6 Foot HDMI Cable for $2.95

Friday, December 25th, 2009 | A&E, Tech |

Rated 4.5 stars on Amazon after 2,400 reviews. For that price it’s worth a shot. I added it to my shopping cart so I can give it a try.

I paid about $25 at BestBuy for an 8 foot HDMI cable. That wasn’t their cheapest and it wasn’t their most expensive. The Monster Cable brand HDMI cables are insane - they have three or four classes of HDMI cables, some of them selling for over a hundred bucks. For wires. With giant USB connectors on the ends.

The cables at Monoprice.com have a good rep vs. Monster.

For the grisly details of HDMI versions (freakin’ cables have versions now?) see Wikipedia or the chart below, which I legal-stoled from Wikipedia. All HDMI cable versions since 1.0 support Blu-Ray audio and video, which I’m guessing is the only thing most of us care about in 2009.

HDMI version	1.0	1.1	1.2 1.2a	1.3	1.3a 1.3b 1.3b1 1.3c	1.4^[50]
sRGB	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
YCbCr	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
8 channel LPCM, 192 kHz, 24 bit audio capability	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Blu-ray Disc video and audio at full resolution^[F]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Consumer Electronic Control (CEC)^[G]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DVD Audio support	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Super Audio CD (DSD) support^[H]	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Deep Color	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
xvYCC	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Auto lip-sync	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dolby TrueHD bitstream capable	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream capable	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Updated list of CEC commands^[I]	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Ethernet Channel	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Audio Return Channel	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
3D Over HDMI	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
4k × 2k Resolution Support	No	No	No	No	No	Yes

Then there’s version 1.1, which supports the DVD Audio no one bought. Then there’s version 1.2, which supports the Super Audio CD no one bought.

If you want to splurge version 1.3 supports Deep Color, xvXCC, Auto lip-sync, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master Audio. Like you, I’ve never heard of any of those things.

6 Comments to 6 Foot HDMI Cable for $2.95

SayUncle
December 25, 2009

I got them for $0.25 from amazon. work fine.
SayUncle´s last blog ..More tactical 22s

Les Jones
December 25, 2009

Dang. Got a link for a pal?

Chris Byrne
December 26, 2009

Actually, the 1.3 spec is important. DTS-HD and Master Audio in particular; presuming you are piping your audio through a decent and recent, home theater systems.

Also, 1.3 cables have to have better crosstalk resistance, and better interference rejection. All things that you want, especially for cables longer than 6ft.

Autolipsync is convenient, and prevents you from having to calibrate your audio/video delay. That means your dialog wont get out of sync with your video, which can sometimes happen.

It’s especially a PITA in rock band and guitar hero.
Chris Byrne´s last blog ..Something that actually make Echo , and RSS, worthwhile to me

SayUncle
December 27, 2009

Link:

http://www.amazon.com/HDMI-meter-foot-cable-1080P/dp/B00123WZWK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1261960693&sr=8-4

Down to $0.16
SayUncle´s last blog ..Hope you had a good holiday

Les Jones
December 27, 2009

And claims to be 1.3b compatible. Heck, I’ll buy one of those, too. I’m a shameless spare cable collector. I’m about to expand to a third drawer in the filing cabinet.

Les Jones
December 27, 2009

Chris: sounds like the 1.3 might be worth it for some things, then. I’m guessing it wouldn’t make a difference with my 10 year old non-HDMI receiver, but I’ll pay more attention to that stuff when I get ready to upgrade the receiver.