As there seem to be a hundred and one different HDMI cables out there all made by manufacturers claiming to be the best, what have other forum members used, and with what results, good or bad?

I have always been a fan of QED and IXOS products, has anyone used either of these brands for HDMI?

These are required for HD television and Blu-Ray plus upscale, and not PS3.

Dont bother spending a fortune on a cable. HD is a digital signal and as such, it'll get there or it wont' there is no "in-between"

This has been confirmed in recent tests (including The Gadget Show) where side-by-side comparrisons show no difference between the most expensive and the not-quite-the-cheapest.

i bought mine from Play.com for about £10. Its about 2.5 metres long feels really good quality and the picture is great. I have tried a £65 one in the same tv with no visible or audible difference. I think if your tv is about 100" + you might see a difference or if you have a MEGA sound set up! But for most a £10 lead will be absolutely perfect.

I agree. I work in the AV industry. You should not have to spend loads on ur cables. The most important bit to look at though is the connector at either end. Sometimes they can be a bit loose fitting and fall out when lightly pulled at. I'm not talking fancy gold plated blah, blah blah - simply - how tight the fitment is and ensures a good ground point.

The only other thing to beware of, is if you are using a cable longer than say 5m; this is when impedance matching and transmission line effects will be more prominent and odd effects can happen and affect the eye patterns in the HDMI signalling.

Thus far though - i use the $1.50 leads we ship in our products and never had an issue < 2 metres.

Hope this helps.

Thanks to all for the replies, and if only "ER" indoors would sanction a 100" screen....LOL

In the past when using scarts, I have always used IXOS products and there is a marked difference, but will give the cheaper HDMI's a go as the maximum size I need is only the one metre ones, and then if not satisied will try the dearer ones.

Thanks again.

i've got two of these:

Play.com (UK) : Linx 1.2m Luxury 24k Gold Plated HDMI Cable : Electronics - Free Delivery

Spot on picture, good quality cable and the connectors are a good, tight fit.

Because HDMI is digital there is no signal degridation(IE you either get a picture or you don't). All HDMI cables have to conform to the same standard, my cheapo cable that came with the SkyHD box gives the same picture than the mistakenly purchased more expensive Belkin cable I used to use with the HTPC. If you are going for a longer length (5M plus) then a more expensive cable may help guard against data loss though.

True 'digital is digital' but you can get difference in spec on HDMI cables... Cheap ones probably won't perform to V1.3 (which is the output performance capability of a PS3 for example).

V1.3 will have a greater colour range (several trillion colours as opposed to 256,000 on the cheap ones) and also from a future compatibility viewpoint the V1.3 will also cope with HD upto 1440P (which will come sooner or later)

If it were me, I would buy a decent ish brand with V1.3, but not spend silly money.

HDMI is digital, the number of colours is irrelevent and all cables are already HDMI 1.3 compliant, even the cheap ones. Over on avsforums (us version of avforums) they did a comparison on a 50" plasma TV being fed with bluray and nobody could tell the difference. Same thing using a HD projector, nobody could tell.

hdmi v1.3 is the item not the cable

the same as you get a usb cable rather than a usb 1.0/1.1/1.2/2.0 etc etc

digital is digital so buy em cheap

Another vote for reasonably priced cables here. I wouldn’t necessarily buy the cheapest though, as the mechanical integrity of these items may not be brilliant. Dry joints and bad pressings etc. but the idea of spending huge sums on short lengths of HDMI is a false one imho. I work in broadcasting and I have seen many things that show that solid dilithium crystal latticed kryptonite coated pixi dust sprinkled cables are not necessary at all. I agree for longer lengths a decent cable will probably be better.

I got the following from www.hdmi.org

Q. What is the difference between a “Standard” HDMI cable and a “High-Speed” HDMI cable?

Recently, HDMI Licensing, LLC announced that cables would be tested as Standard or High-Speed cables.

• Standard (or “category 1”) cables have been tested to perform at speeds of 75Mhz, which is the equivalent of a 1080i signal.
  
• High Speed (or “category 2”) cables have been tested to perform at speeds of 340Mhz, which is the highest bandwidth currently available over an HDMI cable and can successfully handle 1080p signals including those at increased color depths and/or increased refresh rates. High-Speed cables are also able to accommodate higher resolution displays, such as WQXGA cinema monitors (resolution of 2560 x 1600).
  

Cheers

Dave.

Dont bother spending a fortune on a cable. HD is a digital signal and as such, it'll get there or it wont' there is no "in-between"

This has been confirmed in recent tests (including The Gadget Show) where side-by-side comparrisons show no difference between the most expensive and the not-quite-the-cheapest.

They even said good old coax was just as good, and in their tests using the same tv, settings etc, no one could tell any diff.

I got the following from www.hdmi.org

Q. What is the difference between a “Standard” HDMI cable and a “High-Speed” HDMI cable?

Recently, HDMI Licensing, LLC announced that cables would be tested as Standard or High-Speed cables.

• Standard (or “category 1”) cables have been tested to perform at speeds of 75Mhz, which is the equivalent of a 1080i signal.
  
• High Speed (or “category 2”) cables have been tested to perform at speeds of 340Mhz, which is the highest bandwidth currently available over an HDMI cable and can successfully handle 1080p signals including those at increased color depths and/or increased refresh rates. High-Speed cables are also able to accommodate higher resolution displays, such as WQXGA cinema monitors (resolution of 2560 x 1600).
  

Cheers

Dave.

So how do we know which is which when we buy ???

I just get mine free from work and never had any issues with them but if i did would just get another one:D