Retailer Calls Rivals' Bluff On "HDMI Scam"

nk497 writes "Retailer Kogan is offering customers of rival stores free HDMI cables to highlight the 'scam' of selling the cables for £100, saying its own £4 cable works just as well. 'An HDMI cable is an HDMI cable,' Kogan said. 'It's a digital cable. You either get a picture or you don't. Don't get conned into buying a 'fancy' HDMI cable because it will make no difference!' Rival retailers Currys and John Lewis said they preferred to offer customers a 'variety' of cables. 'Each of our HDMI cables offers excellent quality and value for money, and by providing our customers with a range of different cables which offer different specifications, we are able to help them find one to suit their specific needs, with features such as different cable lengths, ultra slim and high speed,' said a spokesman for John Lewis, which sells cables for £20 to £99."

Comments

But the Best Buy guy said it does

[elrous0]

You mean the oxygen-free wiring and gold-plated connectors don't make for an "extra dynamic picture" and "much better sound resolution"?

Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does

[VAElynx]

See, it's all to do with the fact that while the zeros of a digital signal are smooth and pass through well, the ones can get caught and cause a data block, if the cable is of poor quality, or bent.

Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have thought it was the other way around - ultra slim cables will let a 1 pass through, but a 0 will get blocked.

Unless those 1's are sideways. Why doesn't the manual for my new HDMI cable specify this?

Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does

[Joce640k]

Just make sure you don't connect your golden cable backwards - the bass always sounds thin and reedy when the electrons are forced to flow 'uphill'.

Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does

[jonbryce]

They are European style 1s with long tails. They can get confused with Anglo Saxon style 7s.
That's why the directional indicator is so important.

Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does

[Anonymous Coward]

I just asked the salesman if he was actually ignorant enough to believe that, or if the best buy job was really worth ridding himself of all personal integrity.

Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does

[Joce640k]

PS: Don't forget to "break-in" your cables by playing music at full volume for 150 hours when new, and for another 10 hours or so every time you disconnect/reconnect them.

Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does

[Anonymous Coward]

I will only buy high speed HDMI cables from now on. I bought a regular one, but eventually got sick of the 10 minute delay when watching a movie, and my PS3 was just unplayable. Thank god the salesman set me straight. Also I really recommend Monster cables because they produce whiter whites, blacker blacks and the coloriest colors while preventing bits from static cling and creating the softest fuzzies.

Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does

[fatphil]

Indeed, font matters. With your HDMI telly, you also need an Arial to get decent image quality.

This one wins the prize

[jrq]

The Denon AK-DL1 is without doubt the winner in the bogus cable category. It's "uni-directional"! http://usa.denon.com/us/Product/Pages/Product-Detail.aspx?Catid=5840d55c-4077-4d9e-9421-36f204fb4587&SubId=85958de8-a123-4213-8ae1-bb6afaee9a97&ProductId=f7d26b3a-05a6-4724-a5c1-2a63642a6206

Re:The emperor has no clothes!

[plover]

The monster has no clothes!

FTFY.

Re:Best Buy tried to sell me an HDMI cable...

[Anonymous Coward]

No the real mistake was thinking you could haggle with service-level employees at a multinational company. That's the dumbest thing I've heard in a while.

Re:Future Shop does it too now

[BeardedChimp]

You wouldn't plug your computer straight into the wall,

Wait, what? Why wouldn't you plug it straight into the wall? I've been doing that for almost 20 years now.

You fool! You need to plug it into the ceiling, how else are the electrons supposed to drain into your computer?

Re:Not entirely false

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

MOnoprice wants 96 bucks for an HDMI cable! They are NOT cheap.

Granted the HDMI cable is 131 feet, but how else am I supposed to watch NASCAR if not through a very long hdmi cable to my neighbor's DirectTV receiver?