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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."
You mean the oxygen-free wiring and gold-plated connectors don't make for an "extra dynamic picture" and "much better sound resolution"?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...is essentially what Kogan is saying...and they're right!
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.
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
My UID is prime!
After Future Shop in Canada got bought up, they've dumped their non-monster cables and stuff. "Oh, you want an HDMI to go with that TV? That'll be $80. Do you want a fucking $400 god damn power bar? It cleans the power gremlins out of your filthy filthy wall socket. Without the filter the gremlins will take a hammer to the inside of your TV, and eat all your bags of chips. It also somehow makes the sound one hundred times crisper because resonance waves from your dirty power account for a huge portion of the signal noise from home amplifiers and receivers. It also has a display to show the current voltage, so you know just how dirty your power was before we made it sparkling fresh!"
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
My client insisted we buy cables from Cisco, too. We ended up paying 80 US dollars for one 2-meters long (like, 6,5 feet) straight un-shielded cable. That was the biggest 'client induced retardation' I've experienced, although your price of 100 quids for HDMI cable surely beats Cisco prices.
.Play.Open.Minded.
Most of the time the real exchange rate is $1 = £1 to actually buy stuff. Yes, we basically pay twice as much for everything as you do. Yes it sucks.
When I went to buy a new TV, Best Buy tried to sell me a HDMI cable. I actually needed one so I said sure how much? $35. I got in to an argument with the sales rep about how it would do nothing for my picture quality. I told him I'd give him $10 for it, and I knew that was about 700% profit for him so it works out for both of us.
So he told me he couldn't do that and I asked for a manager, maybe he could. Manager says he can't do that and this is an amazing HDMI cable and will make the picture better than any cheap cable I could buy. I told him I'm an electrical engineer and I know he's lying straight to my face to make a couple extra bucks. At that point I was pretty fed up so I said you can keep your $1000 TV. I guess the real mistake was thinking I'd get an honest sell at Best Buy
its a bit like saying you can plug in a CAT 5 cable and get gigabit...
the answer is it depends...
the longer the cable the more the signal degrades and just because its digital does not mean it will produce the same results..
have a read of this
http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/long-hdmi-cable-bench-tests/evaluation-conclusion
I guess the Kogan cables are not very long... dont get me wrong I think they are right most HDMI cables are a scam... but someone needs to actually test them before commenting...
but honestly who is going to listen... they are after fast bit of press... slashdot used to be about technical things..
regards
John Jones
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.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I seriously heard some "sales associate" at Best Buy tell someone that documents would print faster if they bought a parallel cable with gold connectors. While it wasn't the first time I'd heard Best Buy's sales people spouting blatant lies (1998: "You'll want the best CPU you can buy if you want to run Word", 1999: "Sound cards fail all the time. I'd never buy one without the extra warranty." 2000: "WindowsME is way faster than Windows98, and if you don't upgrade now, you'll never be able to.") it is still the winner for sheer absurdity and blatant attempt to bilk another $10 from a customer.
I was just passing by on my way to find a new printer, but when the guy said it, I couldn't help myself. I broke out laughing. Pretty loud. The guy and his two gullible customers looked at me. I was in an odd mood, so I asked the guy how fast electricity traveled in gold. Then I asked how fast it traveled in copper. He didn't know either. I told the customers that he was lying to them. Pointed at one of the cheapest cables on the shelf, and told them that was the one they wanted. The sales guy looked pissed. A few other people nearby were watching. As I walked away, some manager-looking guy asked if I needed help. I told him that I came to buy a printer, but that Office Max was only a few blocks away and their sales staff didn't lie to their customers.
Since then, I probably spent only a couple hundred dollars in Best Buy, almost entirely on DVDs. When given the choice, for any piece of hardware (even cables) I'll go to any other store. While I'm sure that in the long run, Best Buy makes decent money off lying to customers, I'd easily estimate that its lost a few thousand dollars of sales just off me. At the very least, it lost about $160 ($150 printer + $10 for uselessly-upgraded cable) that day for that guy's stupid attempt.
I literally just had an argument with a Best Buy employee over this the other day. Me and a friend went to the mall because I needed some emergency thermal paste for a PC build I was doing (I was visiting friends 5 hours from my house and had forgot some). I went to Best Buy because they had some for $10 (probably the cheapest thing in the store). After buying the paste, we hung around in the store while my friend's brother went and got a haircut. My friend and I went to the cable section and he asked me about HDMI cables for his HDTV. He showed me the cable he bought (Insignia for ~$40) and asked if it was good. I said it was fine, but that he over paid even for that. I then proceeded to pick up a Monster cable that was only 4 feet long and cost $129 and explain to him that this cable and that cable were the same. A Best Buy employee then came over and started a conversation with me.
Best Buy Employee: "Can I help you with anything?"
Me: "No, I'm all set."
BBE: "I see you have a Monster HDMI cable there. What kind of TV do you have?"
Me: "Oh I am just explaining to my friend that there is no reason to spend over $100 on a 4' cable when a $5 online will do the same thing"
BBE: "Well that isn't true. That cable will give you superior sound and video quality. It also has Ethernet over HDMI capability and compatibility for 3D"
Me: "Well I'm sure it does all of that, but any cable will do that for you as long as it is rated for HDMI 1.4 spec."
BBE: "It will but that cable will give you better picture quality because it has gold connectors and better shielding"
Me: "No, it really won't. Unless you have your TV inside a power transfer station with unshielded electrical cables, you will not really need to worry about interference. And picture quality will not be better regardless of what cable you are using."
BBE: "You are giving your friend bad advice. This cable is better and will give you better -"
Me: *interrupting him* "If I hooked up the same exact TVs to the same exact source with my cable and this cable, not only would they be the same quality, but my cable would be 15' longer and be able to connect across the room where as this is only capable of connecting to a device close by, and my cable will have cost around $5-20 and this one costs $129. I'd bet you any amount of $ that the difference in picture and sound quality would be indistinguishable."
BBE: "I'd take that bet, but only if I saw the cable you were going to use first"
We then went to the computer in the department and I went to Newegg and showed him this cable. He said "Right but that is a nice shielded cable like this one". And I said "Yea, but look at the length and the price." He then basically dismissed what I was saying and said that the Monster cable was still superior.
I wonder if they train people to be this ignorant? Or could places that sell cables for this price just attract people who buy into the BS?
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
IF the best buy guys don't sell up sells and ripoff cables they get there hours cut and geek squad is filled with sales men and not techs. Staples is just as bad.
And don't even think of hhgregg has they are 100% commission and if you buy some thing on sale the sales guy can lose money from his pay so they can be very pushy.
It's purely because gold doesn't corrode. I had some old RCA cables that were looking pretty bad and couldn't make much of a connection because of the corrosion, but the gold-plated ones still work perfectly. The corrosion on the aluminum connectors on the cheaper components became the problem, you want gold there too.
But less than a gram of gold plating doesn't add much to the cost of a cable.
However, in this throwaway age you might not have your components or even a certain cable standard long enough for the corrosion resistance to matter.
Whatever the length of your cable, either it works and display a perfect picture and earns its HDMI certification or it does not work properly and its NOT a valid HDMI product. And you get a refund for this deceptive product.
I don't care that with a longer cable, it requires higher quality cable parts. I want a Normal Speed HDMI cable or a HighSpeed HDMI cable.
I buy a certified product, not raw components to solder myself.
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The gold plated connectors do make a difference, but only after many years. Gold is the least reactive of all metals, and resistant to corrosion. So, in 20, 30, 40 years from now, that cable will still make a solid connection. But of course the $5 cable can come with gold plated connectors too, and the big box stores overcharge by 1000% either way. I recommend Monoprice.com for cables.
You know what, you're absolutely right. With a higher quality cable, the ones are just so much more oney, and the zeroes are so much more zeroey. The difference really is quite amazing.
Some people say that as long as the peak of the signal wave is above the receiving equipment's sensitivity rating you're good, but I want that sine wave peak to be WAY above the required sensitivity level. I want it to be so god damn far above that I can see the ones hitting the back of the TV!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Point is that *NOTHING* about a digital cable can change some particular group of frequencies of the output. A digital cable can't possibly give you "more air" or a "warmer, more controlled bass" (as I've actually read in Audiophile magazines). It either gives you perfect sound or errors that the most cloth-eared nitwit can spot. There's no grey area.
No sig today...
Why in gods name are you running >50 foot HDMI runs.
Signal source in one room, display in another. Some Slashdot users seem to think that's the best way to run a home theater PC.
That way, you aren't subjected to the godawful din made by the cooling fans, let alone the whine from spinning disks.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Wrong. I have a 100 foot cable install that will do 1080i and 720p fine. 1080p fails.
It's a fault of the signal strength of the Crap Sony Bluray player sending the signal at a lower voltage than is the HDMI specification. but you can have a "lower quality" signal because the display will fall back to a lower resolution and tell the player to do so as well.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Take her out to dinner, or if you are a true romantic : get her a few gigs of RAM :)
I tried doing that once, I came home early to find all of her slots full.
Those noise bars are clearly obvious, and picture drop-outs would noticed by a two year-old. If that happens, the cable you bought is faulty and should be taken back for a refund. That is not an excuse to sell people $50 cables. Any cable sold as an HDMI cable should work perfectly for normal domestic use, otherwise it is defective and should be returned. That is no justification for moonshine magic cables, which is what this story is about.