I’ve been telling people for the past few years to just purchase cheap HDMI cables for your PS3. I was never a fan of Monster Cable and thought their component cables were outrageously priced. I used basic RCA cables for my component hook up and never had a loss of quality. I thought the same would be the case for HDMI. I have some $20 cables and they display my video just fine. It wasn’t until I went to CES and had some long discussions with HDMI experts that I changed my mind about this. One of them, Dan Perrett, gave me an earful of information about HDMI. Because of this, I’m now a Monster Cable fan.
The word on the Playstation 3 is that it’s future proof. It really is! But why would you have a future proof system without future proof cables? The Playstation 3 is capable of 10-bit color but all Blu-Rays currently output 8-bit color. So what happens when you get a high bit BR movie and your cheap $20 cable doesn’t pass authentication to send the 10-bit signal? What if it can’t handle the bandwidth? If your cable doesn’t pass authentication, you won’t get a picture. Sometimes you get snow. You may even get a picture that flickers on and off. Dan Perrett explains all of this to us in this informative little gear head interview. It’s full of techno babble that some may not understand, but it’s worth the listen.
Monster Cables: http://www.monstercable.com
Podcast: Download
Intresting…
I just bought a new HDTV 3 days ago and dint buy an HDMI cable because it was $50 and am thinking of getting a cheaper one…any suggestions, Torrence?
I would say its a personal question you can get cables for 3 bucks to 30 bucks…. all depends on the buyer. I personally buy my cables from ukhdmi.com . I have bought monster before and i dont think monster is worth the money.
monster is not worth money…. from what ive read/heard for the length of the cables it is not going to matter… as long as you buy high bandwidth cables… its a digital signal and over the short distance the quality will not change…. only suggestion is to buy the higher bandwidth really….
If your looking for both normal and premium cables for a good price you can check out …. http://www.monoprice.com or http://www.eforcity.com…and these sites can usually have free shipping… ill go for a $10 high end cable over the equal $100 monster anyday.
I would never buy a monster cable tho… overpriced is beyond.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10243&cs_id=1024008&p_id=4025&seq=1&format=4#feedback
o here is an example of the high bandwidth cables for only $4…. so yea… to each his own
I found out about using cheap hdmi cables. The first real cheap ones i bought for like 15 bucks didnt even work. The next ones i got for like 30 bucks didnt even seem that different from using component cables. Then fat anorexic gave me the these cables he got from ces and that shit was fire. every thing was just so damn clear and crisp it was like having a new tv. unfortunately i broke my tv shortly before my trip to new york
so im back to component cables on my first gen hd tv.
I bought mine for $.01 cent at amazon.com and it was fine. I thought it was such a good deal I bought 2 more for one cent and I couldn’t be happier.
so i dont know, should i buy the $50 one, mabye its better than the cheap ones?
read my previous comment killa, then use some logic before you make that decision. Unless your like Tor and don’t mind blowing money on electronics.
am not a rich mothafuka like Torrence lol, i dunno i’ll think about it
i paid £1 for my 2 metre gold plated hdmi cable on amazon as well, and it provides very good picture quality, sure it’s not the best, but i’d be damned if i’m to pay for one of those, utter waste of money monster cables. one of those bastards tried to sell me a £100 scart lead for my sony trinitron SD tv.
torrence use that money towards a better cpu or more ram for your pc.
The tech speak the give uses is probably mostly right but when the Monster Cable guy tells you that you have to get Monster Cables, that is where you need to take it with a grain of salt.
To me the real storie lies in the fact that the PS3 come with only red/white/yellow cables.
Component would have been good, HDMI great,
Whats the deal Sony ?
Dont you have the most expensive / powerfull HD gaming console ?
Act like it !
@Killa_5150 in all honesty bro if you want to try and save some money I would say to buy a 2 metre cable off of moboprice.com just because you may only spend less then $10 total on the wire with shipping and they have high grade cables and it will look just as good… you just need to pick a cable thats all… n see if we can save you 50 bucks… hell my ps3 is running on a cable I spend $5 on lol
I only paid one cent at amazon.com for my cable and it works perfectly. Anyone who spends more then that is a complete idiot.
I can’t believe Torrence Davis got suckered into believing Monster cables are necessary and actually worth the price tag.
So what you’re saying is that 5 years from now when 8-bit signals are no longer in use we’ll have to upgrade our HDMI cables?
Well, in that time HDMI cables will likely be a lot cheaper than they are now. I bought mine (RCA) for 15 bucks at Wal-Mart. A friend of mine paid 70 bucks for “Monsters”. So maybe in 5 years my cables will be obsolete, but in 5 years I can probably buy a 10-bit color HDMI cable for 10 bucks Wal-Mart again.
Quite frankly, my friend regrets his purchase because we can’t tell the difference at all when we switch HDMI cables.
Ninetailfox you hit it spot on that for right now there’s no reason for purchasing the monster cable at this point in time. Spend 15-30 dollars on a good cable and have fun. I’m just not spending 70 dollars on a set of 9ft cables that may or may not enhance the quality of video.
MASSIVE fail. That tech-head you interviewed is uselessly obsessing about nearly imperceptible differences that even then will affect only an extremely tiny fraction of the population. And even then it’s still possible to get maximum tech-head quality for a low price.
Go read:
http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/long-hdmi-cable-bench-tests
In summation…nearly any cable will work fine for 1080p (even cables that fail lab tests) as long as you’re using a “short” cable length (12′ or less).
When does cable quality matter? When you’ve got to run cable 50′.
Or if you plan to buy a forthcoming, extra-expensive 1440p TV…which is pretty ridiculous since most people sit so far that the human eye can’t discern between 720 & 1080.
http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/
Or if you’re worried about nearly imperceptible 10-bit “Deep Color”…which Blu-Ray doesn’t support anyway, so you’re never going to see it anyway except as nearly imperceptible up-conversion.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Joshua_Zyber/High-Def_FAQ/High-Def_FAQ:_Is_HDMI_1.3_Really_Necessary/853
And even then, monoprice has a $40 25′ cable that will definitely handle 1080p with [useless] 16-bit deep color, 1440p with [useless] 10-bit deep color, and, since many half-decent cables handle more than they’re specified, probably a lot more.