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Retailer Calls Rivals' Bluff On "HDMI Scam"

Posted by samzenpus on from the digital-snake-oil dept.

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."

21 of 664 comments (clear)

  1. But the Best Buy guy said it does by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    1. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does by VAElynx · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

    2. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      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?

    3. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Funny

      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'.

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    4. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does by jonbryce · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

    5. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

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      No sig today...
    6. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does by Ellis+D.+Tripp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Agreed on the bulk conductivity, but the advantage of gold plating on contacts is the fact that gold doesn't tarnish or corrode, reducing conductivity over time.

      Gold plated connector contacts are widely used on industrial/military gear, particularly in low-level signal applications.

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    7. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does by fatphil · · Score: 4, Funny

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

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      Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
    8. Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Err, how often do you move those cables around behind your TV set, anyway?

      its not always what you think.

      one 'guy' that moves things around is heat. heating and a/c and humidity in the house. cables expand and contract and fit (and don't fit!) the connectors and this slow bounce, if you will, causes things to lose connectivity, even if just 1 wire in a bundle. seen it plenty of times. multi conductor cables are a NIGHTMARE (which is why I hate the hdmi designers. what a bunch of losers! 2 opto cables would have done it better but NOOOO they had to have multiple metal-to-metal's and lots of wire and twists and interference. idiots!!! please, if you currently have an hdmi designer in your employ, fire him now. fire him. now.)

      hdmi cables are not even locking cables. (same with older sata cables; dont' get me started on THAT nightmare we call a cable ...). hdmi cables fall out of alignment since the connector is VERY cheap and so are the cable males. cheap and cheap are not a good way to ensure success.

      look at older db9, db25 style connectors. those things were strong enough to lift a house! ;) THOSE were connectors made by visionary men. keyed, robust, cheap to make and they never fell out on their own. compare to hdmi and you'll see the night/day diff in how cables used to be designed vs how they are designed today.

      sometimes you have to re-flex the cables or pre-strain them before you install them. the flex of the cable is not enough compared to the stiffness of the so-called strain relief they use. again, as an analogy, look at an ide cable and how well it stays in (even if you hang the drive UP by it!) vs a sata cable. compare the molex power cables of yesterday to the sata power cables of today. all steps backwards!

      I really hate the backwards move in cable design and quality. its like they are TRYING to make things bad on purpose, refusing to use what worked well in the past - out of spite?

      --

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  2. The emperor has no clothes! by Vasheron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...is essentially what Kogan is saying...and they're right!

    1. Re:The emperor has no clothes! by plover · · Score: 4, Funny

      The monster has no clothes!

      FTFY.

      --
      John
  3. An HDMI cable is not just an HDMI cable by master_kaos · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:An HDMI cable is not just an HDMI cable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why in gods name are you running >50 foot HDMI runs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Cables

    2. Re:An HDMI cable is not just an HDMI cable by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's exactly what he's saying. You either get a signal, or you don't. It's not like an analogue system, where there's a wide spectrum between perfect and nonfunctional. Either the error rate is below the correction threshold, in which case a better cable won't make a difference, or it's above and you can easily tell because there's no picture.

      For some uses, such as long runs, you really do need a better cable. For most, you don't.

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  4. This one wins the prize by jrq · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

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  5. Best Buy tried to sell me an HDMI cable... by Missing.Matter · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  6. NO it depends... by johnjones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:NO it depends... by reashlin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      NO NO NO

      Network speeds will degrade with poor quality cables. This is because data will become corrupt and be re-sent. Speeds "appear" to decrease because the ratio of data:noise will decrease.

      With HDMI there is no "re-sending" of data. So when the corrupt data comes through, no picture comes through.

      You _will_ _not_ get a lower quality picture from a cheap HDMI picture. You will get no picture at all.

    2. Re:NO it depends... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There is a thin slice between "perfect" and "nothing", commonly referred to as "sparkle" or "snow". Substantial amounts of pixel data are being tossed on the floor; but not quite enough for the system to just give up and declare the link dead.

      Unlike analog interference, though, if you are in sparkle territory, you can pretty conclusively declare the system "broken".

  7. Definite answer: Normal or HighSpeed (w ethernet) by AwaxSlashdot · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  8. Re:Not entirely false by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 4, Funny

    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?

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