3D TV PCWORLD sellers full of s%#t or not you decide.

[wenglishboy]

Hi people ive bought a 3D tv from pc world and they try to tell me that i had to buy a special hdmi cable that was capable of full 3D experience. the salesman was trying to say that i wouldnt get the true experience of 3d. Is this true???

Its got me wondering if because i am playing 3d mkv files through my pc via a pci to hdmi cable am i loosing any quality of 3d

also i am playing cod black ops 2 through a normal hdmi cable am i loosing quality on this?

Ive yet to get the experience that i got from the telly in the shop when deciding to buy it... am i expecting to much from 3d or is my setup incorrect these are the questions the pc world salesman has left me with.

I have a bluray 3d player and have yet to fork out for a film will i notice an improvement if i did or is the dvd going to be a let down too.

Is there anyone out there that can put me straight...thanks.

 

[bobby123]

that's full of shit my lg3d works grate with just normal hdmi

 

[Exos]

As long as it's labelled high speed it will work fine, nothing special about it tbh. Doesn't surprise me though, PC World staff are completely ill informed.

The HD 3D signal’s bit rate is 6.75 Gbps (gigabits per second) so I'm not even sure it needs to be 1.4 and 1.3 will suffice.

 

[little_pob]

... Doesn't surprise me though, PC World staff are completely ill informed...

They're also on commission

 

[Rat]

Currys tried the same thing with me when I bought a 3D Blu Ray player
the guy was adamant that the HDMI leads I had would not work and I needed the ones that were for 3D and cost around £60, £20 cheaper than the player I just bought lol
he even said that Id be back to buy the lead coz it wouldn't work

I never went back because the cheap ones I had worked perfectly

 

[jamesyboyjim]

Hdmi being a digital connection will either work or it won't, there is no inbetween it's simply not how a digital connection works so if its working now, no £100+ cable will improve anything in the slightest.

 

[IANB]

Ah but how do we know
Maybe the 3d is something special with the £60 lead.

Nah bollox they are chasing commision

 

[Pete_London]

They also do this with printers saying you'll need this cable costing £14 when you get one off flea bay for £3

 

[Rat]

It's wrong though aint it that they can blatantly lie to make you spend more money

I told they guy outright that he is talking a load of cods wallop and he is trying to fool the wrong person, but he still carried on believing his own lies lol

but some people arnt as wise and fall into the trap of believing the salesman and handing over that unnecessary cash

 

[CoolHandLuke]

I got a free 1meter monster lead with my tv 1.4 gold plated blah blah was £39.99 obviously it was not long enough so my 5 meter one from china £3.99 does just fine cant tell the difference.

 

[saj1985]

the guys talking BS......tell him where to go lol

 

[nara]

Hdmi being a digital connection will either work or it won't, there is no in between it's simply not how a digital connection works

Bottom line. Ye cannae change the Laws of Physics Cap'n.

It's wrong though aint it that they can blatantly lie to make you spend more money

I told they guy outright that he is talking a load of cods wallop and he is trying to fool the wrong person, but he still carried on believing his own lies lol

There's the problem. Although he's talking bullshit, he may well believe it. The technical knowledge of many of these salesmen is p*ss poor. They just spout what they've been taught.

 

[DaveyH]

A few points,

There is no such thing as HDMI 1.x cables. Its a hardware spec adopted by cable manufactures for BS marketing, and the use of such designation for cables was banned by by HDMI org a couple of years back (they're just really lax at enforcing it)

'Standard' HDMI cables are designed, tested and certified for reliable transmission of 720p/1080i video. (that's not to say a standard cable won't support higher resolution and 3D etc, they're just not certified to support it - I have plenty of standard cables that exceed their certification)

'High Speed' HDMI cables are designed, tested and certified for reliable transmission of Deep Colour, 1080p, 3D, 4K and beyond.

Of course any HDMI certified cable will work as well as any other so a £2 will work equally well as £200 one. So no need to waste money on boutique ones that only purpose is to extort money from the gullible, and anal retentive audio/videophile types

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Exos]

There is no such thing as HDMI 1.x cables. Its a hardware spec adopted by cable manufactures for BS marketing, and the use of such designation for cables was banned by by HDMI org a couple of years back (they're just really lax at enforcing it)

Factually incorrect and debatable to be fair, but that's not to say any standard cable will work with 3D providing it's high speed. The other one is i've purchased 99p - £2.00 HDMI cables and a) the quality is crap, both make and signal and some functions do not work such as Panasonic's Smart Viera or Samsung's Anynet+, i ended up replacing mine with a couple that cost me a tenner each.

As you stated as I did myself prior, high speed are generally certified, but the cheap cables are not usually officially HDMI Certified. The specification exists for a reason. It takes time and a lot of testing for the specification to become official. Many variables are weighed out and complexity versus quality tradeoffs are made. When a manufacturer makes a cable loosely made on a specification you might have issues with the cable. On the other hand, for a manufacturer to become certified they only have to pass the certification once. Only one cable or batch of cables might be tested. Everything else that is produced might not even go through quality control and yet still be branded certified.

Gauge
Part of the certification (and HDMI spec) is a cable minimum gauge. If you are using a certified cable, everything should be ok. Companies like Monster tend to put way too much emphasis on the gauge though. Just because your HDMI cable can lift a Hummer off the ground does not mean your signal is going to be any different than a cable that uses the certified minimum gauge. A cable that is so thin that you can break it by bending it, on the other hand, will probably either stop working over time or create transmission problems.

Length
It is commonly stated that all HDMI cables are created equal because it is a digital signal. While this is close to the truth when the spec is followed, it's not always true. The one major thing that can really destroy your signal quality is the length of the HDMI cable. It's true that HDMI signals are digital, and digital signals are 1's and 0's. The problem is that there is no such thing as a 1 or a 0 in digital electronics. It is represented in various ways. Lack/Presence of a signal, a positively magnetically charged or negatively magnetically charged medium, voltage at a certain value, etc... For instance a hard drive stores data using magnetism. The signal stored is read against an expected value range. For instance a 1 can be stored at a signal strength of 10 (while a zero is -10). A signal strength of 9.6 will also be read as 1. This is how overwritten data can be recovered. While a hard drive will read something as a definite 1 or 0. The signal strength can be used (with the help of sensitive equipment) to approximate what the previously written value was.

How does this relate to your HDMI cable? As the length of the cable increases, not only does the signal strength decrease but so does the differentiation between each subsequent bit. If the signal quality is so bad that the machine at the other end cannot tell where one bit starts and another ends, it can guess (based on the signal strength) an incorrect value. The resulting signal is still digital, is it not? And yet it is incorrect. A poorly constructed cable’s signal degradation is affected by this problem, while high-quality cables often have active boosters. Thanks to this the signal strength stays at values that can be properly read (as a 1 and a 0) and will not blend with their neighboring bits

Version 1.0 to 1.2

HDMI 1.0 was released December 9, 2002 and is a single-cable digital audio/video connector interface with a maximum TMDS bandwidth of 4.95 Gbit/s. It supports up to 3.96 Gbit/s of video bandwidth (1080p/60 Hz or UXGA) and 8 channel LPCM/192 kHz/24-bit audio.[2] HDMI 1.1 was released on May 20, 2004 and added support for DVD-Audio.[2] HDMI 1.2 was released August 8, 2005 and added support for One Bit Audio, used on Super Audio CDs, at up to 8 channels. It also added the availability of HDMI type A connectors for PC sources, the ability for PC sources to only support the sRGB color space while retaining the option to support the YCbCr color space, and required HDMI 1.2 and later displays to support low-voltage sources.[2][51] HDMI 1.2a was released on December 14, 2005 and fully specifies Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) features, command sets and CEC compliance tests.[2]

Version 1.3

HDMI 1.3 was released June 22, 2006 and increased the single-link bandwidth to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbit/s).[2][46][133] It optionally supports deep color, with 30-bit, 36-bit and 48-bit xvYCC, sRGB, or YCbCr, compared to 24-bit sRGB or YCbCr in previous HDMI versions. It also optionally supports output of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio streams for external decoding by AV receivers.[134] It incorporates automatic audio syncing (audio video sync) capability.[46] It defined cable Categories 1 and 2, with Category 1 cable being tested up to 74.25 MHz and Category 2 being tested up to 340 MHz.[116] It also added the new type C Mini connector for portable devices.[105][135]

HDMI 1.3a was released on November 10, 2006 and had Cable and Sink modifications for type C, source termination recommendations, and removed undershoot and maximum rise/fall time limits.[2] It also changed CEC capacitance limits, clarified sRGB video quantization range, and CEC commands for timer control were brought back in an altered form, with audio control commands added.[2] It also added support for optionally streaming SACD in its bitstream DST format rather than uncompressed raw DSD like from HDMI 1.2 onwards.[2]

HDMI 1.3b, 1.3b1 and 1.3c were released on March 26, 2007, November 9, 2007, and August 25, 2008 respectively. They do not introduce differences on HDMI features, functions, or performance,[136] but only describe testing for products based on the HDMI 1.3a specification regarding HDMI compliance (1.3b [98][137][138]), the HDMI type C Mini connector (1.3b1 [98][137][138]) and active HDMI cables (1.3c [123][139]).[136]

Version 1.4
HDMI 1.4 with Audio Return Channel

HDMI 1.4 was released on May 28, 2009, and the first HDMI 1.4 products were available in the second half of 2009.[109][140] HDMI 1.4 increases the maximum resolution to 4K × 2K, i.e. 3840 × 2160p (Quad HD) at 24 Hz/25 Hz/30 Hz or 4096 × 2160p at 24 Hz (which is a resolution used with digital theaters); an HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC), which allows for a 100 Mbit/s Ethernet connection between the two HDMI connected devices so they can share an Internet connection;[59] and introduces an Audio Return Channel (ARC),[58] 3D Over HDMI, a new Micro HDMI Connector, expanded support for color spaces, with the addition of sYCC601, Adobe RGB and Adobe YCC601; and an Automotive Connection System.[109][141][142][143][144] HDMI 1.4 supports several stereoscopic 3D formats including field alternative (interlaced), frame packing (a full resolution top-bottom format), line alternative full, side-by-side half, side-by-side full, 2D + depth, and 2D + depth + graphics + graphics depth (WOWvx),[106][145][146] with additional top/bottom formats added in version 1.4a. HDMI 1.4 requires that 3D displays support the frame packing 3D format at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24.[146] High Speed HDMI 1.3 cables can support all HDMI 1.4 features except for the HDMI Ethernet Channel.[106][145][146]

HDMI 1.4a was released on March 4, 2010 and adds two additional mandatory 3D formats for broadcast content, which was deferred with HDMI 1.4 in order to see the direction of the 3D broadcast market.[147][148] HDMI 1.4a has defined mandatory 3D formats for broadcast, game, and movie content.[147] HDMI 1.4a requires that 3D displays support the frame packing 3D format at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24, side-by-side horizontal at either 1080i50 or 1080i60, and top-and-bottom at either 720p50 and 1080p24 or 720p60 and 1080p24.[148]

HDMI 1.4b was released on October 11, 2011.[149] One of the new features is that it adds support to 1080p video at 120 Hz.[150] All future versions of the HDMI specification will be made by the HDMI Forum that was created on October 25, 2011.[43][151]

Version 2.0

The HDMI Forum is working on the HDMI 2.0 specification.[151][152] In a 2012 CES press release HDMI Licensing, LLC stated that the expected release date for the next version of HDMI was the second half of 2012 and that important improvements needed for HDMI include increased bandwidth to allow for higher resolutions and broader video timing support.[153] Longer term goals for HDMI include better support for mobile devices and improved control functions.[153]

On January 8, 2013, HDMI Licensing, LLC announced that the next HDMI version is being worked on by the 83 members of the HDMI Forum and that it is expected to be released in the first half of 2013.[12][13][14]

Based on HDMI Forum meetings it is expected that HDMI 2.0 will increase the maximum TMDS per channel throughput from 3.4 Gbit/s to 6 Gbit/s which would allow a maximum total TMDS throughput of 18 Gbit/s.[154][155] This will allow HDMI 2.0 to support 4K resolution at 60 frames per second (fps).[154] Other features that are expected for HDMI 2.0 include support for 4:2:0 chroma subsampling, support for 25 fps 3D formats, improved 3D capability, support for more than 8 channels of audio, support for the HE-AAC and DRA audio standards, dynamic auto lip-sync, and additional CEC functions.[154]

This is not to say that you should spend hundreds on a cable, I'm just stating that there are different quality levels.

What's the conclusion from all this? If you buy an HDMI cable, keep some things in mind. If the cable is £2 after shipping, it is probably made from the cheapest stuff the manufacturer could find. Try to buy cables that are HDMI certified or at least, knowing what you read here, guess at the quality of wires, the connectors, etc. If you are buying a long cable (over 25 feet), make sure the signal strength is kept somewhat constant between the two end points.

 

[jamesyboyjim]

Although your post was excellent, the point here exos is that a 99p cable will give the same picture quality as 70 quid one, it might not work properly as a hdmi Ethernet or 4k but if your just after a 1080p picture there really is no difference. The op was worried that he isn't getting the best image available on his 3d setup and as its working he won't achieve better

 

[wenglishboy]

thanks guys wow my head is now battered from reading that rather large but imformative post on hdmi standards and i wont pretend i understood it all.

so i guess the bloke was not talkin bulshit in some respect however the truth was twisted in favour of a sale for sure. never mind that then... what about playing an mkv file through my dvi to hdmi cable from my pc. should i go out and buy a blue ray film of the same name would i get the same quality and effect or would you guys agree that loss of depth,quality what ever else could would and does occur?

 

[jamesyboyjim]

If the mkv is encoded in the exact same way the Blu film is, same res, quality bitrate all that nonsense it should look as good as the Blu ray mate

What exos posted mate no sales chump in pc world would know that so they were deffo after the sale

 

[edogg]

It wont be cable that is causing loss of quality all hdmi cables are equal

 

[Exos]

Was in PC world today (work related, but actually needed a HDMI cable). Got one for nothing from the business sales guy as he had one in the back.

PC world have their own range (Sanderstrom or something) They have the cheek to charge £90!!!!! for a "Gold" series 21Gbps cable, then £70 for a "Silver" series 15Gbps cable and £40 for a "Standard" cable, all 1m or 2m. I mean seriously, that is making some major profit as well as taking the pi$$. They should be shot for that.