HDMI Cables - Are You Serious?

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Shutter Control
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?

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.

Ushgarak
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.

JKozzy
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.

S_D_J
yep

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



So you're finally getting an HDMI cable thumb up

dadudemon
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.

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.

dadudemon
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.

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

forumcrew
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.

Shutter Control
Originally posted by S_D_J
So you're finally getting an HDMI cable thumb up chair LOL I'm waiting for a seller to reply to an email I sent because, one of the reviewers (one of two of the only negative reviewers out of 28 reviews for that cable) said the Eforcecity's cable didn't work....and that is the one I want because not only is it 1 cent but the shipping is also low...2.98.

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

chomperx9
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

Darth Vicious
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.

BackFire
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.

Shutter Control
...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...

Shutter Control
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! laughing

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

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.

American Dragon
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.

Shutter Control
Dang homes you just did the same thing I did? Buy it from Amazon? eek!

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! mad

Shutter Control
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.

Shutter Control
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.

S_D_J
I don't know how other TV's work, but I can tell you from my experience all LCDs will never be alike, not even the ones from the same manufacter
Mine is an LG. and it fares pretty well in all resolutions, even 480p (I'm not all that picky) what I did found out, messing with settings, you can fine tune it to your liking. Most of the times LCDs use propietary engines to sharpen, enhanced or sometimes mess up the incoming signal, turn it on/off or dial it up/down a bit until you find the kind of picture you like (color, brightness, edge enhancement and so on)
Sony uses it's Bravia engine, for what I hear they're not all alike, it depends on the model of your TV, those with XBR (series S, X...) are the best (better than most LCD), they're also the most expensive... while other budget-price SONY LCDs (like series M, L...) are not so good.
just mess with the picture settings until you find the proper one

I don't know how Optimum(Optimal) Resolutions works with SONY's TVs, but mine means the maximum (and Native) resolution the TV displays... and I think it should mean the same with all TV's
If your TV displays 1366x768 than that's your TV Native Resolution...
It has nothing to do with your HDMI Cable, remember the HDMI can carry bigger resolutions than 1080p.
I don't know how you were able to output 1366x768 via Component, that has never been an option with my XBOX, it had only become available when I used the HDMI with the XBOX.. (it also unlock 1080p on my XBOX)

don't worry about those 3/6 lines your missing... my tv for examples cuts off more than 6 lines in all diretions (up, down, left and right) with anything that's hook up to it... except via HDMI. but for what I understand its because of the picture enhancing engine my TV's got (though I haven't properly tried with other TV's).

When I switch it to DVI (HDMI for PC's) than I get all the missing lines, plus the native resolutions, but I CAN NOT change many of the picture settings as I used to, and I'm left with a dimmed down picture, not so vibrant colors and a bit too much brightness for my linking than what I desired...

strangely enough, my friend has a SONY BRAVIA TV (720p 32" M series) and whenever we play with his PS3, I noticed its picture settings are pretty much like mine trough DVI, the kind of dimmed down picture I don't like... I tried to mess up with the settings but there weren't that many and he didn't like me messing up with his TV big grin

dadudemon
Originally posted by Smasandian
I'm pretty sure the data is converted into binary and not hex.

I'm not too sure.


MPEG4 is definitely hex.


However, I'm not sure if the data-stream that travels over the cables is hex. It could be that it is converted to binary before being sent over the lines.


That's why I said "hex or binary" cause I'm not for sure.


I do know that there's hex editors out there that allow you to look at the hex for things like MPEG4 stuff. So, obviously, it's in hex.

FWahMaN
Originally posted by S_D_J
I don't know how other TV's work, but I can tell you from my experience all LCDs will never be alike, not even the ones from the same manufacter
Mine is an LG. and it fares pretty well in all resolutions, even 480p (I'm not all that picky) what I did found out, messing with settings, you can fine tune it to your liking. Most of the times LCDs use propietary engines to sharpen, enhanced or sometimes mess up the incoming signal, turn it on/off or dial it up/down a bit until you find the kind of picture you like (color, brightness, edge enhancement and so on)
Sony uses it's Bravia engine, for what I hear they're not all alike, it depends on the model of your TV, those with XBR (series S, X...) are the best (better than most LCD), they're also the most expensive... while other budget-price SONY LCDs (like series M, L...) are not so good.
just mess with the picture settings until you find the proper one

I don't know how Optimum(Optimal) Resolutions works with SONY's TVs, but mine means the maximum (and Native) resolution the TV displays... and I think it should mean the same with all TV's
If your TV displays 1366x768 than that's your TV Native Resolution...
It has nothing to do with your HDMI Cable, remember the HDMI can carry bigger resolutions than 1080p.
I don't know how you were able to output 1366x768 via Component, that has never been an option with my XBOX, it had only become available when I used the HDMI with the XBOX.. (it also unlock 1080p on my XBOX)

don't worry about those 3/6 lines your missing... my tv for examples cuts off more than 6 lines in all diretions (up, down, left and right) with anything that's hook up to it... except via HDMI. but for what I understand its because of the picture enhancing engine my TV's got (though I haven't properly tried with other TV's).

When I switch it to DVI (HDMI for PC's) than I get all the missing lines, plus the native resolutions, but I CAN NOT change many of the picture settings as I used to, and I'm left with a dimmed down picture, not so vibrant colors and a bit too much brightness for my linking than what I desired...

strangely enough, my friend has a SONY BRAVIA TV (720p 32" M series) and whenever we play with his PS3, I noticed its picture settings are pretty much like mine trough DVI, the kind of dimmed down picture I don't like... I tried to mess up with the settings but there weren't that many and he didn't like me messing up with his TV big grin I have the L series since 26" comes in only that.

There's a "Wide" mode in my TV's "PC Settings" and that made up for the 3 missing verticals on the sides Happy Dance (actually it was more like 4 on one side and 3 on the other laughing but that is probably wrong since it said 1360 not 1359) and lol @ your friend telling you to stop messing with his TV.

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