How the hell does a 6 foot cable cost $40?

$160 to connect my new surround sound reciever to my cable box, television and DVD player?

I guess my speakers will have to make due with $3 RCA cables...

 

6 Foot (2 Meter) HDMI Male to Male Cable, 28AWG : Today's Price: $3.95 6 Foot (2 Meter) HDMI Male to Male Cable, 28AWG

Not sure where you are buying your cables at, but I wouldn't pay $40 for a cable that cost about $4 to make.

 

I don't know a ton about them but the price seems pretty common. You can pay up to $110 for a Monster brand one of the same length. From the reading I've done it's really important to have a quality cable with the 120 htz LCD TVs more than others. You want to make sure that your cable is rated at 120 htz and has good quality terminals. If it's not then you might not be getting the full quality.

I found this out the hard way. I kept seeing little trails behind players while they were running down the football field. It was happening with some high def movies too. I did some reading and bought a better cable. Fixed the issue right then and there. I paid about $60 for mine.

 

The high quality cables are very nice to have, especially if you are viewing 1080p. You may not see much difference on the lower ends. With more and more stuff being broadcast in true 1080p these cables will be more important.

My daughter has a set of the lower quality in her room and I can tell a distinct difference between her room and the ones in the other rooms in our house. Bite the bullet and buy a good set, your eyes will thank you.

It is kind of like buying a HD tv and not getting the HD service from your dish provider.

 

Stay away from the Cheap Cables!!!

 

So how much better is HDMI than component video?

My TV is 1080p, I don't know the refresh rate on it... My cable box is 1080i.

Am I loosing any video quality by using component video for DVD's and cable?

 

Yeah. If your box is only putting out 1080i then it may not be worth it for you to get a better cable unless you have Blu-ray, a PS3, etc.

I don't know who you have but some cable boxes can be changed. With the cable box off-TV on, hold down the menu button. If you can change set ups you'll see a new screen pop up with all kinds of things you can tweak. It may be 1080p capable but just not set.

 

The HDMI is night and day better then the component video from what I have seen with my eyes in my house. Not by the game these stores play with brightness and contrast to sell the items they are pushing that month.

Digital "cable" is going to be hard to get a TRUE 1080p signal, you may not really even get a true 1080I out of cable. Verizion Fios and AT&T Uverse among the satellite is the easiest way to achieve 1080P as they are broadcasting true HD signals. Cable signal although plenty good for most is still very distorted. Again looking at my neighbors signal verse my signal on the identical equipment, not what some sales rep told or shown me.

For DVD if you do not have the HDMI set up I am all about the S Video set up, I do not watch much on regular DVD players. We use Blue Ray through the house with HDMI. I am not real big in to DVD though so I cannot help much there.

 

I think it also depends on the screen size doesn't it? Same number of pixels on a smaller tv look better than on a bigger tv with the same specs. I have heard that smaller than 40 or 42 you don't hardly notice going from 720p to 1080p. I could be wrong.

 

It really depends on the brand of TV and when you bought it. The technology changes so much that a TV you bought a year or so ago may very well not look as good as a smaller TV you bought today. But the nicer sets have enough difference that you can see the difference between 720 and 1080. It is as big of a difference as digital and analog years ago. IMO.