What do i need to know about HMDI cables beore buying?

Mr. Forager@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 72 points –

Hiya!

This is probably more simple than what I'm making into, but I want to be sure, so here we go:

Currently in the market for a good HDMI cable, however, I am curious as to what I need to know (as I know nothing about these cables) before buying one. So my use case for this scenario is a 3M long HDMI cable that will connect my desktop(Nobara or Bazzite) to my TV (that has Nvidia Shield). This is for easy access to couch gaming. My desktop has a RX 6700 XT card, but unsure about the specifications of the TV other than it being a 70inch one (can try to find this if its relevant), but I am not looking to stream 4k. So let me know what kinda specs/details i need to look for in a HDMI cable for this :)))

PS. I tried setting up Sunlight + Moonlight, but honestly seemed like a bit too much configuration for my liking, but might give it a go again later on. I've also only got access to medium-speed Wifi atm, so this isn't optional.

44

Here you go.

Essentially, if you don’t need 4k, HDMI 1 is fine. Most of these will be unmarked. If you want 4k you should get HDMI 2, and if you want 4k 120 refresh or 8k then you need HDMI 2.1. These cables should be marked as such, or may be marketed as 4k/8k, respectively.

Most large broadcasters buy the cheapest HDMI cables going, because they do the same job and are cheap to replace

There is absolutely no benefit to gold plated nonsense

I've had more issues with sketchy hdmi cables than any other type of cable. It doesn't need to be gold, but if it running more than 40 feet or in a hard to access area that you won't want to mess with ever again (wall mount TV or ceiling mounted projector for instance) get a good one.

If you are running through walls, run some shielded cat6a and some SM fibre.
Doesnt matter what happens to the display standards. There will always be converters to rj45 and sm fibre (whereas MM fibre is essentially dead these days).

Run that with it for future proofing your run sure but if you know you need a n hdmi line right now it's less of a headache to just run the hdmi wire than to convert it to rj45.

I mean, I have had real issues with cheap, not good cables.

For example, I had one that we found out was the reason our Wifi was intermittently dropping.

You would plug it in, and the wifi would go out in that area of the house.

Unless you're doing something crazy, like super-long runs (like, across a whole building) get the cheapest thing you can find that's rated for the minimum spec you need (like, if you want 4k at 120fps or whatever, lookup which HDMI version is needed for that, and buy at least that). That means do NOT buy at any brick-and-mortar store, their markups are borderline illegal.

I'll drop another recommendation for monoprice.com.

Note that you’re not getting 4K 120Hz on AMD on Linux atm. It requires HDMI 2.1 and amdgpu won’t get acceptance from HDMI forum anytime soon. For that you need DP 1.4 -> HDMI 2.1 converter.

Is there a good reason they won't get acceptance?

AMD wants to open-source the driver, the HDMI Forum doesn't like that

Does your display have display port? HDMI is made and controlled by total shithead fuckers

Unrelated, but for no real reason whatsoever, I preferred HDMI over DP until recently when I noticed I was having noticing some weird behavior with my laptops and my usbc dock.

I did some testing with DP cables instead of HDMI, and it totally fixed it. Ive since been converted to DP.

My through wall was HDMI but it would randomly cut out on the tv and flicker or look wrong. I switched to dp then and I've been specifically going with it since. It does all the same stuff but better and actually works on higher resolution and refresh under Linux.

I just wish HDMI didn't have their grubby claws in everything making it the default port on literally everything.

HDMI is also a total bitch to hook up when you have to do it blind or at an awkward angle, like a PC that has been tucked behind a desk. DP goes in easy. DP also doesn't become ever so slightly unplugged and lead to days of troubleshooting and browsing forums from 2007.

Sadly the TV doesn't have DP, otherwise I totally would have chosen it..

That's too bad. For me it's proven time and time again to be a superior experience, especially in wacky enthusiast configurations and enough so that when my previous tv planned obsolescence'd itself, I got a large computer display instead as I already used standalone audio monitors instead of the built in speakers of the tv. That and I don't use cable or over air tv signals and just use computer for all media. I regret not getting something cheaper and waiting for current gen OLED though, those are so "dayyuuumm".

Pick the cheapest with most stars on Amazon. They are for a digital signal. Either they work or they don't. There isn't much quality to look out for. Maybe if you move it around a lot you'd want something robust.

But it won't deliver a worse image if you buy cheap.

Just because it's a digital signal doesn't mean "it works or it doesn't". If the cable you chose can't handle the bandwidth necessary for the audio and video signals you're trying to push through your equipment will automatically start degrading the signal slightly to maintain sync and connection. This will start with white clipping and black crush and will get worse from there.

Truly shitty cables will often have DHCP and AV sync problems.

I generally agree except I try not to shop Amazon. For stuff like this, monoprice is my jam.

If you are in the US. I see they do shipping outside of the US but that will supposedly make you pay extra taxes for the import.

I mean, not in OP’s particular application, but in industrial applications you don’t want to pick the cheapest:

-How does the cable fare against EMI? -What is the maximum possible length? There is even an optical HDMI cable to help with this -Will the cable need to be resistant to rubbing?

Etc, etc

Yep. In industrial settings, including distribution and sortation facilities for all the packages that reach your door, a broken wire can mean downtime and a bunch of lost money every minute.

The engineers not only specify the exact quality of wire/cable that must be used, but often put that inside rigid steel conduit and limit where it can be run, all to protect the wire. And that’s before you get into redundant routes for the really important stuff, which could even use a different type of cable like fiber.

I never had any issues before with cheap HDMI leads over a short distance, so just to throw something else into the mix for consideration - 4k & cable length. My scenario was getting 4K picture on TV from HTPC (home theatre PC, a PC based media player) via a Dolby Atmos compatible amp. Cable length approx 10m.

Standard HDMI cables tend to be labelled as "HDMI 2.0/a/b compatible for 4k at 60Hz". I bought several of these cables & had same issues with all of them - they would not display image on TV (though mysteriously they displayed an image if a games console was used rather than the HTPC). They sell them in all kinds of lengths but in my experience they dont work beyond about 5m.

Close to giving in, I bought a 10m "active" HDMI optical lead which is directional - one end is labelled source & the other end labelled display.

First one I bought worked perfectly.

20m 1080p60 is generally fine on cheapo cables.
5m 4k60 is generally fine on cheapo cables (makes sense, 4 times the data rate: 1/4 the distance).

So yeh, an active 10m 4k60 cable makes sense.
Its all hugely dependant on the source and the sink. Some sources are weak and cheap. Some sinks are expensive and can recover data from a garbage signal.

Cheapest will do just fine in 99% of cases. Only time I've needed something more expensive was when I needed to do a cable run that was too long for "normal" hdmi standard (and bundled with a lot of electric cables as part of a permanent install), so i used one of the extra shielded and wider wirengauge cables from Kramer.

Take a look at HDMI versions in wikipedia and select cable accordingly.

Don't go with "cheapest" advices as you might buy cable that only capable to FullHD@30Hz, which I think not what you want.

Also, if your card and TV have displayport I'll suggest to go with that instead of HDMI. It just better and does not forbid open source realisations, like HDMI consortium does on HDMI 2.1.

Would you mind expanding on the open source realisations thing? I'm trying to get more into open source software but I'm a little too tech illiterate to understand the nuances, including what you just mentioned.

HDMI has a private company that owns the rights to it. They get to decide if you get to call yourself HDMI and they can sue you if you lie about it. They decide what new features HDMI implements. This is a proprietary standard. As a recent example, AMD wrote an open source driver for HDMI 2.1 that would allow 8k on any device using an AMD graphics card. The HDMI owners basically said "no, you can't distribute this, shut the project down and write something proprietary." This doesn't help the consumer at all, and although they didn't explicitly say it, HDMI probably made that decision because studios pay a lot of money to make it hard to pirate over HDMI.

DisplayPort is an open standard. If you were to write the same AMD 8k driver for DisplayPort, they would say "great, we can't stop you from using this anyways, so share as much as you like." Open standards are better for consumers because they can improve more easily.

Well, shit. Didn't know that. Thanks for the info. I was already using DP but now I know I'll keep using it.

Just search for "amd hdmi 2.1 linux" to get full story.

In short - AMD wrote an implememtation for HDMI 2.1 standart for Linux driver, but it requires approval from HDMI consortium. They (consortium) denied it, so AMD couldn't ship it.

Just get a real one. Not a crappy knockoff or something.

My wife bought a cheap one once that created one of the weirdest bugs I've ever experienced.

We didn't realize at the time, but it was actually interfering with the wifi signals whenever we plugged it in. It was a floater cable so we only used it if we had a monitor in random place. But you would plug it in and the wifi would go out (it took quite a bit of trouble shooting to figure out it was the cable not some weird driver/ or monitor issue.

I pretty much only buy cables (of any kind) from Monoprice.

Sorry this isn't very helpful, but from a television (as in the devices) nerd on a nerd podcast (not me; they talked about this), HDMI spec is just as stupid as USB. The person recommending Display Port might be right.

If you don't get them gold plated at your local jeweler, you'll never enjoy Avatar at full resolution.

Just ask them they'll be happy to do this for you.