Downsides to cheap HDMI cables?

[Assman]

Every single big online shopping site or payservice (yes even your beloved paypal) has had breaches and loss of information before, all which have been on a much much higher scale than the monoprice fiasco. Also, what told you it was a smart idea to save your credit card number to their site instead of using paypal, or just putting it in every time you had to make a transaction instead of saving it?

My beloved PayPal? I mentioned them once in passing and now I'm having some sort of bizarre love affair with them? I created a PayPal account in response to what happened with Monoprice. I had no intention of saving my card information to their site. It was one purchase.

I'm not anywhere near as naive as you're implying I am. I'm well aware that every retailer has had problems like this, and unless it's on a consistent basis, I don't really care. What I do care about it is my personal experiences with them. I don't care how much you or anyone else trusts Monoprice, per my experience, I have no reason to trust them. Understand?

The fact is that both you and monopice are at fault here, so while it sucks that it happened to you don't let that keep you in fear off using a retailer which has always provided a safe, reliable, and consistent experience.

Again, this was my one and only purchase made from Monoprice. I have no reason to go back there. This one single retailer doesn't mean to me what it does to you. I don't know why you're taking my recounting of an unpleasant experience with Monoprice as some sort of personal attack on yourself, but maybe you need to chill, dude.

I'm not trying to start a debate, or shitting on something purely for the sake of shitting on it, but simply passing on an experience. Apparently that was just a dick-move on my part. My bad.

[Niode]

I have a huge 10m HDMI cable that I run from my PC to my plasma. It's extremely thick and well made, I bought it from some generic hdmi cable store on ebay and it cost £25. Works perfectly even at such a long length. Same goes for my £2.50 cable I got from ebay, and the one that was in a pack of PS3 accessories for £5. All do the exact same job no problems at all.

I wouldn't bother spending more than a couple of quid on a cable unless it needs to be long or you need those fiddly L connectors because your screen is wall mounted.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

I remember back in the day when I bought a dot matrix printer for my PC and it did not come with a cable. I stopped by my local Radio Shack and they had a 6 foot cable on sale. There was no price on it so I asked the guy working there what it was. I about fell over when he told me $36.95!!! The guy told me that it had a lifetime guarantee as if that was some great selling point. I asked him whether it was for my lifetime or the life of the cable. He said that it was for the lifetime of the cable. He didn't appreciate it when I informed him that if the cable died, then its lifetime was over and the warranty was void. This was back in the late '80s I believe, maybe the early '90s. I ended going home and ordering one from some ad in Computer Shopper for $3.00. This was back when Computer Shopper magazine was about the size of a large city's phone book, had tons of ads, and only cost $2.95.

BTW: That $3 cable had a "lifetime" warranty also.

JY

[ZeroAX]

I remember back in the day when I bought a dot matrix printer for my PC and it did not come with a cable. I stopped by my local Radio Shack and they had a 6 foot cable on sale. There was no price on it so I asked the guy working there what it was. I about fell over when he told me $36.95!!! The guy told me that it had a lifetime guarantee as if that was some great selling point. I asked him whether it was for my lifetime or the life of the cable. He said that it was for the lifetime of the cable. He didn't appreciate it when I informed him that if the cable died, then its lifetime was over and the warranty was void. This was back in the late '80s I believe, maybe the early '90s. I ended going home and ordering one from some ad in Computer Shopper for $3.00. This was back when Computer Shopper magazine was about the size of a large city's phone book, had tons of ads, and only cost $2.95.

BTW: That $3 cable had a "lifetime" warranty also.

JY

nice story.

[Hobie-wan]

I'm not trying to start a debate, or shitting on something purely for the sake of shitting on it, but simply passing on an experience. Apparently that was just a dick-move on my part. My bad.

I didn't mean to push your buttons man. If you notice there was a smiley at the end, though I wasn't making light of you having your information stolen. My point was that the only way to be absolutely safe is to absolutely not do something. Giving your account number to anyone whether that's Monoprice, Paypal, or the pizza guy there's always a chance that someone nefarious is going to get hold of it. At least Monoprice had the decency to own up to it and send people actual letters as opposed to just an email, a post on their front page you might or might not see, or just hoping that nobody noticed. Am I happy information was stolen? No. Do I respect them for letting me know? Yes.

It was good of you to bring up your experience with them as a counterpoint, I was just providing a little extra context.

[Assman]

I'm not trying to start a debate, or shitting on something purely for the sake of shitting on it, but simply passing on an experience. Apparently that was just a dick-move on my part. My bad.

I didn't mean to push your buttons man. If you notice there was a smiley at the end, though I wasn't making light of you having your information stolen. My point was that the only way to be absolutely safe is to absolutely not do something. Giving your account number to anyone whether that's Monoprice, Paypal, or the pizza guy there's always a chance that someone nefarious is going to get hold of it. At least Monoprice had the decency to own up to it and send people actual letters as opposed to just an email, a post on their front page you might or might not see, or just hoping that nobody noticed. Am I happy information was stolen? No. Do I respect them for letting me know? Yes.

It was good of you to bring up your experience with them as a counterpoint, I was just providing a little extra context.

If I let my buttons get pressed, that's my own fault. I know you weren't intentionally being an ass with your post or anything like that, I was just trying to be thorough with my response to it so I wouldn't end up subjected to another post like Mod Man's, which obviously didn't work so well. I get your point, though. It's cool. I give Monoprice credit for responding to the situation like they did, but I still don't intend to use them again.

[TEKTORO]

I bought two(2) different hdmi cables to test out on my 360.1st pair being generic silver plated hdmi for 19.99 and the microsoft hdmi cables gold plated for 29.99.I did find a difference between the two with microsofts being much better.Example silver hdmi max resolution was 720p and microsofts gold plated pushed 1080p.I noticed less fuzzyness..this was setup to my Vizio.So i guess what may matter is whether its gold or silver.

[GSZX1337]

So i guess what may matter is whether its gold or silver.

Yarp. As long as your HDMI cable is gold-plated, you're fine.

[Koopin_Krackerz]

The only problem I've had with cheap cables in general is general wear and tear. Sometimes some off brand cables I've bought got banged up a bit quickly, but you'll get the same picture regardless.

I've also used monoprice in the past and I haven't had any bad experiences to report.

[Niode]

So i guess what may matter is whether its gold or silver.

Yarp. As long as your HDMI cable is gold-plated, you're fine.

Because the gold plating makes the transfer of those 1s and 0s all the more accurate... It's a digital cable. It ain't gonna make a jot of difference whether it's coated in fucking platinum or silver. Hell it could coated in fucking unobtainium for all I care, it's still going to do the exact same job.