I was planning on getting the Onkyo SR606 and a 52" Sony XBR4.
I want to pass my PS3 and other components to an AVR and be able to watch in 1080 24p deep color on my TV 20' away (plus 10' vertical). I was wondering if an hdmi 1.3a cable is needed even though I don't require the HD audio to go to the TV. Does the signal pass through with the full bandwidth only? It seems the price for a 30' hdmi 1.3 cable is very pricey compared to the 1.2 cable for a 30' run, plus monoprice has the flat hdmi cable which I think would be easier to work with. Does the AVR also make a difference in passing the signal through 30' without degredation?

Any input is appreciated. Thanks

You will probably be fine with a 30' non 1.3 cable. I have tried a few 25 & 35 foot Monoprice cables and they work fine at 1080P. I would use the thicker cable to avoid loss. Having said the above 30' is a fairly long length for HDMI and it is always possible that there could be issues. I would try the standard 30' cable and see if you have sparkles. The good thing about Monoprice is that they will take the cable back if it does not work for you.
You will have to pay shipping but I think it should be worth it.

Does the AVR also make a difference in passing the signal through 30' without degredation?
Passing through the AVR should make no difference. The AVR typically has an HDMI amplifer/repeater at the HDMI output.

You're not going to see Deep Color on BluRay for quite a while. It's not currently part of the spec.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/853

tokerblue - Very informative article. I guess the deep color and hd sound advertising fooled me!
crutschow - So typically, there is no variation in AVR HDMI amplifier/repeater strength?
rwestley - I guess in the end, I have to try it for myself.

Thanks all

Hey westley, that article was okay, but dated sometime in 2007, which is ancient history for emerging technologies.

I take exception to the author's comment "Ironically, the shift to HDMI has brought us full-circle back to cramming all of our picture and sound together onto a single cable." When we used to "cram" all of our signal down a single cable, we used coax--a single pair of wires with shielding, positive and negative. HDMI is 19 wires in a bundle, or a "snake" which would probably be more correct.

crutschow - So typically, there is no variation in AVR HDMI amplifier/repeater strength?
The strength of the signal is usually not the problem with a digital signal, it's the frequency response of the cable. Long cables can distort the signal preventing the separation of the one's and zero's. Thus an equalizer/repeater may have to be used at the end of the cable to compensate for some of the frequency response effects of the cable and allow proper detection of digital signal.