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This review is from: AmazonBasics quick HDMI Cable 6.5 Feet / 2.0 Meters Frustration Free Packaging Electronics

Just to clear any doubt, this cable works also as any other six ft. HDMI wire, as well as the premium ones and it is no better than those that sell at for one penny I really have one in use right now.

I am in the procedure of upgrading my AV receiver and I needed another wire. I bought one branded HDMI cables and not a costly ‘premium’ brand or a less costly ‘discount’ brand because.

AmazonBasics and Other Discount Brands

It’s not an easy call between an AmazonBasics branded wire and someone’s that sells for less plus shipping : but, here is why I went with this time.

If you look carefully, you’ll find the most likely hundreds of HDMI ‘brands’ offered at exclude the ‘premium’ fall in about three ‘types’:

A typically under $10 plus shipping

B typically under $10 but over $5 that meet the criteria for Super Savers free shipping

C listed for as low as one penny plus shipping

AmazonBasics beats group ‘a’ on price and it is more or less on par with group ‘b’ as far as price is worried. Group ‘c’ saves you some dollars and I did order a couple of these myself but, has some extra benefits worth considering if you do not mind paying a little extra.

EASY RETURN I know because I had to return quite some things for different reasons. Makes it easy and, if you’re returning the item because it came faulty or damaged pays for shipping.

WARRANTY these wires come with a 1 year warranty talking about future proofing. If an HDMI cable performs for one year, the ods that it could stop working after that are pretty close to zero. It is possible that the other vendors back their inexpensive cables too I never checked but I’m greatly confident that will be around to honor its warranty and I am not so sure about vendors I know less.

QUALITY ASSURANCE I have never had any problems with ‘cheap’ HDMI cables but it can be reassuring to have Amazon’s name on a wire. My assumption is that did insist on many quality checks before they stamped their logo on the product.

HDMI Background and the FUD of Premium Cables

Let’s face it, HDMI 1.3x cables became a commodity these days. There are ‘premium’ brands, for sure and many look prettier than others for something that goes behind your equipment and no one will most likely see but the fact is that almost all of today’s makes and models meet the criteria for ‘high speed’ or ‘Category 2′ see HDMI 1.3 specifications below. Just to eliminate the misunderstanding, it is worth stating that:

The FUD see meaning below campaign attempting to attract purchasers toward the costly brands makes a series of claims. I’ll address them, as they may apply to this particular cable.

Practically all HDMI 1.3x certified cables are HIGH SPEED or group 2. Only the group two high speed cables support 1080p resolutions.

The HDMI official site advises that HDMI cables under 15 ft. 5m that were made BEFORE the HDMI 1.3 specification can work as group two cables. The FUD assert that signal attenuation is less over a costly cable can be true, nut that is irrelevant on a six ft. Length.

The ‘ultra high speed’ assert that many premium brands make means little or ‘nothing’. As far as I know, there’s NO official HDMI specification for ‘ultra high speed’ and, every time I checked the specifications of cables labelled as ‘ultra’, all I saw was the familiar HDMI 1.3 plans and nothing more.

The ‘premium’, costly HDMI cables aren’t ‘future proof’. The HDMI 1.4 specifications that add an Ethernet channel, an audio return channel, support for 3 D and 4K by 2K resolution use a physically different connector in other words, the highly expensive and the ultra expensive ‘premium’ cables don’t work with HDMI 1.4.

At this length six ft., you’ll get as good a service from a no brand or labeled cable as you could from a super expensive rip off. Any HDMI 1.3 cable can carry, error free, all the signal your electronic equipment may put out.

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Here are the HDMI 1.3 specifications supported by this cable the premium brands and the less costly alternatives:

Maximum signal bandwidth MHz 340

Maximum TMDS bandwidth Gbit/s 10.2

Maximum video bandwidth Gbit/s 8.16

Maximum audio bandwidth Mbit/s 36.86

Maximum Color Depth bit/px 48

Maximum resolution over single link at 24 bit/px 25601600p75

Maximum resolution over single link at 30 bit/px 25601600p60

Maximum resolution over single link at 36 bit/px 1920×1200p75

Maximum resolution over single link at 48 bit/px 19201200p60

SRGB

YCbCr

8 channel LPCM/192 kHz/24 bit audio capability

Blu ray Disc video and audio at full resolution

Consumer Electronic Control CEC

DVD Audio support

Super Audio CD DSD support

Deep Color

XvYCC

Auto lip sync

Dolby TrueHD bitstream capable

DTS HD Master Audio bitstream capable

Updated list of CEC commands only on HDMI 1.3a,b,c

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Note: FUD Definiton

FUD Fear, doubt, doubt.

According to Wikipedia, “the term originated to describe disinformation plans in the computer hardware business and has since been used more broadly. FUD is a manifestation of the attraction to fear.”

Still Wikipedia, quoting Eric S. Raymond: “The idea, of course, was to persuade purchasers to go with safe . Gear rather than with competitors’ equipment. This implicit coercion was usually accomplished by promising that Good Things could happen to people who stuck with ., but black Shadows loomed over the future of competitors’ equipment .”.

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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of five stars
AmazonBasics makes a good HDMI cable,
October 11, 2009

By&nbsp,J. Sundquist New York See all my reviews
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