Chord HDMI 1.3 Silver Plus 0.5m HDMI Cable

[admin_exported]

Hi all,

This is what the cable connects:

Sony KDL - 40W2000 40" LCD TV as recommended by What Hi-Fi.

Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player as recommended by What Hi-Fi.

Now this is where either I am going blind or I have fluked a great lead. Being a massive film fan I could not wait to swap across to an LCD TV & Blu-ray movies. So as you can see I bought the best as recommended by 'What Hi-Fi' as soon as they were released in the UK.

The problem? From viewing the Blu-ray films I have noticed a lot of minor screen grain, small pixels somehow showing up from time to time in standard shot films, films like Apocalypto, the Terminator and Day of the Dead to name but a few, clearly show patches of the pixels in blocks and steaks which was not something I expected from this supposed new fantastic format. These are not present in the razor sharp Pixar 'CGI' film 'Ratatouille', now this is the quality I expect.

Call me fussy, from constantly reading the above named magazine I put the poor picture down to a poor HDMI lead that I initially paid £15.00 for. So I went off and again under the advice of the magazine, bought the Chord 1.3 Silver Plus lead £80.00. I replaced the cheap lead with the 0.5metre Chord cable expecting the wayward pixels to vanish! Guess what, exactly the same picture, no difference whatsoever and I have good eye sight!!!

Can someone tell what has gone wrong, how can my cheap no name lead produce the exact picture as the market leader?

Slightly miffed, Neil

 

[Anonymous]

Hi, You know that can of worms you are holding? Well i think that lid has just come right off with that question, prepare for a backlash of cable lovers.
I have to say I am not one of them, but I do understand what you are saying. I have got a qed performance hdmi cable and although I can notice a difference in picture quality it is not a massive amount to my old cable.
The thing is from my experience, Good cables can't perform miracles but can aid in getting the picture to the screen more effectively.
I have also heard that your particular sony model can be prone to that as can some other lcd tv's like my old hitachi.
Sometimes turning the sharpness down or try using the picture noise options 'on or off' on the panny blu-ray player if it has them like my tosh hd-dvd does, It may help.

Hope this is of help.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

I have the same LCD as you and I have not dipped my toe into Bluray territory yet. My one worry about doing so is the 40W2000 does not offer 24fps. I am just hoping that your grainy screen is because Bluray plays at 24fps and your screen does not comply. If this is the problem, I will hold off for even longer as I'm not going to abandon my screen just yet. Do you get this grainy picture with dvd from your Bluray player? If the answer is no, I believe my feared diagnosis is the reason. And if this was the case, no cable will change it.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a 32 D series with 24fps, Chord S+ HDMi and PS3, al films have been perfect. The Chord was clearly sharper than the crappy £20 one I had initially, blacker and more depth.

Try watching "Earth on Blu Ray" or buy a standalone DVD source.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Surfer"]

I have a 32 D series with 24fps, Chord S+ HDMi and PS3, al films have been perfect. The Chord was clearly sharper than the crappy £20 one I had initially, blacker and more depth.[/quote]

Sorry, especially as this is my first post on this forum but that is just not possible.

[quote user="Surfer"]

Try watching "Earth on Blu Ray" or buy a standalone DVD source.

[/quote]

 

[professorhat]

Well, it's a contreversial first post to be sure. Especially as you are saying something along the lines of Surfer has bad eyesight (and therefore can't be trusted) or is lying. To be fair, when I switched to the Chord, I noticed an improved picture from my initial HDMI lead as well. Is this impossible too? I'd like to know what basis you make the bold statement "that is just not possible".

To the OP, I was watching Syriana on Blu-Ray last night, and it was the first time I've noticed some graining on some of the darker scenes. The fact that this was not apparent at all in both Blade Runner and 2001 on Blu-Ray (which clearly both have their fair share of black and darker scenes) shows to me this must be a problem with the transfer to Blu-Ray for this disc. Also, not all dark scenes in the Syriana film suffered from this, just some. It may be some fancier players can accommodate for this and don't show the grain, I'm not sure. What I do know is, a cable can't change what's being transferred from the player, no matter how expensive it is!

 

[Anonymous]

I mean no disrespect but anyone who thinks that an HDMI cable can produce effects such as less deep blacks has to be mistaken.

I'll try to be brief

For this to happen, the cable would have to be altering the live bitstream (millions of bits per second) so that the code was altered to produce an otherwise clear signal but with a slightly inferior colour quality. The idea of selective bit misinterpretation on a massive scale is about as impossible as it gets.

HDMI cables either work or they do not. A faulty cable will lead to massive degradation of picture and sound. Admittedly, there is the "edge of the cliff situation" where the signal starts to get degraded to the point where bits are misinterpreted, but this manifests itself with the likes of "sparklies" appearing on the screen.

Come to that, the only way an HDMI cable can affect the picture quality in any way would be to add or remove degradation to the bitstream information which would affect all aspect of the picture and sound.

No cable can degrade the code in a constructive way. By that , I mean there is no way it could alter the code so that it still produces a clear picture (free from "sparklies"), but with more or less vivid colours , that is a nonsensical impossibility.

 

[Clare Newsome]

[quote user="professorhat"]

To the OP, I was watching Syriana on Blu-Ray last night, and it was the first time I've noticed some graining on some of the darker scenes. The fact that this was not apparent at all in both Blade Runner and 2001 on Blu-Ray (which clearly both have their fair share of black and darker scenes) shows to me this must be a problem with the transfer to Blu-Ray for this disc. Also, not all dark scenes in the Syriana film suffered from this, just some. It may be some fancier players can accommodate for this and don't show the grain, I'm not sure. What I do know is, a cable can't change what's being transferred from the player, no matter how expensive it is!

[/quote]

Syriana is deliberately grainy - one of those films shot to have a high-grain, 'reportage' feel.

I wish directors would quit doing it, as it bugs the heck out of me - yes, Hollywood, we KNOW this is a serious/gritty drama, so you don't have to ram it down our throats by making it as deliberately anti-movie-gloss as poss...

Sorry, rant over.

And talking of movies - this cables discussion is too Groundhog Day for me. I'll just repeat the usual advice: try before you buy on money-back guarantee.

 

[John Duncan]

My new LCD telly in the kitchen had terrible picture from my Hummy PVR - cross-hatching on the screen like bad reception. I replaced the (no-name) cable with one of the shop-bought ones I have lying around (though it's too long, this was just for research purposes), and the cross-hatching is gone. How can this be?!?!?!? All cables are the same!!!

 

[Clare Newsome]

You must have imagined it

 

[Andrew Everard]

We watched Cloverfield on DVD last night, and then changed the HDMI cable. No difference - all the camerawork was still shaky and out of focus, and -

I'll get me coat

 

[John Duncan]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]I'll get me coat [/quote]

Let me help you with that......

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]My new LCD telly in the kitchen had terrible picture from my Hummy PVR - cross-hatching on the screen like bad reception. I replaced the (no-name) cable with one of the shop-bought ones I have lying around (though it's too long, this was just for research purposes), and the cross-hatching is gone. How can this be?!?!?!? All cables are the same!!![/quote]

Simple really. "Terrible picture - cross hatching like bad reception" = severe data degradation = faulty cable.

 

[John Duncan]

Of course. How silly of me. Cables either work or they don't. There cannot be a possibility that some might work better than others.

 

[John Duncan]

This is the end of the cable saga, I think, as there is a new argument at our disposal. If one cable is claimed to be better than another, the lesser one is 'faulty'. QED.

 

[professorhat]

Thanks for the tip Clare, I assumed it must have been the source.

And thank goodness we've solved the cable debate at last! It's just surprising so many TVs get shipped with these faulty cables...

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]This is the end of the cable saga, I think, as there is a new argument at our disposal. If one cable is claimed to be better than another, the lesser one is 'faulty'. QED.[/quote]

Your statement infers that any inferior cable is faulty. That is a very sweeping generalisation and I have no idea how you have come to this conclusion.

The OPs topic is about an HDMI cable of 0.5m in length. My comments were made with specific reference to HDMI cables of less than 10 metres and yes, in this case, they either work or they do not. A faulty HDMI cable will result in significant data corruption and not just specific bits within each data package, which would affect only say the chroma or luminenence information. I hope this clears up any debate, if not I suggest you research the HDMI interface in detail.

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="JohnDuncan"]If one cable is claimed to be better than another, the lesser one is 'faulty'. QED.[/quote]

Why are you singling out QED?

 

[laserman16]

[quote user="SKYNET"]
Hi all,

This is what the cable connects:

Sony KDL - 40W2000 40" LCD TV as recommended by What Hi-Fi.

Panasonic DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player as recommended by What Hi-Fi.

Now this is where either I am going blind or I have fluked a great lead. Being a massive film fan I could not wait to swap across to an LCD TV & Blu-ray movies. So as you can see I bought the best as recommended by 'What Hi-Fi' as soon as they were released in the UK.

The problem? From viewing the Blu-ray films I have noticed a lot of minor screen grain, small pixels somehow showing up from time to time in standard shot films, films like Apocalypto, the Terminator and Day of the Dead to name but a few, clearly show patches of the pixels in blocks and steaks which was not something I expected from this supposed new fantastic format. These are not present in the razor sharp Pixar 'CGI' film 'Ratatouille', now this is the quality I expect.

Call me fussy, from constantly reading the above named magazine I put the poor picture down to a poor HDMI lead that I initially paid £15.00 for. So I went off and again under the advice of the magazine, bought the Chord 1.3 Silver Plus lead £80.00. I replaced the cheap lead with the 0.5metre Chord cable expecting the wayward pixels to vanish! Guess what, exactly the same picture, no difference whatsoever and I have good eye sight!!!

Can someone tell what has gone wrong, how can my cheap no name lead produce the exact picture as the market leader?

Slightly miffed, Neil

[/quote]
Sounds like bad discs to me if as you say "Ratatouille" was fantastic.