCGA/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

LOL 1 cent...err..yay?

Most of the money is made in the shipping (obviously) and a $3 HDMI cable will do more or less the same job as that $100 Monster-branded cable. Cables are cables... if you want to waste your money on something more expensive please feel free - I'll take my penny cables any day.

HDMI cables have indeed crashed in price of late. 1 cent is obviously suspect but Jkozzy is right- you can ones that do all you want dirt cheap now.

I'll amend my post - as long as the cable's in good physical condition (not falling apart, not going to fall off in your device) then they're good as gold. I have personal experience purchasing penny cables from Amazon and they've been fine. Use them with my HDDVR, 360 and PS3 with no faults whatsoever - the Microsoft-branded cable I had went bad before any of these cables, which are all going strong. I work at Gamestop and cringe when anyone buys our $40 cables.

yep

monster cables and 1st party HDMI cables are a waste of money

So you're finally getting an HDMI cable 👆

Originally posted by JKozzy
Most of the money is made in the shipping (obviously) and a $3 HDMI cable will do more or less the same job as that $100 Monster-branded cable. Cables are cables... if you want to waste your money on something more expensive please feel free - I'll take my penny cables any day.

Well, not all "cables are cables" though. I'm referring to signals that are not digital.

Yeah, when cables are used for something important like data transfer for networking then cables are not cables.

But for HDMI used in gaming. Cables are just cables.

Originally posted by Smasandian
Yeah, when cables are used for something important like data transfer for networking then cables are not cables.

But for HDMI used in gaming. Cables are just cables.

Yup.

For digital things like HDMI, or optical audio, you can't get better or worse as all of the sound/video is processed and would only improve or decrease in quality with different "end" devices. The cable just transports the data which is hex or binary.

I'm pretty sure the data is converted into binary and not hex.

If you need cables never buy them somewhere like best buy or radioshaq. http://www.monoprice.com is a great site with great prices that I have used for years with 0 problems.

Originally posted by S_D_J
So you're finally getting an HDMI cable 👆

Oh and monoprice doesn't beat Amazon. Can't beat a cent unless we talking shipping prices.

i dont go for those monster cables as well its a huge scam. they have these 2000 model cables now that says they make a difference on your tvs that are 600hz and stuff. 1st of all theres no device yet that sends out a higher refresh rate than 60hz. as long as the cable is gold plated and its a 1.3 model then im satisfied

I remember when I first was looking for one I went to Wal-mart and they were $30 and up. Since I thought it was too much, I went on ebay and got mine for less than $5. Almost a year later and not one problem with it.

As others have mentioned, there is no such thing as quality when it comes to HDMI cables. Meaning, they either work, or they don't. You won't see a change in quality in video imagery when using a 50 dollar one opposed to a 5 dollar one. If they both work, they will both look the same. Get the cheapest one you can.

In fact, it's possible to get free ones. Many cable providers have a bunch lying around their offices, and if you are a customer of them (Time Warner, Verizon, so on) and you go and ask for one, they will probably just give you one for free.

...WTF?!

Wow, and I already payed 3 - 4$ for one...oh well. I'll just sell that one. That is if Verizon/DISH can give me one...

Rofl the Amazon seller refunded me the $3.35 even though the item arrived here (and works superb by the way) just because I emailed the seller after the item was shipped telling him I didn't want it! 😆

I got an email saying the refund will be applied and the reason the seller chose was: wrong item was sent! Double rofl! 😆

By the way, with hdmi my 720p 26" Sony Bravia L Series no longer looks like crap up close. I don't know if it's due to the fact this is hdmi being used, or the fact that with it equipped I am not able to edit color saturation, sharpness etc.

Maybe under the same picture settings with component, I will be seeing close to the same thing? I don't know. All I know is due to the obviously lower sharpness because of the hdmi, I am not able to notice as much distortion up close (because with less sharpness there is more blur to "blend in" distortions). As someone said earlier, a laptop screen's resolution on a much bigger screen than 15-17" (say 26" like mine) will look like crap to a degree. I agree if this is up close, but this hdmi cable, either because it's hdmi or that it lowers sharpness or both, makes my TV beautiful up close, but since I'm always 10 feet away, that shouldn't be something even to worry about.

HDMI is awesome. I got one for my PS3 and the picture is amazing. You don't have to buy it in the store. I brought two cable from Amazon.com for about $5. This is a lot better price than in the stores.

Dang homes you just did the same thing I did? Buy it from Amazon? 😱

By the way I originally came to ask...how come I can't edit SHARPNESS and COLOR settings on my TV when I use HDMI, but I can edit these two settings with component? For some reason they are dimmed out. Any thoughts? I understand the color bit I guess...(since there isn't red, blue and green jacks...) but sharpness?! Come on. I wanna increase sharpness dammit! 😠

Yeah sorry...another question..more like several.

Ok, When I turn my LCD on and my Xbox on, it says it's being displayed in 1360x768, not 1366x768...so 3 pixel lines are cut off from the edges.

How come?

How come component can do 1366 but my hdmi can't?

Are there hdmi's that can do 1366?

Out of curiosity, does the 1360 hdmi, compress the picture or does it cut off some space from the picture on the sides? That is of course, if the game is natively 1366x768, because if it happens to be 1360 then as far as I know the hdmi cable is showing everything there is to be seen.

Sorry for 3 posts in a row, still can't edit because of time running out. I just seem to learn something new every few minutes...so I went to my dashboard settings (didn't think there were any with hdmi...boy was I wrong) and realized that all resolutions except the "optimal resolution" will make the tv look like utter garbage (even when I set it to 720p which is my TV's native)...why the hell? Is the 360's 720p option not the same as my TV's, since I read 720p can be 1280x720 or 1366x768? This is all too confusing. I wonder if all HDMI's are the same when it comes to their "optimal resolution" because the optimal one on my HDMI is 1360x768...are there ones who offer 1366 instead? Just wondering.

Apparently after going into a thread, hdmi is hdmi as far as the 360 is concerned and you will get the same options via display settings on the 360 with any HDMI cable. I still wonder though why the "optimal resolution" is supposedly 1360x768 and not my TV's native which is 1366x768...and the funny thing is both the console and the TV claim to be in 720p! How is this? They don't technically even have the same resolutions. What, is 720p a variety of resolutions or something?

...

Rofl my TV has a wide mode in "PC Settings"?! That pretty much solved the slight vertical cut offs.