The person who drafted the HDMI spec is a friend of the family. I mentioned people spending tons on cabling for digital devices, and his advice was that as long as it carries the HDMI logo, then it's I/O capabilities meet the spec required by the devices. No advantage in paying for gold plating etc. To those who say there is, he says, "show me the I/O charts."
The devices work within parameters, the cables bearing an HDMI logo must fulfil those parameters. Simples.

When What Hi-Fi for example review the £50-£200 cables and comment on differences in the audio and picture quality are they just talking rubbish then? I've never bought into the idea of really expensive cables but some people must do. They cant all be stupid can they?

..... just found a What Hi-Fi recommended 5 star HDMI cable. For a fiver!!!!

http://www.whathifi.com/Review/ThatCable-HDMI/

With digital stuff it's all 1s and 0s. It's either working or it's not.

If the cable passes the data properly, you'll get sound and vision. And that's it. There's none of this "boomier bass" or "better saturation" nonsense like you used to get with those oxygen-free cables and gold-plated connectors.

I always sense a lot of the Emperor's New Clothes about some of this hi-fi stuff.

Like I said, Sean knows a thing or two about HDMI, and he's of the opinion that if it's got the HDMI logo, then it performs to the expectations of the standard. End of. You can pay as much as you like, and if you swear up and down that it gives you richer blacks and better audio then great. But the man who drafted the spec isn't having any of it, and I know who I believe.
For analogue sources, then yeah, I'd expect there's a difference.

I know someone who listens to cables. He takes his kit to the HiFi shop, and wires it up with different cables until he’s happy. Anyway, the good thing is that he changed his cables a few years ago, and I got his old ones for nada

I'm not supporting the argument for expensive cables, I think they're a con. Even analogue ones near as makes no difference on a typical home setup. But I am looking into a bit more so I can see both sides of the argument (if What Hi-Fi think a £110 cable is better than a £5 one I want to know why!) and found this:

it may all be 1's and 0's, but what is being sent over that cable is electric current. When too much data is sent over a shabby cable, the device on the other end can't tell what is a 1 and what is a 0

I havent read the whole article yet though.

Clicky

The problem is that for years it did make a difference to the audiophile when it was all analogue

A good set of speaker cables made a difference


However with digital as already stated its a 1 or a 0 so it either works or doesn’t

Its taking time for the HiFi world to catch up

Is there any error correction in the HDMI specification?

You might get better results from a shielded cable if there is a lot of interference floating around. Other than that, I'd say a cable is a cable.

Ok I think I know where my opinion is swinging (to be fair this is only on the evidence of others and not tests performed by myself).....

1)As the signal is digital 0 and 1 it is not prone to interference found in analogue cables
2)If the cable is stamped with the standard e.g. HDMI 1.3b then it will do the same job as any other cable
3)The only problems I've read are when the signal is travelling over a long distance, in these examples the cheap cables lost out as the 0 and 1's got confused at the other end and the more expensive cables proved to be more reliable

I guess then as long as you stay away from a really really poor quality cable (knock offs, etc) and the distance is not great (normally around 0.5m from TV to DVD in my case!!) then you're onto a winner! I will certainly keep in mind the £5 HDMI cable What Hi-fi recommended.

It's true that it's not as prone, as digital signals have a small amount of inherent resilience. However, if the interference is worse than the inherent resilience then it won't work at all.

It may well be that the HDMI standard includes error correction in the devices though.

I'll be sure to let you all know how I get on with my cheap cable... The PS3 and the DVD player will be as close to the TV as possible, so no long distance data!

One of the great things with digital TV is, it is either on or it isn't - with Sky, if there is an interrupted signal you get a blue screen - if the stream of 0s and 1s is disturbed you'll get a blank screen. The only benefit to buying a longer cable is if you are reckless with your cables, a more expensive one may be better protected from internal damage, but a working cheapy will look as good as a working expensive one.

It's a long story but I still don't have the PS3, and now the fcuking TV isn't showing up until Saturday