News Kogan offers HDTV buyers free HDMI cables

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/07/05/kogan-offers-hdtv-buyers-free-hdmi-cables/1

 

That Amazon link is scandalous. Frankly, if you're stupid enough to want to pay £10k for a cable then you deserve to be parted from your money.

HDMI is digital. There is no quality degradation due to the quality of the cable - you either get a signal or you don't. What it comes down to is the build quality of the cable - i.e. are the connectors going to fall apart after a few months - and you don't need to spend a fortune to get decent build quality. Certainly not more than £20-£30 (if even that much).

EDIT: In the analogue world, yes the cable quality matters. A better quality conductor will result in better signal transmission. Not for digital however.

Retailers & manufacturers do have a lot to answer for in this regard. The more expensive cables are marketed as "premium", so naturally the average consumer is going to assume that they're better in some way. People like Which? don't help either, especially when they do cable round-ups and claim that Brand X delivered a better picture quality than Brand Y, and give some waffle about "individual experience" when they're challenged on the technical points.

 

A couple of years back I paid £30 for an average cable because I needed it there and then, and that was the price on the label - I didn't have time to go elsewhere or order one online. It was a ridiculous price to pay.
Recently I spent £7 on an extremely robust cable that has awesome sheathing that will be pretty hard for me to tear through (like I have torn through some Cat5e cables as of late, wedged under a door which wears on the cable each time you open or close it.)

 

HAHAHA wtf at the beast. Unbelievable.

 

we pay about £3 for our HDMI cables there is NEVER EVER any need to pay premium for them. Gold plated connections do nothing except in the extreme case of metal corrosion cause by nickel plated in contact with gold plated (conductive corrosion ?) but that is very very minor and no issue.

Digital is either received or it isnt END OF CHAT

 

Man, I wish i could see how many people have bought that cable.

It is true that you "either get the signal or you don't" in that there's no signal attenuation, so picture/sound quality won't be affected by minor variations in signal strength. That said, how often that signal actually makes it from one end of the cable to the other CAN be affected by the quality of the cable. The irony comes in when you consider that I paid $25 at the Big Blue Box for an HDMI cable that chopped up sound from my xbox. I bought an $8 cable from amazonBasics and I've never had a problem with it.

The problems I had may have had more to do with the connectors than the material of the cable itself. I know that bit-techers can occasionally be a bit pedantic (myself included), so to clarify: when I say "cable" here, I'm talking about from tip to tip.

 

But what you all fail to appreciate is that the Amazon cable actually turns into Angelina Jolie on a night time, sings like Beyonce AND cooks you breakfast like Delia Smith in the morning!

Not bad for just shy of £10k I say.....

 

I've paid more than £4 for an HDMI cable actually. It was a 5m cable, it had swivel connectors and cost £5.

As for the Amazon cable, I'm gonna start trolling on the reviews section. Who's with me?

 

I dunno wtf you guys are complaining about the Amazon link for....free shipping!

 

those who use obscene amounts of money on hdmi cables (as mentioned) are those who like to brag about their system or honestly don't know about tech enough to do a purchase like this. The only hdmi cable i've seen a reason to pay more for is a ribbon hdmi or to support indie manufacturers of hdmi cables and the likes (it'll come soon enough)

 

Bit tech please get a hold of one of them 10k cables and do a review it would be hilarious.

 

i would buy that cable





(if i won theeuro millions tonight)

 

good move by them, It's insane to see how much people could spend on a cable. I bought my HDMI cable for about £4 (and everyone I know paid roughly the same) and have no problems with them what so ever.

 

Ruslan Kogan. Crazy mother from down my way!

When Gerry Harvey (of Harvey Norman, I think there are a few of those in Ireland,) decided to have a massive ****-fit about Aussies buying for less money from overseas, Kogan challenged Harvey to a debate on national TV about the cost of appliances in Australia. Gerry never took him up on it.

Kogan does a bunch of stuff like - stunts, yes, but normally with a basis of truth to them.

 

I should probably point out that while HDMI is indeed a digital "get it or not" cable, for long runs (we're talking over 10m) cable quality actually does matter as it's surprisingly susceptible to interference. However it's still a case of getting a cable that's "good enough" and no more.

 

I have had instances with really cheap HDMI cables not liking particular PS3 and Monitor combos, it'll work with an Xbox, but switch to another cable and the PS3 then works.

 

As I have commented before on this topic; HDMI cables should be rated (and priced) on their resistance to Bunny Teeth / chewing. If the cable survives at all it can be deemed "premium".

I would like to call this the "Sooty Rating".

 

You can get one for 12k with all the above except breakfast is cooked by Nigella Lawson. I went for that one.

That cables gotta be a joke anyway. Just look at the 'Only 8 left...' bit. Probably a fella that thinks the same as this Kogan company (from mass effect?) except he's more concentrating on the complete idiocy of the customers willing to believe the spotty 17 year old selling them their TV

 

Expertreviews debunked this whole 'premium HDMI cables = better picture/sound' myth a few months ago, you can see it here. When they sat a group of random people in front of ps3's connected with cheap cables, and then connected with expensive cables, there was no consensus (between the group tested) about which 'picture' looked better. At one point they even put the same cable on both ps3's and people still picked one or the other, ie people tend to come down one way or another, when given a choice (even if theres no difference in the picture).

They concluded that there's no technical explanation we can find – or that the cable manufacturers we spoke to could provide – to justify claims that higher-quality cables deliver consistently better contrast, skin tones and so on. And that they're satisfied that there's no discernible difference between the perceived quality from expensive and cheap cables. It didnt take a brain surgeon to come to such conclusion but anyway it still should make people who are considering buying expensive HDMI cables to think twice and get the cheaper alternatives.

 

Currys et. al. use cables and other accessories as a way to make money. It's the same logic as cinemas - barely break even on the film tickets, so make all your money on the food. Along with insurance, audio/visual accessories are one of the best money earners they have, and given the consumer electronic market is down 25% year on year, they need all the help they can get.

By the way, if anyone fancies a real hoot on a related subject, check out the reviews for this £10K cable:

http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/dp/B000I1X6PM