How to Buy a Good HDMI cable?

As the Internet and Communication technologies have advanced and the lifestyles have become more luxurious and consumption-oriented, more people are seeking lifestyle upgrades. The advent of gadgets and entertainment technologies has taken domestic consumers by a storm and home entertainment systems are a popular trend. More users are now investing in home entertainment devices such as heavy speakers, smart TVs and LEDs, and Blu ray and DVD players that can connect with a laptop or other computerized gadgets. This has triggered a huge boom in the ancillary industry of connectivity accessories and HDMI cables have become a popular choice in the recent past. 

HDMI Cable Buying Guide

Although there were many other cable systems were available in the market prior to HDMI that mainly operated on analog signals, they were not effective enough to support highly digitized data and provide a smooth and sharp audio-video output. Moreover, in the recent past technology started to upgrade quite rapidly and newer models entered the market quickly, which required cable accessories to be backward compatible so that your newer appliance can support an older cable. 

That made HDMI hugely popular and relevant to the current market needs because one, HDMI cables operate on digital signals, and two, they are all backward compatible. However, most customers are still new to buying HDMI cables and as a result, they end up paying unnecessarily hefty amounts in an attempt to buy the best possible cable. This buying guide will help you buy a good HDMI cable and at a good price.

Know the HDMI Cable Types

Before anything else you need to educate yourself about the different types of HDMI cables that are available in the market and their respective utility so that you can figure out exactly which kind of HDMI cable you will require. If you can determine the right kind of the cable, no seller will be able to fool you into buying an unnecessarily expensive variant. Typically, there are four different types of HDMI cables that are available in the market: Standard HDMI cables, High-Speed HDMI cables, Standard HDMI cables with Ethernet, High-Speed HDMI cables with Ethernet. Since most almost no home entertainment systems manufacturers prefer Ethernet over conventional HDMI, the need to invest in an Ethernet variant is automatically ruled out and the choice needs to be made between the standard and High-Speed variants only.  

Data Transfers Rate of HDMI Cables and Length of Connection

The type of cable that you will need will depend on two important factors which include the amount and speed of data transfer and the length over which connection is to be made. High-Speed HDMI cables tend to be a tad bit more expensive than the Standard ones and since the general consumer psyche is to get the best quality at a lower price, the general tendency is to buy a more expensive and branded Standard HDMI cable instead of a relatively lower-priced High-Speed HDMI cable. However, in technical aspects, a Standard HDMI cable can be a hit or miss. A good Standard HDMI cable will either facilitate a very smooth data transfer and consequently resulting in good audio video output or it might get some noise and disruption in the DTR resulting in a blotchy image. Usually, the DTR loses its effectiveness when the connections are made over longer distances since there is a greater chance of a signal loss.

High-Speed HDMI cables, on the other hand, support quicker DTR and can facilitate data transfer over a long distance. Contrary to popular opinion, you do not need to invest in a very high-end expensive High-Speed HFMI cable and cheaper variant can do the job as good as others that are more expensive. Therefore, on technical grounds, the wiser choice would be to buy a cheaper High-Speed HDMI cable instead of a very expensive Standard HDMI cable.