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

An HDMI cable is not just an HDMI cable

[master_kaos]

Sure a cheap $2 HDMI cable is just as good as a more expensive one for a short run (50') they sure as hell do matter. I used to think the same thing, and I needed to do 3x60' runs. So I bought some cheap hdmi cables and ran them, no signal. Tried other 2.. same issue. Returned them, bought better quality ones (no monster cables, but better quality ones), and they ran perfect.

Definite answer: Normal or HighSpeed (w ethernet)

[AwaxSlashdot]

Directly from HDMI.org :
http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_1_4/finding_right_cable.aspx
http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/trademark_logo_pub.aspx

Since 1.4, there are only 5 differentes cables and correctly labelling them is REQUIRED by HDMI (there is a grace period until the end of 2011).

It's simple : 2 speeds (Normal or HighSpeed) and a feature (with or without Ethernet).
Basically, Normal supports up to 1080i and HighSpeed supports above.

The last category is about automative cabling so we can forget about it.

At last, it is FORBIDDEN to make reference to a HDMI version number for cables ("upgrade your 1.3 cables to 1.4" : those are the same - except for Ethernet but your pre-1.4 devices did not support it).
And for products, if you want to use a version number, the manufacturer have to specifically list the feature added in this version supported by its product.