Hot Consumerist Forums Threads

By consumerist.com January 17, 2008

  • Now that you have your fancy HDTV set up you should also get some fancy HDMI Monster cables right? Wrong.
  • A reader is fed up with his local overpriced DSL service. Could AT&T be the way to go?
  • EA “Rockband” customer support, well, rocks! A reader shares his rockin’ good time with EA customer support.
  • A reader receives a call from telemarketer who claims that he was “referred” to them by a friend. Does the DNC list apply here?
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    Comments

    1. Michael Belisle says:
      January 17, 2008 at 2:24 pm

      Why is the Monster Cable thread “hot”? It’s a month old and has 3 posts. Your friends at Gizmodo did much hotter investigation into Monster HDMI: [gizmodo.com] .

    2. mgyqmb says:
      January 17, 2008 at 3:49 pm

      I don’t want to register for the forum, so a quick response to the monster hdmi cable thread -

      First, HDMI, being a digital signal, either works or it doesn’t. There’s no such thing as ‘fuzz’, or a ‘better’ signal. Get the cheapest HDMI that is available. I got mine for 70 cents over Amazon. Best Buy and the rest of the retailers charge in upwards of 70 DOLLARS for pure profit.

      Second, HDMI and DVI are essentially the same thing.

      Third, I’ll apologize, but I’m not taking my glasses off. They’re famous.

    3. jeffeb3 says:
      January 17, 2008 at 4:33 pm

      I agree that BB rips you off, and a 6 dollar cable at monoprice is a much better buy (That’s what I use). But any student of electrical engineering can tell you that there is going to be some loss in any cable, and the higher your SNR ratio, the less bytes you will lose. It’s simple statistics to say that there is a difference, any cable will lose some bytes. I personally think it’s got to be in the insignificant range (like one byte out of a billion or something ridiculous).

      In summary, I agree with your conclusion, but your arguments are wrong. And if you’ve never taking a class (with a lab) that taught you digital circuit design, or digital signals, you need not respond.

    4. Instigator says:
      January 17, 2008 at 7:22 pm

      This is a classic case of when trying to educate people who don’t know what they’re talking about is an exercise in futility. There is a difference in HDMI cable performance based upon cable engineering and construction.

      For example, the same amount of data is not sent at the same time over an HDMI cable. The data requirements are much greater for scenes with a lot of action. A very good-quality cable makes sure all data goes where it’s supposed to go without jitter, etc., and keeps up with data demand.

      Of course, whenever someone who is knowledgeable about HDMI cable engineering brings up the facts, the “all HDMI cable is the same so only buy the cheapest” crowd claims that person is a CE industry shill.