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Why are HDMI cables so expensive??

mfacey

mfacey

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 1, 2004
1,230
9
Netherlands
I've been looking into getting an HD LCD tv sometime in the near future. Preparing for this I've been looking around for the necessary accessories. I found that a 1m (3ft) HDMI cable goes for about 100-150 euros! Thats insane!
Whats in these things that makes them so expensive. Sure its a newer technology, but that kind of money for a cable? Sheesh! :confused:
 
mfacey said:
I've been looking into getting an HD LCD tv sometime in the near future. Preparing for this I've been looking around for the necessary accessories. I found that a 1m (3ft) HDMI cable goes for about 100-150 euros! Thats insane!
Whats in these things that makes them so expensive. Sure its a newer technology, but that kind of money for a cable? Sheesh! :confused:
Click to expand...

Not sure if this is relevant, but my HDMI DVD player came with an HDMI cable. I only paid a little over $150 for the player. How the heck is it that cables are that expensive? From what you're saying, all I paid for was a cable.
 
Cfg5 said:
you're joking, right?
Click to expand...

Value for money was probably a bad choice of words :rolleyes:

What I meant to say is that Monster makes good stuff, but these prices seem pretty inflated.
On the other hand I've been looking at some of the no-name brands here in holland and they're only 10-15% cheaper than the Monster ones!
 
There is a ton of price gouging out there for both HDMI and DVI cables. It's something that has to be tolerated, I suppose, if you need a cable *now* for a presentation or something, but it's definitely gouging.

You may want to think again about stuff like monster cable for digital signals. Either the signal gets to the other end, or it doesn't get there; you're not going to get the degrees of "ok" and "better" that you would with an analog signal.
 
iMeowbot said:
There is a ton of price gouging out there for both HDMI and DVI cables. It's something that has to be tolerated, I suppose, if you need a cable *now* for a presentation or something, but it's definitely gouging.

You may want to think again about stuff like monster cable for digital signals. Either the signal gets to the other end, or it doesn't get there; you're not going to get the degrees of "ok" and "better" that you would with an analog signal.
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That's a good point. I don't actually have any hardware with an HDMI connector yet so I'm not all that worried. Just found it somewhat odd. I'm guessing prices will drop in the next months, with HDTV becoming more and more commonplace. I'm going to need to save all the money I can. My current DVR doesn't do HDMI which sort of bums me out. It was something I didn't take into consideration when buying last June. DVRs with HDMI interfaces are still pretty pricey, but as with all technology the price will come down.
 
mfacey said:
Value for money was probably a bad choice of words :rolleyes:

What I meant to say is that Monster makes good stuff, but these prices seem pretty inflated.
On the other hand I've been looking at some of the no-name brands here in holland and they're only 10-15% cheaper than the Monster ones!
Click to expand...
However, with HDMI cables, it'd digital, so, other than the cable falling to peices or being over 200m long, your Monster HDMI/DVI cable has nothing up on my Tesco's own-brand one (not that they do them yet, but there are some cheaper brands out there)
 
If you really hate spending the money for the cables, search them on ebay. Very cheap.
 
greatdevourer said:
However, with HDMI cables, it'd digital, so, other than the cable falling to peices or being over 200m long, your Monster HDMI/DVI cable has nothing up on my Tesco's own-brand one (not that they do them yet, but there are some cheaper brands out there)
Click to expand...

Except for a lifetime warranty. The metal on the cable can corrode and over time, I suppose that could lead to signal loss. Also, that $200 cable is quad shielded, referring to the EM/RF signal interference that could potentially disrupt a digital signal. I dont have a HDMI or DVI cable from Monster (yet... when we upgrade to HD Dish, I'll get one), but from my experience the Monster cables have been tons better than other no-name brands. In fact, I had a pair pre-installed for the Dish guy so he wouldn't be tempted to use the ones that were included.

Anyway, that $200 cable is top of the line. They have another really good on for $99.
 
jdechko said:
Except for a lifetime warranty. The metal on the cable can corrode and over time, I suppose that could lead to signal loss. Also, that $200 cable is quad shielded, referring to the EM/RF signal interference that could potentially disrupt a digital signal. I dont have a HDMI or DVI cable from Monster (yet... when we upgrade to HD Dish, I'll get one), but from my experience the Monster cables have been tons better than other no-name brands. In fact, I had a pair pre-installed for the Dish guy so he wouldn't be tempted to use the ones that were included.
Click to expand...
Except it can't intefere. Well, it can, but it'd have a hard time doing it, ie, you'd have to be using it under a radio/TV tower. That's the thing with digital - it's extremely hard to intefere with. It's not like analogue, where there's amplitude and frequency. It's just 1s and 0s. To give you some idea, the cable I'm using to connect my Thinkpad with my router is frayed at one end, yet I still have 100Mbit maximum connection to the other machines on the network
 
Yeah these companies make a killing on accessories...
I think i had close to 60% off on monster products when i worked at best buy.
 
greatdevourer said:
Except it can't intefere. Well, it can, but it'd have a hard time doing it, ie, you'd have to be using it under a radio/TV tower. That's the thing with digital - it's extremely hard to intefere with. It's not like analogue, where there's amplitude and frequency. It's just 1s and 0s.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and it doesn't sound like quad-layer protection against radio frequencies is worth $200 for 1 metre of cable. I'm more than happy with a dual layer protection, or even less, if the cable cost me $20. ;) Even if it did interfere, it won't affect video quality at all unless RF started turning lots of those 1s in to 0s, and vice versa. But then you'd notice that as the picture on your HDTV completely disappearing for a split second, not as poor image quality.
 
I'm also looking at hdmi cable prices. I want to hook up my PM to a hd lcd, but my current setup would require a 12ft dvi-hdmi cable (plus separate audio). :eek: I'm currently studying ways to rearrange my room.
 
There's a reason why Monster Cable has the money to buy the naming rights to a football stadium...
 
mfacey said:
Value for money was probably a bad choice of words :rolleyes:

What I meant to say is that Monster makes good stuff, but these prices seem pretty inflated.
On the other hand I've been looking at some of the no-name brands here in holland and they're only 10-15% cheaper than the Monster ones!
Click to expand...

Oi.

PCWorld tested a variety of different cables from $25 to $200 and there was NO difference in the visual or electrical quality of the signal arriving at the end of the cable -- it was all within spec. Because HDMI (and DVI) are digital signals, as long as the bits arrive within the correct voltage range to be picked up by the tranceiver, the signal should be bit-for-bit accurate. There would have to be massive errors to make a visual difference.

The claims of high-end expensive cables are, IMO, a load of donkey twaddle.

We have 2m (6 foot) HDMI M-M cables for CAN$38
 
I couldn't find a 6' HDMI cable here in Charlotte for less than about $85... really pissed me off. And then to add insult to injury, they're still probably gonna leave us folks with non-HDMI/non-DVI TVs out in the cold when it comes to Blu-Ray and HD DVD... no HDMI or DVI, no hi-def signal because of HDCP. :mad:
 
CanadaRAM said:
Oi.

PCWorld tested a variety of different cables from $25 to $200 and there was NO difference in the visual or electrical quality of the signal arriving at the end of the cable -- it was all within spec. Because HDMI (and DVI) are digital signals, as long as the bits arrive within the correct voltage range to be picked up by the tranceiver, the signal should be bit-for-bit accurate. There would have to be massive errors to make a visual difference.

The claims of high-end expensive cables are, IMO, a load of donkey twaddle.

We have 2m (6 foot) HDMI M-M cables for CAN$38
Click to expand...

Preach on! A digital cable will either work or not. The chances of a higher grade cable giving significantly less bit flips than a cheap one is very small. In addition the protocol used for DVI (and digital audio) has built in error checking and correction so a single bit-switch in a small number of bits will be corrected automatically.

Analogue audio cables are a bit different as you are not simply trying to detect the existence or absence of a voltage and really cheap cables will sound cheap.
 
Chase265 said:
I get all my cables here... www.monoprice.com

never had any problems with their products
Click to expand...

Another vote for monoprice....excellent customer service, fast shipping, and great cables. I feel sorry for people that buy monster products.

No offense if you do, they make OK products and hike up the price. It's like people buying Bose and thinking they are getting good speakers.

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