Topic: Will buy an HD TV soon; Need advice

[vudu]

Perhaps I'm just stupid, but Mono Price is confusing as Hell.   

I just want a damn 3' HDMI cable.  It shouldn't be this hard!   

Is there any real difference between this cable, this cable w/ ferrite cores and this flat cable?  Why are there so many varieties?  Who gives a ****?

What's the difference between HDMI and HDMI 1.3a?  How do I know which one I need?   

[BranDonk Kong]

No difference unless you experience electrical interference, that's what ferrites are for. The first cable has wider gauge wires, but with a 3ft cable, it makes absolutely no difference. Get the cheapest one you can find. The difference between HDMI and HDMI1.3a is support for Dolby TrueHD, 3D over HDMI and "Deep Color." There's no harm in getting a 1.3 cable even if your TV doesn't support the functions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_Comparison

[BlackNMild2k1]

HDMI 1.3a is the new standard.
Higher quality signal and more bandwidth.
like USB 2.0

2 of the cables you listed look like they are shielded for in wall installation. CL2 Rated
the cheapest one isn't.

The 24AWG is the gauge of the wire. The thicker the wire the less chance of degradation of the signal over the length of the cord. At 3 feet you should have no worries.

The most expensive one has a woven thread over the length of the cable.
The gold plated connector is used to improve the connection quality to ensure you are getting the clearest signal possible.

I say get the cheapest one.

[vudu]

Cables are confusing.   

Seriously, I'm not an idiot but none of this stuff is obvious and I can't find a resource that clearly explains what all this jargon means in simple English.  Thank goodness for you guys.  Why do cables installed in a wall need better shielding?

So are one of these things what I want or did I miss something obvious?  I just want a good, cheap HDMI cable.  Nothing fancy.

[BlackNMild2k1]

The shielding (CL2 rating) is the plastic insulation around the copper wire itself.
Prevents easy burning or damage from other things that might take place while hidden away inside of a wall.

Buy the first HDMI cable you linked. The one for $3.XX.
Just be sure 3' is all you need.

Everytime I go to monoprice, I check around the house for any cables or connectors that I or a friend may need since the cables are so cheap. sometimes I get 3 or 4 things and the money paid for parts sometimes equal the cost for shipping.

[DAaaMan64]

How come no one ever talks about buying an upscaling box? There are Wii gamers who have bought 'em. They talk about a few successful models.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I don't think any of us own one or even thought about needing to own one.

[DAaaMan64]

yeah but I've heard that they work, and that would bring your Wii to 720p+. Which would be totally BA.  Course, I'm TV tech retarded.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Upscalers are typically tools to achieve display compatibility when a monitor doesn't support certain lower resolutions and/or connection types.  It stretches stuff to fit stuff.  Stretching Wii's 480p picture to 720p+ doesn't increase the detail in the picture (in many ways stretching SD stuff just makes them look worse), but the upscaler enables the Wii picture to show up on someone's LCD computer monitor by acting as an adapter.

An HDTV only has one resolution: whatever it came with.  When you hookup a Wii to it, the TV will upscale the picture to fit the maximum screen size anyway (disregarding various zoom options).  The quality of the upscaling method varies among TVs and upscaling boxes, just as image editing programs offer different resizing methods (bilinear, bicubic, lanczos, etc).

[DAaaMan64]

Then what is all this jazz about Wii/GC games in 720p via emulators?

[EasyCure]

Lanzocs? Now you're just making things up..

Is that like FONDUE PIT or HARDTIME LONGCORE?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Then what is all this jazz about Wii/GC games in 720p via emulators?

That's about running Wii game ROMs from uber-computers and posting shitty Youtube videos that fail at 720p.

[DAaaMan64]

Can you explain that better? I think you are exaggerating. They really have gotten a lot better looking Wii/GC games that way.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

The games are Wii disc data stored on somebody's fancy computer running on a cleverly made emulator.  The may or may not be running at the full speed framerates depending on the computer.  They're good for making nice screenshots.  But in the real world, you and I will not be attaching these setups to HDTVs so we can play Wii Sports Resort together.

The games may be running at a high resolution, but the videos that are processed via Youtube end up with chopped framerates and resolutions below the 720p finesse that these emulator/hacker people are trying to emphasize.

My standard-def video captures of Wii games in DivX format look better than what those guys attempt to display on Youtube.

[ShyGuy]

Pro, what don't you like about youtube and the H.264 codec? /canoworms