I read this report on BBC’s Newsbeat site with interest. Particularly the last few paragraphs, where my distant Future colleague Chris Jenkins, a man whose opinion I trust not simply because of our shared employer, explains that you do indeed need to invest in a good cable to get good results.
He argues that more expensive cables do make a difference, especially in more complex home cinema setups and over cable runs of longer than one metre.
“As you connect more and more items together, say an HD box and games console, or multi channel amplifier, you will need better and better quality cables to maintain the quality of the signal.
“£120 cable for your first purchase? No. But certainly don’t try to get away with a £1.99 cable”
Chris’ advice is to budget around 10% of a system’s price for HDMI cables.
This absurd reliance on expensive cables is a huge shame. I utterly resent paying £Stupid for a poxy cable.
Here’s my problem. HDMI was invented relatively recently. It crams a million signals into a tiny thin cable with a puny connector. This is a glaring flaw considering the ever-present threat of signal cross-talk, which anyone who’s ever waved an unshielded VGA cable near a kettle lead will know all about.
It’s as if HDMI’s inventors – blasted audiophiles, no doubt, with solid unobtainium speaker cables surrounded by signal-blocking moats, each maintained by a private cable-butler to dust off every speck of signal-reducing muck and ward off filthy interference-laden plebs – decided to produce the most awkward cable possible just to mess with us normal people. “You want it? Fine! But my stereo is more expensive than both my houses. I expect similar investment from you!”
Yes, HDMI is svelte, but why? Who cares? Was there anyone specifically asking for a small connector that would require a month’s wages to work properly? SCART is massive. It has pretty much served its purpose in its current guise but a new version, using cheap existing tech to make a new product, would have worked just fine and slid in way under HDMI’s extortionate budget.
It’s too late to moan about this, I know. And hey, my assertions are probably way off the mark. But it would be sad if we all started worrying more about our cables than the bits of kit attached to either end of them.
