Gizmodo
I just wanted to give you a heads- up that I will finally be posting the finale of our HDMI Cable Battlemodo today at 2 p.m. EST. Before you see the results, though, I wanted to take you through the testing process, so the results will make total sense. You with me?
As you will recall, our previous test took place at Monster Headquarters. We brought Monoprice cables ranging from 6 feet to 50 feet, and pitted them against Monster cables using Monster's in-house testing system. A pulse pattern generator simulating real-world and futuristic TV signals sent bits through the cables to a digital serial analyzer. If the lines of 1s and 0s were clearly defined, the cable was good; if the lines grew too fuzzy, the cable's quality was deemed poor.
It was a good way to evaluate the physical differences of cable. Fortunately for cable shoppers, nearly all of the cables we tested—both pricey as hell and totally on the cheap—passed all of the tests, guaranteeing that they'd be great for use in our home-theater setup, even if we sprung for the 1080p set.
But some of the longest cables from Monoprice failed our so-called "real-world" 1080p test. We assumed that any cable that failed the digital serial analyzer's criteria would also fail a real-world test, but we knew, one day, this would have to be tested. And so we tested.
Here's how it goes down:
• Since the disputed cables were the 35 footer and 50 footer from Monoprice, I entered them in the final stage of the Battlemodo against a 10M cable from Monster. I could have gone with many cables that people sent me, but that would have drawn out the results process, and confused the issue. We found issues with cables in the lab, and we want to see if those issues come to bear in the living room.
• "Real world" in this final round means real sources playing on real TVs while I sit on a real couch. I used both a PS3 and Samsung's BD-P1200 Blu-ray player, playing into a Samsung LN-T5265F 52-inch 1080p LCD. (I also did some preliminary testing with a Sony Bravia LCD rear-projection set, with 1080p inputs but 720p display.) The movies I chose were Hellboy and Happy Feet. Go ahead and bitch all you want about my choice of gear (and my taste in cinema). This is not an endorsement of Blu-ray, though as you might imagine, given this setup, the BDs looked pretty durn good.
• The trick here is to give the cables time to reveal their flaws, if there are any. People told me what to watch for, and indeed in Monster's original New York summit, I could see with my own eyes the signs of a crappy HDMI cable: bits of digital snow, particularly at the top and bottom of the screen, frame jitters and other aberrant behavior.
Will my test results be scientifically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt? No. Will they confirm or deny the findings of our lab testing? You tell me. Seriously, go ahead and guess the results. I'll meet you back here at 2 p.m. EST with the final data.
Comments
I'm really curious to know if you can improve the signal on the cheaper long lines with one of those ring magnets you see on some power cables.
They may be the absolutely wrong device and make it worse of course, but these days they're almost literally free as almost everyone these days has old proprietary cables from defunct hardware lying around. Quite a few of those shield magnets simply snap on and off.
After getting my PS3, I went to Best Buy to get an HDMI cable. I know you can get them extremely cheap online for like 15 bucks or something, but I wanted to play my PS3 NOW and couldn't wait. So I was stuck paying the high price.
I bought a monster cable for 100 bucks!! (I really don't know why I did it, but I think I was dreaming about being home and playing my PS3)
After using it for a short time I noticed that when it started a game on the system (whether it be a CD or something on the HD) the screen would flash to black and then come back on. Sometimes it would even do it during gameplay!!
I was highly unsatisfied and then saw that Target was selling the Sony HDMI cable for 50 bucks. I picked it up and right away I could notice a difference between the two cables and the annoying screen flashing had stoppped!
I highly recommend you pick up the Sony HDMI cable that says "made for the PS3" It's been working great for me!
If I had to guess, I would say the real world results will match the lab results, but the effect will not be as dramatic as the lab results would lead one to believe because of error corrections done on the TV side.
I agree - the real world will show that there isn't any noticeable difference between high and low end cables.
HDMI is a floored system - many corners have been cut to deliver this 'technology'. It can still provide great output - but one of its main issues is that the longer the distance, the greater the signal degradation. I understand that this is true of most cables in general, but HDMI suffers to a much greater extent.
A well shielded cable that is properly terminated will provide an excellent signal, regardless of its cost.
Shame there wasn't a little more time allowed for HDMI to be the system it should have been - hence the different versions of HDMI that have subsequently been released (think we're up to 1.3 now?), all of which are still not up to the standard they should be...
Enough waffle - I'm sure many disagree...
I believe in the short end the cables should all do pretty well but with 1080p resolutions I can see the monsters edging out most of the field at long lengths of cable.
HDMI 1.2 is a standard set by the industry. If both cable claim to meet that standard, there should be no difference.
I have the Monoprice cable on both my Motorola DVR (Comcast) and my Xbox 360 and both signals are flawless to my 50" Plasma.
Very curious to see how the 50 foot Monoprice cables go... thinking about picking one up soon - so glad the Giz is revisiting this!
i think real world will show difference between high and low end depending on how large your screen is, and how long the cable is. >1, 5 or 10 Meter. Also what kind of equipment sending and recieving the signal!
Having spread the gospel about Monoprice to countless hoards (including to Gizmodo back in June of last year), I still continue to be impressed by the quality of almost all of their products.
I've purchased from them numerous times, spent a tremendous amount of money with them for several big projects, and am always watching out for their great specials.
BTW: From an inside source, I've heard that Monster Cables are made at one of the handful of Chinese cable factories. Several months ago this factory was purchased by Belden, somewhat of a competitor of Monster's for certain products. Very interesting.... tough to brag you're better then your competitor, when your competitor is making your cable.....
Monster Cable is a marketing company, not a manufacturer. There is nothing wrong with that, but they do outsource practically all production. For a long time they specified Belden wire in their products. They switched to LTK, based in China. Belden recently purchased a major part of LTK.
Belden is by far the leader in production of high end Audio Video wire and cable. They have huge market share in the broadcast market (TV stations).
You will not find a Belden HDMI cable because they only make the wire, not the connectors or assembled product. They do have some certified cable assemble shops. One is Blue Jeans Cable. They are working on a high quality HDMI cable using some high performance Belden cable that will be able to go longer distances without the signal loss.
@bombastinator - I don't think, but this is really digging back to physics classes from years ago, that the metal collar you are talking about would work here.
The metal color works on induction?? If I remember right it helps prevent sudden changes in current. Think of it as a very very small surge protector. It smooths out the the current to get rid of aberrant spikes in the power curve. But I think this works best in analog signals that have nice curves to them.
HDMI is transferring digital signals that are block shaped. I think adding a metal collar might actually smooth out the beginning and ending of that block turning it more into a curve. I believe this is already what is happening in the long HDMI cables.
Anyone else?? Am I way off here?
The collar is a ferrite bead. It suppresses RF from getting picked up by the wire, which can't help acting as an antenna. It allows audio frequencies to pass, similarly to an inductor or coil.
For all those who can't resist giving more detailed info, this explanation is intentionally oversimplified.
Like Mike says, ferrite bead. Radio Shack also sells them as a "toroid core" or "toroid choke core". But I don't think they'll do anything for HDMI.
[www.radioshack.com]
Prediction:
the cheap cable is just as good as the monster cable
Reason:
We are dealing with digital signals. Only analog signals would truly benefit from better cables. Digital signals were created to get around signal distortion. This is why ditigal cell phones sound better than analog cell phones. This is also why cds sound better than records....
@krkeegan:
No, you're not way off. Actually, you pretty much nailed it on the head.
Monster Cable is really just a marketing gimmic that plays on logic. It goes something like this, "wait, you can't use a cheap cable, you just spent thousands of dollars on a home movie theater!"
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