Who has HDMI 1.4 cables for cheap? My friend just bought one from BB for $200 because they told him he needed it. Im telling him he doesn't need to spend that much. He insist he wants 1.4 and not 1.3. So is there anyone selling cheap 1.4 cables?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KurtBJC /forum/post/18269312
jbachmann:
The cables we sell are all compliant under the latest standard, and at Category 1 or Category 2 as indicated on our site. We are, as an HDMI licensee, quite literally prohibited by our Adopter Agreement from using words like "1.4 cable" to describe that fact. Not wanting to get into a trademark licensing spat with HDMI licensing, I am not going to use that terminology.
The only thing which our cables do not do and which is provided for under the 1.4 specification (as an OPTIONAL feature--so "1.4 compliant," even if the terminology were not prohibited, would not mean anything here--a "1.4 compliant cable," if such a description were permissible, might have it or not) is the Ethernet channel. Just within the last week I have shipped spools of our new Ethernet-capable cable to our assembler in Dongguan for sample production. Actual "with-Ethernet" production is still a few months off, because we have not had UL burn tests for in-wall rating nor have we submitted the cables for ATC certification. Once we have those in hand, we'll start producing an Ethernet-enabled HDMI cable.
By the way: for what it's worth, I am personally convinced that this Ethernet channel is a silly idea, and that it will not be widely implemented on home theater devices. It just doesn't make sense to stick a kludgy 1-pair send/wait/receive ethernet protocol into devices which can already be hooked up with dirt-cheap CAT5 cables terminated with plain old RJ-45s and without having to alter the Ethernet protocol to run on a single pair. I will not be very surprised, in fact, if it is never used by anyone, on anything, ever.
Kurt
HDMI Cable from Blue Jeans Cable
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raymond42262 /forum/post/18272022
I thought that 1.4 cables with ethernet were designed to be used with the new 3D players coming out ? I guess I was wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raymond42262 /forum/post/18272022
Also, why is it necessary to have so many different kinds of hdmi cables if they are all backwards compatible ? It does not cost anymore to produce a cat 2 cable than a cat 1 cable (at least it does not cost significantly more to purchase ). It just confuses the consumer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Raymond42262 /forum/post/18272022
Why not eliminate the 1.2 cable and keep the 1.3 until 1.4 becomes widespread and then get rid of 1.3 ? It makes sense to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KurtBJC /forum/post/18272223
The Ethernet channel has nothing at all to do with 3D. The only relevance of 3D to cable is that it does affect the bitrate, and anything that's high-def and 3D is going to, theoretically at least, require a "Category 2" cable. The bitrate/bandwidth spec, though, has not changed at all from 1.3 to 1.4, so there's no change there.
Well, the idea of the new naming convention is to simplify things and focus the consumer's attention on the attributes that matter, so that the confusing use of version numbers no longer is a problem.
As for Category 2 and Category 1: well, the reason that Category 1 cables go on being produced is that there are many situations where a Category 2 cable can't be produced without going to active circuitry. For example, our Series-F2 28 AWG cable is Category 2 compliant to 15 feet, but Category 1 compliant to 25 (and with some minor tweaks we're expecting to stretch that to 30 soon). You won't find a Chinese 28 AWG cable that is compliant at those lengths, and the cost of the cable is indeed a consideration there--bonding the pairs costs money, and so at 15 feet in 28 AWG, for example, it actually does cost more to make a Category 2 cable--about 300 to 400% more on a per-foot basis, in fact.
The reason, simply, is that 1.3 and 1.4 don't contain any provisions that make a 1.2 cable noncompliant. A 1.2-certified cable is, under the revised nomenclature, a "Standard Speed" cable without Ethernet. Likewise, a 1.3 cable is not noncompliant under 1.4; it just lacks Ethernet, which is an optional feature (and, as I've said, one which I do not expect to catch on).
Much of the confusion over spec versions flows from the fact that the spec versions really are not intended to designate for the consumer what the device capabilities are. For example, 1.4 provides for 3D, but a device which does not provide for 3D is not thereby rendered noncompliant--3D, like almost all HDMI features, is an optional, not a mandatory, feature. So, if I tell you that I have a DVD player which is 1.4 compliant, it really tells you nothing other than that the player has HDMI. You don't know, from the "1.4" designation, whether it supports Deep Color, alternative colorspaces, alternative audio formats, 3D, et cetera--to know whether it does, you've got to look at the specific features of the player. And, just as with cable, if I own a 1.3 DVD player, that player isn't rendered noncompliant with 1.4 just because it hasn't been tested under 1.4--the idea is that all compliant devices and cables should work with all compliant devices and cables, but that the existence of a feature on one device or cable will not cause that feature to work unless all necessary parts of the system accommodate it. So, for example, a 3D player should be able to play conventional 2D correctly into a non-3D display, if both are HDMI compliant, but it'll only play 3D into the display if the display is also a 3D display. A DVD player that contains the barest minimum HDMI implementation, with no special features, is still going to be 1.4 compliant as long as it interacts correctly with other devices; and the protocols are written such that if it was compliant under 1.1, it will still be compliant under 1.4.
Kurt
HDMI Cable at Blue Jeans Cable