HDMI and you: A quick look at your options
In February, WireWorld released it’s highly buzzed-about Platinum Starlight HDMI 1.4 cable at the price of $1000 per meter, boasting a silver/platinum alloy casing and twice the bandwidth of a normal HDMI 1.4. In fact, any trip into the home theater department at Best Buy will show you there are many options available when you’re choosing an HDMI cable. Does it matter which one you chose? Is a $1000 HDMI cable any different than a $50 cable? It’s important to ask yourself these questions before you end up with out-dated technology, or even worse, get taken for big bucks.
HDMI is, besides a cable and jack, a set of specifications that allow your TV and BluRay, PlayStation, projector, or sound system to communicate. Since it’s introduction in 2004, it has re-defined how HDTV’s and digital transmitters read signals. HDMI cables are designed to hold a maximum amount of digital bandwidth for both visual and audio components to preform at optimum levels. With the right setup, HDMI cables can make a big difference in your home theater experience.
The secret is in the encoding of a digital signal between two or more devices. The analog signal read by old TV and home theater technology uses a special analog signal to transmit information. This signal was easy to transmit without the use of such special cables, but often lost part of the signal due to all kinds of different types of interference from micro waves to sound waves to dust particles, etc. This was acceptable for old analog TV’s because they were designed to run on these weak classifications. The introduction to digital media and High Definition meant TV’s could use more pixels and more colors to enhance the viewing experience, but needed a stronger signal to transmit all the additional information. Digital signals are transmitted using strands of zeros and ones (binary code), eliminating much of the interference found with analog signals. Which brings us to the question of weather or not the quality of your HDMI cable matters when you’re installing a home theater system.
While the HDMI standard is rapidly changing, the current model for maximum performance is HDMI 1.4, so be sure the one you’re buying isn’t outdated. The Platinum Starlight cable may offer twice the bandwidth of a $50 HDMI cable, but there are currently no home theater systems available that can utilize that kind of space. So unless you’re trying to get a signal from Voyager II, this kind of bandwidth won’t matter. And while their casing may bar 99% of signal interference, there isn’t much to be had with a streaming digital signal’s zeros and ones. In fact, with most home theater systems the difference between a $20 HDMI cable and a $50 HDMI cable can’t be noticed, unless you have multiple high-end components that will be running simultaneously. Even HDMI cables for monitors found in the computer section ($20) are comparable to the ones found in the home theater section ($50), with little to no noticeable difference unless you really really know what you’re looking for.
So while the temptation is there to plug the highest-quality HDMI cable available (again, $1000 per meter) into your brand new home theater system, even with the rapidly expanding code of HDMI specifications, most of the time it’s a waste of money that won’t optimize your viewing experience any more that a $50 cable available in any electronics department. Don’t be fooled by the high price tag and fancy name, an HDMI is an HDMI, no matter what it’s made of.
