difference in HDMI cables

[bootman]

Originally Posted by sean10mm

As someone who worked in the telecommunications industry, when it comes to digital transmission it pretty much either works or it doesn't. Spending more than $10 on a cable to go 3 feet for digital data transmission from your Blu-ray player to your TV is moronic.

The "more expensive cable is better" thing is based on a misunderstanding of how digital signals work. As long as the signal isn't so horribly degraded that the TV can't tell a 1 from a 0, the data transmission is essentially perfect. And if you make the transmission so "dirty" that the TV can't tell a 1 from a 0, the picture falls apart almost instantly. There is almost no in-between because it either reads a 1 as a 1 and a 0 as a 0, or it doesn't.

If you buy a cheap HDMI cable and plug it in and get a pretty picture, you're seeing all there is to see. There isn't anything else because there is no essentially no gradual drop-off over digital. There is no shade of gray.

Don't take this as a personal attack, but this is not 100% true.
Not all of the ones and zeros make it safely across the analog domain when traveling on a cable. (yes I said analog domain)
When you send a signal at high frequency (HDMI1.3 calls for 340MHz) a lot can happen to the signal at distances longer than say 15ft with poorly made cables.
Of course, if the degradation is low enough that the ECC can properly reconstruct 100% of the signal, then no loss occurs.
Coming from the telcom world you must be familiar with MER and BER.
If they just start to get too much for the ECC to handle then you will still get a picture but it will contain artifacts.
(of course, blow BER and MER reading out of the water and you will get no pic at all)
In most cases this rarely happens so we get something in between.
Digital noise, macroblocking, etc.

This however has nothing to do with how much a cable should cost to properly carry the signal at the specified length.