Choosing the best HDMI Cables in 2020

hello friends Patrick here today we are talking HDMI which is high-definition Multimedia Interface now let's have a quick talk about what it is and then we're going to get into the question that you've probably clicked on this video and that is what HDMI do you need today in the year 2009 now HDMI is a proprietary audio and video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI compliant source device such as a display controller to a compatible computer monitor video projector digital television or digital audio device basically HDMI is a digital replacement for all analog video standards so remember the red white and yellow cables so back in 2012 when the cable landscape was the Wild West the C net came out with an article and I'll link that below this was their headline expensive HDMI cables are a rip off and

offer no difference in picture quality over cheap ones so when a Salesman tries to upsell politely tell them he's wrong and move on with the sale of your other item and in 2012 they were absolutely correct now however the landscape has changed again and well damn it it should have because it's been six years and so it doesn't hold up anymore today we are going to look at the current differences of HDMI cables why you may need to buy a new one but also still don't actually have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars so first off let's quickly look back at cables back in 2012 they were sort of all the same most homes only had 1080p TVs or even monitor screens and the HDMI cable didn't have to work too hard different manufacturing quality can have a slight effect on the ability to transmit the signal over long distances let's say 25 meters or more better made cables may even last a

Choosing the best HDMI Cables in 2020

little bit longer especially if they're nicely braided now better May doesn't actually mean more expensive note no matter what though there is an absolutely no picture sound quality difference between a three dollar 50 cable and a thousand dollar cable back in 2012 so obviously does this hold up today and the answer is a bit of a mixed bag it's a yes and no distance is still an issue however there are now multiple standards of hdmi cables and we need to discuss each sometimes people don't really care about specific specifications of a cable I mean you just want it to plug it in and work and as long as it looks like the cable that fits in that hole over there it must fit so let's quickly look back at version 1 now HDMI 1 was released on December 2002 and it's been a while hasn't it these cables have been around for a long time and it's a single cable digital audio/video connector interface the link architecture is based on DVI so you remember those DVI ones you use for your monitors and these use exactly the same video transmission format and sending audio and other auxiliary data during the blanking intervals of a video stream it allows a data transfer of 4.9 gigabits bandwidth per link the same as a DVI it could only do 1080p at 30 Hertz or 1200 P at 60 Hertz and eight channels and 24-bit audio and probably that last bit is the only meaningful bit it could do 1080p at 30 Hertz and then you could lower the actual resolution was that Pete and 1220 P at 60 now the interesting thing about the first one is that those two things were actually locked you could either do that or that and it couldn't go lower so then HDMI 1.1 came out in May 2004 and added support for DVD audio and then we skipped to version 1.2 and that was released in August and 2005 and added the option of one bit audio and used super audio CDs at up to eight channels and to make HDMI more suitable for use on PC devices in addition it added explicit support for several new formats including 720p at hundred Hertz and 120 Hertz and these are the refresh rates how many times that image actually shows itself and it was really good for PC gaming for example when you could use your HDMI cable to actually get higher fresh rates on a higher refresh rate monitor and it relaxed the pixel format support requirements so that sources were only native RGB output PC sources would not be required to support ycbcr output which is mainly for TV and DVD and basically your devices that go from TV to projector so later on HD mo 1.2 a was released on December 2005 and it had the full specifics of all the previous ones except it added something called consumer electric control CEC and we'll talk about that more in a little bit later because it actually only comes to fruition a few versions later and so then HTML 1.3 was released in June 2006 and increased the maximum to 1080p at 120 Hertz and or 44 TP @ 60 Hertz it also optionally allowed output of Dolby true HD and DTS HD master audio streams for external decoding by ad receivers it incorporates automatic audio syncing and audio

video sync capabilities now a little bit later HDMI 1.38 was released in November 2006 now this allowed devices to speak to one another and control things like volume and on and off and that's actually part of that re-release of the CEC finally other brands have gone on to it and started adding support for CEC so HDMI 1.4 at this stage is the most popular HDMI cable as it could do almost everything in the next three to four years and actually my 1.4 was released in 2009 in also mate now HDMI 1.4 added support for 2k at 24 Hertz 4k at 30 Hertz and 1080p at 120 Hertz which makes some really amazing connections it basically brought around 4k to the home it also added HDMI Ethernet channel HCC that accommodates 8 100 megabits Ethernet connection between the 2 and HDMI connected devices so they can actually share an internet connection it also introduced an audio return channel just called Arc meaning you can have an external audio source connected via HDMI and now would actually be able to speak to other devices that are connected on another agent in my channel and still have the audio come through that which was absolutely amazing it meant a lot less hdmi cables overall but it also meant you could lose your whole system connected to your TV

through one cable and let other things connect to it and use that sound so when you have a console or you have a DVD player but you only have one sound system you don't have to connect it all onto this one sound system it can go to the TV through this arc back to the sound and all of a sudden you've got this really nice eco system at home now hdmi 1.4 a was released on march 2010 and added to mandatory 3d formats for broadcast content which was deferred with hdmi 1.4 pen in the direction of the 3d broadcast market and unfortunately we don't really have any more 3d content at home i know at one point there was a bunch of 3d TVs being sold that's kind of just disappeared if you'd look back so it's not really relevant but then hdmi 1.4 b was released in october 2011 containing only minor clarifications to the 1.4 a documentation and all it did is just allowed the latest use of the hdmi licensing and it's the last one before the future versions of the hdmi specification was produced by the hdmi forum which was created in october 2011 this is where CNET's article stops because we are entering a new generation of content and cables and the reason for my video i hope you still with me

Choosing the best HDMI Cables in 2020

here so hdmi 2.0 reverted by some manufacturers as hdmi UHD was released on September 4th 2013 now hdmi 2 increases the maximum bandwidth to 18 Giga bits this enables hdmi 2 to carry 4k video at 60 Hertz which is 60 frames with 24-bit color depth other features of hdmi 2 includes support for re c 2020 color space up to 32 audio channels up to 1500 and 36 kilohertz audio sample frequency dual video streams to multiple users on the same screen up to 4 audio streams 4 to 0 chroma subsampling 25 frames 3d formats support for 21 by 9 aspect ratio which is this ratio of this monitor right here dynamic synchronization of video and audio streams which basically means your mouth moving and your audio will never go out of sync or hopefully anyway HEA AC and DRA audio standards which is just expanding to more and more things that can work with your TV and improve 3d capabilities and additional CEC functions now HDMI to CAD another revision called 2a and that was released in 2015 and added support for high dynamic range and some static metadata and then hdmi 2.0 B was released in March 2016 with again minor upgrades now HDMI 2.1 was officially announced by the hey GM forum on january 4 2015 and was released on November 2017 it adds

support for higher resolutions and higher refresh rates including 4k at 120 Hertz 8k at 120 Hertz now unfortunately it's not really useful just yet because we don't even have TVs that are 8k they're coming soon they're gonna be in the tens of thousands now HDMI 2.0 also introduced a new HDMI cable category called ultra-high speed and keep that in mind because we need to talk about which certifies cables as a new higher speed that these formats require ultra high HDMI cables are backwards compatible with older HDMI cables something to really remember and all the cables are compatible with the HDMI 2.41 devices though the full 48 gigabits bandwidth is not possible without the new cables maximum support resolution is 10 K at 120 Hertz dynamic a generic specifications are the same but they now include scene-by-scene or even frame-by-frame basis high frame rates are now included for all for kak 10k and enhanced audio return channel which is arc with the word enhanced in front of it so T arc for object based audio formats such as Bobby Atmos DTS X and variable

refresh rates are going to be coming soon so that might be really good for consoles that are gonna take use of it so basically the refresh it matches the game instead of having one set and you'll get the Lich's and screen tearing now there's a few more little bits and pieces quick media switching for movies eliminates the delay that can result in blank screens before content is displayed not that a lot of people suffered from it quick frame transport reduce latency okay so that's still a bunch of words that may not mean much to you so I have broken down some key features that you can take advantage of now in your home and I will point out that less than 1% of people can take advantage of the features of HDMI 2.1 so everything you just heard you could potentially just ignore up to 80 mi - so here is what to look out for in your TV and home theater setup to choose the right cables well first of all the potential resolution of your TV most TVs right now have a maximum 1 or 4k and they're actually quite affordable there's also the are connected devices for example your sound bars there's also HDR 10 color reproduction which basically means better colors and much truer to life depending on how your TV presents it a cue lead and OLED obviously has much better quality of those you know deeper blacks whiter whites and obviously high refresh rates so 200 Hertz sports modes on some TVs you will need a better cable now it's not that hard to manage this and most of the time it's going to be a choice between HDMI 1.4 a or 1.4 and 2 you will have one point four cables lying around the house but they may not do the job if you've just bought a new TV but it's very simple so if you want 4k at 60 Hertz with HDR and sports mode i refresh rate then you will need to get hdmi 2.0 minimum if you don't have a 4k TV you don't need to go out and buy a whole new set of cables one point for a and B will do for all your needs and most of the ones you have at home our dad already unless you've had them for a while so this one for example as you can see it's actually cut is a one point two this cannot work with something like arc it will not push the sound through this on the

other hand is a 2.0 and it's a much thicker cable as you can see it's not fancy it's still plastic this can work with everything 4k 60 Hertz 10 10 bit colors HDR etc etc and here is the premium cable which is got metal house and it's got a braided cable it's a little bit stronger and this one is 2.1 so if you want to connect your sandbar and arc so the TV controls its own sound and so you have only let's say one remote then you will need to grab a 2.0 or at 1.4 be but due to the naming conventions it's still easier to find a 2.0 cable at this stage this is also mean that the best compatibility with that cable it won't really matter for the devices you have you might as well go for the two because it's just not gonna change anything else you'll just have compatibility so what to buy and wear so the idea from CNN is still stands you don't need to spend hundreds on cables you don't want to buy from shops like Harvey Norman's good guys or JB hi-fi as the markup on those cables is insane best places to get a cable at the moment is Amazon a you priced between ten to fifty dollars depending on the length you can

purchase UHD HDMI 2.0 cables nicely braided with solid pins and this is this one here this cost ten dollars its Amina sure it's it's very short run by only needed a meter and I don't want too many cables hanging around but you can go up to $20 for two three meters and so on these are very cheap and these are the best you can get right now so you don't spend $60 on cables I mean you don't need to $15 will do fine I will put a link below for what I bought and by the way I don't have an Amazon affiliate so feel free to also search Amazon on your own just search for hdmi 2.0 and with primates it's obviously free shipping so between these two cables the price difference is about 50% this is six dollars I think with delivery and this was ten dollars with delivery obviously they look a little bit different but they still do the job very very well so what I'm gonna point out to you guys is that yes you can probably get away with HDMI 1.4 with most things and most things will work but if you are finding you're not able to connect some bits and pieces like HDR 10 if you want to use it and to be honest you won't really notice it because is that not that much content yet that use it but there is 4k content and again most content is that four Hertz so you might not even need this cable because this can do 60 but you won't need it there's also the actual color gamut which is 4 2 2 or 4 2 2 2 in any

case whatever one it is you might need a better cable but your TV also has to support it so there's no point buying more expensive HDMI cables if your TV does not support it so basically at the end of the day if you want HD are 10 you've got 4k at 60 Hertz you want all that cool stuff you will probably need to fork out for an HDMI 2.0 and it's not expensive guys thank you very much for watching I hope there's been a little bit helpful I know it's a bit of a longer video and a little bit daunting looking at these but it's not too complicated just yet in the future we'll probably get more and more complicated I'll probably do an update video guys thank you very much for watching like subscribe let me know what you think below are you guys using HDMI 2.0 cables let me know or if you're getting away with some older cables interestingly enough Xbox 1s would not work with a 1.4 cable at a 4k resolution at 30 Hertz so that's something to note it's very picky Microsoft is very picky with guys thank you very much for watching I'll catc