Shopping for a new HDMI cable? Wondering what is the best HDMI cable? You may be asking yourself whether the more expensive gold-plated HDMI cables are better than the cheaper HDMI cables?
Absolutely not! HDMI is a digital signal from your DVD (or Satellite Receiver) to your HD Television. Digital simply means the cable is transmitting either a “1″ or a “0″ in specific amount of time. As long as the “1″ or “0″ gets to the destination in time, then you will have a high definition picture and digital sound. I think the higher end cables made a name for themselves during the analog days of television. Analog signals are much more sensitive to signal disruption and loss, therefore these cables did make a difference. These higher end manufactures will advertise all sorts of reasons as to why their cables are better to justify a $50 plus HDMI cable purchase. The bottom line is you are going to connect the HDMI cable once (maybe a few times) and as long as the connection is good and the distance is less than 25 feet, then there is no reason to buy an expensive cable. Simply put, the best HDMI cable is often the less expensive HDMI cable.
My recommendation is to buy the cheapest HDMI cable for the distance you need. Most people need a 2 meter HDMI cable (about 6 feet) to connect a DVD or Satellite to a nearby HD Television. This length of HDMI cable should cost around10. If you are one of the few consumers who are trying to hide your equipment and need to run an HDMI cable over 25 feet, then you may want to consider a more expensive cable. However, most cables between 25 feet and 50 feet are still going to meet HDMI specs, so I would still recommend buying the cheapest HDMI cable for the distance you need.
How can I tell if the HDMI cable is bad and if I need a new cable?
It can sometimes be hard to isolate whether it is the DVD player, HD television, or HDMI cable that is bad. Typically when a cable or connection goes bad you start to see “pixelation” which means small squares on your television start to change color or black out. When you see this I would go and buy a new HDMI cable and see if that fixes the problem as this is the easiest place to start.
Is the HDMI cable bad when you have a solid green TV screen but have sound?
It could be… I would try the following experiment. First, make sure it is not your television. Try and get a good picture from another source such as a DVD player or your satellite or cable receiver. If you can get a good picture from another source, than it is probably not your television. Next, try a different cable (such as component or s-video) and make sure the picture still looks good. If the picture looks good from another cable, than it probably is your HDMI cable. However, it could be your HDMI connection to the TV or your source, but that is very unlikely. Also I have seen LCDs get a bad green tint after a few years – in fact this happened to one of my expensive Sony TVs.