TJCooks

davidrools

paesan

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't beleive your testing of "future" formats is valid as it doesn't appear that you have allowed for the cable equilisation that is part of the HDMI 1.3 specification, it is possible that this would turn the majority of fail cases into passes.

JohnWH

Every 4th or 5th bit is wrong only if you have a cable that's ripping or is a mile long, or one that is on fire!

I am exaggerating, but most people have cables under 10ft, and cheap stuff will not probably introduce an error rate that will cause the HDMI header to fail the error check.

EVEN if it does, the guy who bought it will immediately notice the seriously degraded picture and return the cable. Bottom line - you got a good picture, chances are, your error rate is close to 0.0001% during HDMI transmission.
Why? any pixel error is simply ignored in HDMI protocol because they are too hard to notice for even super human beings. (ONE pixel per say 500 frames, and at 30 or 60 frames per second? you have to be GOD to notice those errors, really)
A more serious error will be header error, and any header error will result in either a frame retransmission or drop, and repeated frames getting dropped will either result in a blank screen or seriously degraded picture. You don't have either of these, you are fine, relax. Case closed.

red_shift

With that in mind, I just bought two 10 ft HDMI cables from cables unlimited, connected them to my 1080P 46 " LCD TV and have been happy with them since. One goes to my 1080P PS3 and the other goes to my 1080i HD DVR. They were 10$ each online. Monster's price? about 120$ was the cheapest for the same length.

Just say NO to the Monstrous hype! :-)

red_shift

kspri

For those of you who think the closed eyes shown can be handled with "error correction", any kind of coding is useless if the amplitude is too small / jitter is too great to tell if you're looking at a 1 or 0. Error correction can solve the odd messed up bit, but not if every fourth or fifth bit is wrong.

What really helps is an HDMI receiver chip with an adaptive equalizer, which not all of them have and is tricky to get working right. When you do, you get impressive lengths using impressively cheap cable and high data rates.

rglenn

gentai

pilott

hertzsae

Cetrian

LeMadChef

How do you know that the Monster cables they provided are the ones you buy in the store... could they have slipped in some super cables just for the test... you should bring you own monster cables the next time and also as other have said... un-coil the cables and actually looking at the picture they produce might be a good idea too

doctorSpoc

[www.roger-russell.com]

migs_inc

I'd like to see a similar summary here, something like (wire with these basic characteristics - X, Y and Z - work up to 10/15/20/25 feet).

migs_inc

FrankenPC

protozoider

jorshsshsh

OniMirage

The cables coiled on the table just means that Monster has better shielding than Monoprice. It's a rather extreme test situation. Not very applicable.

Who determined the failure point of these tests? Are they the same as what would fail in MY house?

And dropping a cable from further testing because it failed at one point is not scientific at all. There may have been an issue with that one test, even an error with the pulse generator. (Which further testing would have indicated.) I would be fired if I stopped testing because of a 'failure' in one situation. Make it a thorough test or you skew all the results.

Finally, as far as running wires in walls and being future proofed, who can possible know what connection will be used in the future. Can the cable in the wall be used with splices? Does there need to be 6, 8, 10 or 12 conductors? The best solution, particularly in new contruction is to just run a conduit instead of laying the cable in the wall. That way, any future needs can be addressed.

The main point is, if a cable works in my application (particularly with digital signals) spending more on it because of 'specs' is just silly. If I need to step up, sure, it's great to know there are alternatives. But to buy Monster because of 'specs' (done in their labs on their equipment) makes no sense.

cbearnm

Brian Lam

dweinric

The test showed that most of us don't need monster, unless you're going long.

The test showed that the cheap 15 dollar cables at short lengths were just as good.

So what are your accusations again?

Brian Lam

OldSchoolGadgetLover

I propose:
"HDMI Cable Battlemodo Part 3: You Might Actually Care About These Results"

stonefry

I agree with, I too would put a lot of thought into what I buy, I took 2 months deciding which TV to get. But the fact is that not everyone does this, in fact the majority of the people just go by what they see in the store. A lot of people just plain dont like to order stuff online (mostly for fear of identity theft)

cduran02

You guys can find good speaker wire shootouts here:
[www.audioholics.com]

BadOmens

diem

Even from these tests, it seems obvious to me that there would be NO real-world difference between Monster and Monoprice.

Aaron Martin-Colby

For my tv, I'll stick with monoprice.

HelperMonkey

As to the cost of Monster cable, look at what happened when Wal-Mart entered the big screen arena. The cost of displays dropped out and all of the other big box stores lost their profit margin. The only way to make any money on a sale now is the added items. Warranty's and cables are the profit margins now. I bet that Monster makes the cable for (not counting research) $5, big store buys it for $50 (maybe less , insider help please) and then sell to the consumer for $200. Step 3 = Profit. You know the margin on the TV is razer thin thanks to Wal-Mart. That is why there is the hassle for the extras when you buy any more.

videopainter

Do you're best to get this right and it could very well become a meme of sorts in the AV world.

Maybe as a follow up you could do a double blind test of Bose versus other HTIB setups!

drew138

ARPRINCE

BillyShears

It's also pretty telling that they would not break out a 50ft cable for the test... I'm sure all coiled up it would have appeared to "fail" at the real world present-day testing at which point they'd have to either admit that either the coiling causes too much noise or the "failing" cables actually are still quite reliable after connection to real world DAC's that do the job of actually making sense out of the data.

I can tell you this, though. If you really want to be sure your 50+ft cable run is solid, run MULTIMODE FIBER and get transceivers for whatever you need to run over it. For what you pay for one of these "good" and "future-proof" cables you can get yourself a truly future proof cable run and a set of "works great now" transceivers that can be easily replaced in the future.

John Laur

However, if you are going to be running a projector, and tearing out your plaster, and are concerned about the next best thing coming out, you really should just run conduit, and get what works now, as you don't know what's going to come out next.

As for the wireless comment(s) - think about it. "Wired" always transmits faster than wireless. Less interfearence, signal degradation over distance, etc in a dedicated transmission substance/channel. Sure, in five years, we'll have wireless stuff that's faster than what we have wired now, but the wired stuff is going to evolve over time as well, and be faster yet than the future wireless.

Monster seems to be solving a problem that doesn't exist yet, but many Audiovideophiles are just trying to outdo their neighbors and friends anyways, so much praise goes to Monster for exploiting the market.

aaric

AUA

pharmboy

homer_s

Thank god.

But how does Monster perform compared to actual high-end cables?

Any anyone spending shitloads of money to run cables for technology that doesn't exist is a moron. In a few years HDMI very well might not be the de facto standard any more. Or they'll be able to do it over coax, or wirelessly. Then you've got yards of useless wire in your wall you spent $10K on.

Zadaz

A while back, PC World did a pretty exhaustive test with very similar results (bottom line: buy the cheap cables, screw Monster):

[www.pcworld.com]

gecko85

From the manufacturers perspective, how are they going to custom manufacture a cable to a given band when the consumer has no idea which one they should be purchasing? So, they fudge it and try to make a broadband capable cable. It's really difficult to do this. Hence Monsters high price tag. They are taking the compexity out of the decision making process.

So, what's the real lesson here? Someone needs to come up with a universal wall duct which will allow you to easily pull long runs of cable when new technologies come around. Anyone? This is a patentable idea.

FrankenPC

Email me if you're interested: bunedoggle @ gmail.com

I have 10 years of analog signal integrity experience and tested fibre channel cables for a few years.

Navin R Johnson

Brian Lam

funny a $4 cable does the same job as a $120 cable... then there is no reason for $120 cable to exist in my eyes... why would Monster ever overbuild a cable to that extent? lets say they are spending double what the $4 cable costs in materials... say they are paying $4.. wonder what percentage of the remaining $116 of each cable goes to marketing and what percentage is profit? sure the the more expensive cable is 'better', but unnecessarily so, so it is a rip off.. the biggest rip-off at least at the short distances, because being better gains you nothing.

doctorSpoc

Buford T. Justice

Penguin4x4

When I buy an HD setup I tend to more thought into it than say a candy bar.

Who spends hundreds or thousands of dollars on impulse?

Order the stuff on Monday, ship it 2-day, get it Wednesday and buy the TV Friday.

Personally, I've never had a problem with Monoprice items being on backorder.

02J

Its Analog and the worst part of your sound system is the SPEAKER!!! its horribly inefficient compared to the rest of the line. Should your problem be the cable has too much noise/distortion....THEN YOU HAVE NO PROBLEM AT ALL!!!!

zippyZ

History Is A Weapon

WesTheYeti

strider_mt2k

I applaud your showing the test and your willingness to go through it all to bring us the results.

This is the kind of killer stuff that got me reading Gizmodo in the first place.

strider_mt2k

What's next??

Brentis

So, by the time I upgrade to 1080P I'll have reconfigured my room with a 60" LCD instead of a projector - meaning new cables. By the time we're receiving terrestrial broadcast at 1440P, have the ability to display 1440P, or have streaming services at 1440P I'll be blind, senile, and crapping into a bag...

justsayyes

Harman Kardon AVR-247
Samsung 42" DLP TV capable of 720P
Samsung upconvert DVD-R/VCR combo
Cablevision's Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD DVR
XBox 360
Playstation 2
Nintendo Wii

I purchased two 3' HDMI cables and one 10' HDMI cable from Monoprice. All the analog audio and video cables I use are Acoustic Research unless otherwise noted. Not many of those were needed with this new setup though because all output gets sent to my TV through the HDMI cable.

Explorer 8300HD DVR
Lets start with cable box. I connected a 3' HDMI cable from the cable box to my AVR. The 10' HDMI cable goes from the AVR to the TV. The HD signals varied. The HD movies (HBO, Starz, etc) looked great, but sports lacked warmth. The colors seemed washed out. After adjusting my TV's color settings I found I was not happy with the way sports looked. Any programs that were shot in standard def running on HD channels (That 70's Show, Scrubs) looked HORRIBLE. The HDMI picked up so much detail that it showed all the crap that you wouldn't normally see.The standard def channels seemed fuzzy, but they looked that way via component too. I am convinced that this was due to Cablevision and not the cables as the rest of my review can attest to. I disconnected the HDMI and went directly into the TV via the component cables that came with the cable box, and just ran a coax audio cable to the AVR for surround.

Samsung upconvert DVD-R/VCR
This is connected to my AVR via the other 3' HDMI cable. The VCR, of course, looks like crap. I won't even go there. The DVD, however, is amazing. The picture is unbelievably clear. Looks much better than using a progressive scan DVD through component cables. I was very happy. Over the weekend I watched Fellowship of the Ring and then the special edition of Star Wars. Yeah, my wife was REAL happy about that. I forsee sitting through a couple really bad chick flicks for that one in my immediate future. Anyway, the visuals from both movies were astonishing. I was happy with the audio separation too. Each channel was crystal clear.

Xbox 360
This is where the unit really shines. The 360 is designed for HD and it shows. It is hooked up to the AVR via the component cables that came with the system and a toslink cable. It is passed through the HDMI cable to the TV. The audio is not passed through the HDMI cable. Not a problem because I usually prefer the surround sound. First I put in Call of Duty 3, then I tried Fight Night Round 3 and finally Gears of War. Oh my God. I actually played through Gears again because it looked so good...well okay, also because the game is awesome.

Playstation 2.
This is hooked up to my AVR via Monster PS2 component cables. (They were cheaper than the regular component cables when I went to buy them) I was worried because this actually had to be upconverted through the AVR to 720P. Turns out I had no need to worry. I put in God of War and was blown away. This has to be in part attributed to my AVR, but the game looked great. I then tried Final Fantasy XII. I really wish I had this upconvert AVR before I played the game on my 720P TV going direct from the PS2. Very surprised on the quality.

Nintendo Wii
This is another system where it would be upconverted from 480P to 720P. Being the PS2 passed I wasn't too worried. This is hooked up via the component cables that came with the Wii. I put in the only game that graphically mattered, Zelda. It looked better than the PS2, but nowhere close to the 360. The only problem I had was with the 8 bit NES games I downloaded from the Wii Shop. The v-sync was off and the game could not be played. Not sure if the Wii's emulation had a problem with the upconvert on the AVR or the HDMI cable. The system is now hooked directly into my TV like my cable box.

As stated in the Monster Cable review, for short runs the Monoprice cable will meet all of your needs.

anfauglir

Fair enough.

92BuickLeSabre

But, we're talking a difference of $5 and $200. In that case, if the cheapest cable that meets my real-world needs is $5-$20, then I'll get that. When my real-world needs begin to approach the future-world, it's likely that the *then* real-world $5-$20 cables will match those needs and I'll just toss the old cable.

phoomp

@O2J: You're right. In future world El-Cheap-O cables will just sell a cable that'll do the job at 1/10th the price of Monster.

Lemme do the math...

Buy a cheap cable for a fraction of the price that gets the job done now. Upgrade to another cheap cable later, when necessary. With a combined cost that's still a fraction of the amount of a single monster cable.
Hmmm... Carry the one... Divide by two...

That equals... F--- off Monster.

I work hard for my dollars, and I can think of better ways to piss 'em away.

DustyButt

xhx

That was my thought, as well - leaving the cables coiled leads to more potential crosstalk, especially in the longer cables (Monoprice 50', anyone?).

Somaone

I wonder if an amp might help. You could buy both a Monoprice cable and amp for the cost of the Monster Cable.

Cheers,
Randy

stewtopia

Now I can sleep at night.

graydon

Please send me a 1440p TV and Media player with all the cables and I'll be happy to tell you which cables work best - if I get to keep the 1440p TV.

Cheers.

Xerloq

There is a reason to get the XtremeHD cables, the simple fact that they are the cheapest cables that will work in the REAL WORLD available in retail. Last time I looked, Monoprice didnt sell cables in stores and if they did, they wouldnt be as cheap as they are now.

When you buy an HD setup, you want to get everything working as soon as you get home, you dont want to wait for your cables to be shipped (and what if they are on back order, like Monoprice cables often are). You need to keep that in perspective.

cduran02

nathanryan

Type-E

ceilingFANBOY

And component cables?

Type-E

When the markup is 2400% it's not thinking ahead or futureproofing, it's stupidity.

02J

ThriveNOC

I think the point was that it wouldn't get the job done.

In near-future world (1080p) as opposed to super-future world (1440p) the XtremeHD can't even get the job done at 6 ft but the $5.00 Monoprice can.

At super-future world (1440p) only the Monster 6 ft/2m succeeds.

At now world (1080i) and 10 m, only the Monster succeeds.

So while for many uses Monoprice is fine, there may be reasons to get a high end cord.

However, there never appears to be a reason to the XtremeHD.

92BuickLeSabre

Fuzzy signal at the end or not error correction can do amazing things in cleaning that up. It's why you see virtually no difference in strong OTA HDTV signal and one that is so-so.

Vendetta

Windhawk

Not only that, but if you require a cable capable of 1440p to carry your precious 1080p, then who's to say you won't require a cable capable of 2080p to carry your 1440p signal.

The review was informative, but i still won't be buying any monster cables.

bpatten

Now, please tell me which brand name I should purchase to make it through the next few years...

CaGuy

If you read TFA before passing judgement...They said that "it's the medium priced cables that may be the real rip-off" because the cheap cables out performed them in this "real-world" test. You would want a more $$ cable to perform better, no?

zephyr_words

It would be nice to see what those muddy shots look like real-world -- hoked up to a BR/HDDVD drive and a 1080p TV. While I am certain that the Monoprice 50ft would have failed, I guess I am a little unclear what failure means in real world picture quality. I assume we are all geeky enough that even if we can not tell the difference, after seeing the failure on the Tektronix screen, we would not want to admit would could not tell the difference. :)

Monty

If the cheap cable, the medium priced cable and the expensive cable all get the job done then wouldn't it be the expensive cable that's the real rip off?

To make a statement like "it's the medium priced cables that may be the real rip-off" screams bias. Clearly walking in to this thing someone at Giz already had a healthy dose of Monster's kool-aid and they just kept drinking.

I hope that check Giz got from Monster was a big one, because you've certainly earned it at this point. In doing so you've also lost my respect.

Morr

:P

yeah - speaker wire would be nice too ;p!

Shockage

Most people need to regenerate signals for runs over 25ft so this is not suprising. I have done 1080p 50ft hdmi and dvi, but I was prepared to get regeneration caps.

Just buy the monoprice.

twylight

cduran02

Maybe a pithy video with stop motion Optimus telling us the results?

zenpoet

Yeah, really good point VISUALLY just because there is a little noise doesnn't mean any errors in the digital transmission would be transferred to the screen.

A nice test would have been some kind of calibration screen test on a real set using both the cables.

aDuh

Looking forward to the next part as it will apply to most of the readers who will only be concerned with their respective "real-world" results.

Kudos.

Selcouth14: makes jokes in base 13

This isn't real world testing because none of us watch our content in a DSA. (Or at least I hope not)
When you failed something it may have looked exactly the same as on of the cables you passed.

zephyr_words

1440p? You have to be kidding.

Alex

mmarks

The real world, in basement test will be the final judge, but it's nice to see someone independent running these tests. Thank you.

bigTrue

Geisrud

Energyguy78

Energyguy78

vr4z06gt