HDMI Cables/ Are They What they are Cracked Up to Be?

I think it makes a difference. It makes the picture more crisp.

My husband can tell more than I can but I definitly think it makes a difference.

It also depends on your tv. I couldn't tell as much with our old tv as I can with our new one.

Bella- Most older sets don't even HAVE HDMI inputs.

Phoenix seems to be creating threads at an alarming rate this morning. And with no coffee in her system.

I think the woman must be on drugs.

It is really funny about these things. My husband is a hi-fi freak. His friends used to bring over all manner of multikillerbuck cables to test out on our system. Some of those cables have really WILD prices.

Anyhow, one day we went to this huge electronics surplus place in Orlando. My husband saw some wire that was selling at 15 cents a foot (I think that it has gone up to 30 cents now ) It looked interesting, so he bought a lot of it. He made up some multistrand wires from the surplus stuff that sounded better than the pricey cables.

In THEORY HDMI will deliver a cleaner pic. It is an all-digital signal.

On the component side the digital signal from your cable provider (or inside your DVD player) is converted to analog component outputs and then converted back to a digital signal by the television before display.

In reality, very few people will ever notice any difference since the TVs internal analog-to-digital processors will generate signals to "fill in" for any missing data. If you have a crappy digital feed, the TV's A-D processors can actually improve the picture because it is creating data to fill in the missing bits - something the HDMI (or DVI) input can't do.

So far the biggest advantage I've found with HDMI is that you only have one cable/connector for everything - video and audio. That is much neater when running an HD signal to multiple rooms.

HDMI may have more impact as more true HDTV signals start getting broadcast and HD DVD players become more common.

Makes sense to me, fishin'- Thanks!

Well, the tv wasn't old. It was just older. :wink:

One thing - you don't really need expensive HDMI cables since the signal is digital. If you see digital drop - looks like boxes/pixelization. then buy a better cable, otherwise get the cheapest one available.

Think about it - we can run GBE 300' over UTP.