Hiya!

This is probably more simple than what I’m making into, but I want to be sure, so here we go:

Currently in the market for a good HDMI cable, however, I am curious as to what I need to know (as I know nothing about these cables) before buying one. So my use case for this scenario is a 3M long HDMI cable that will connect my desktop(Nobara or Bazzite) to my TV (that has Nvidia Shield). This is for easy access to couch gaming. My desktop has a RX 6700 XT card, but unsure about the specifications of the TV other than it being a 70inch one (can try to find this if its relevant), but I am not looking to stream 4k. So let me know what kinda specs/details i need to look for in a HDMI cable for this :)))

PS. I tried setting up Sunlight + Moonlight, but honestly seemed like a bit too much configuration for my liking, but might give it a go again later on. I’ve also only got access to medium-speed Wifi atm, so this isn’t optional.

  • Saltarello@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    8 months ago

    I never had any issues before with cheap HDMI leads over a short distance, so just to throw something else into the mix for consideration - 4k & cable length. My scenario was getting 4K picture on TV from HTPC (home theatre PC, a PC based media player) via a Dolby Atmos compatible amp. Cable length approx 10m.

    Standard HDMI cables tend to be labelled as “HDMI 2.0/a/b compatible for 4k at 60Hz”. I bought several of these cables & had same issues with all of them - they would not display image on TV (though mysteriously they displayed an image if a games console was used rather than the HTPC). They sell them in all kinds of lengths but in my experience they dont work beyond about 5m.

    Close to giving in, I bought a 10m “active” HDMI optical lead which is directional - one end is labelled source & the other end labelled display.

    First one I bought worked perfectly.

    • towerful@programming.dev
      1·
      8 months ago

      20m 1080p60 is generally fine on cheapo cables.
      5m 4k60 is generally fine on cheapo cables (makes sense, 4 times the data rate: 1/4 the distance).

      So yeh, an active 10m 4k60 cable makes sense.
      Its all hugely dependant on the source and the sink. Some sources are weak and cheap. Some sinks are expensive and can recover data from a garbage signal.

  • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
    81·
    8 months ago

    Most large broadcasters buy the cheapest HDMI cables going, because they do the same job and are cheap to replace

    There is absolutely no benefit to gold plated nonsense

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
      21·
      8 months ago

      I mean, I have had real issues with cheap, not good cables.

      For example, I had one that we found out was the reason our Wifi was intermittently dropping.

      You would plug it in, and the wifi would go out in that area of the house.

  • neidu2@feddit.nl
    61·
    8 months ago

    Cheapest will do just fine in 99% of cases. Only time I’ve needed something more expensive was when I needed to do a cable run that was too long for “normal” hdmi standard (and bundled with a lot of electric cables as part of a permanent install), so i used one of the extra shielded and wider wirengauge cables from Kramer.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
    41·
    8 months ago

    Just get a real one. Not a crappy knockoff or something.

    My wife bought a cheap one once that created one of the weirdest bugs I’ve ever experienced.

    We didn’t realize at the time, but it was actually interfering with the wifi signals whenever we plugged it in. It was a floater cable so we only used it if we had a monitor in random place. But you would plug it in and the wifi would go out (it took quite a bit of trouble shooting to figure out it was the cable not some weird driver/ or monitor issue.