I think the answer is something to do with sending a digital signal over an analogue medium. Obviously this is what things like checksums are for but as pointed out we are dealing with time sensitive content. I think main two differences between a cheap HDMI cable and an expensive cable would be:
1. The cheap cable pushes the boundaries for maximum and minimum bandwidth as far down as possible to reduce costs.
2. The cheap cable is more susceptible to interference from outside of the medium as well as also inside (the actual purity of the copper for example)
From the second difference I would gather that while transmitting the cheap cable would produce a signal with more differences from the original source than the expensive cable. But on receiving an incorrect signal - be it a pixel or group of pixels - I would not expect a TV to throw it away. I would expect it to interpret the bad signal as best it could. I guess it might manifest itself as slightly incorrect coloured pixel or similar? I don't think a region could be affected as HDMI transmits on a pixel-by-pixel basis I believe. The only way a region of pixels could be affected in the same way would be if the same corruption of data occured across them all which I think is unlikely. Again guessing - maybe some TVs try to interpret corrupt pixels from the surrounding ones if it receives bad data? I would think that any bad data would be more noticeable on a much larger screen such as 50"+ than on a 32" say.
I'm not sure if HDMI has anything included in the standard whereby it transmits data a few seconds ahead in order to be able to re-transmit bad data. Searching for it, I can't find anything. But if it does, a higher bandwidth, more expensive cable would help right? My reasoning behind this is that the cheap cables are perhaps barely coping with the bandwidth requirements as it is (only just meeting the set performance standard) and re-transmission would only hurt things more.
All in all I think it may be wise to go with a cable from a company you trust rather than the cheapest you can find. But I don't believe the difference between say a 50 pound HDMI cable and a 300 pound one would be that noticeable on any of the current equipment that its designed for. I also believe that as short cables that are less susceptible to interference the differences would be even less so even a cheap cable would probably be comparable to the most expensive you can buy.
1. The cheap cable pushes the boundaries for maximum and minimum bandwidth as far down as possible to reduce costs.
2. The cheap cable is more susceptible to interference from outside of the medium as well as also inside (the actual purity of the copper for example)
From the second difference I would gather that while transmitting the cheap cable would produce a signal with more differences from the original source than the expensive cable. But on receiving an incorrect signal - be it a pixel or group of pixels - I would not expect a TV to throw it away. I would expect it to interpret the bad signal as best it could. I guess it might manifest itself as slightly incorrect coloured pixel or similar? I don't think a region could be affected as HDMI transmits on a pixel-by-pixel basis I believe. The only way a region of pixels could be affected in the same way would be if the same corruption of data occured across them all which I think is unlikely. Again guessing - maybe some TVs try to interpret corrupt pixels from the surrounding ones if it receives bad data? I would think that any bad data would be more noticeable on a much larger screen such as 50"+ than on a 32" say.
I'm not sure if HDMI has anything included in the standard whereby it transmits data a few seconds ahead in order to be able to re-transmit bad data. Searching for it, I can't find anything. But if it does, a higher bandwidth, more expensive cable would help right? My reasoning behind this is that the cheap cables are perhaps barely coping with the bandwidth requirements as it is (only just meeting the set performance standard) and re-transmission would only hurt things more.
All in all I think it may be wise to go with a cable from a company you trust rather than the cheapest you can find. But I don't believe the difference between say a 50 pound HDMI cable and a 300 pound one would be that noticeable on any of the current equipment that its designed for. I also believe that as short cables that are less susceptible to interference the differences would be even less so even a cheap cable would probably be comparable to the most expensive you can buy.
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