WEBVTT

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there's an oft-repeated piece of advice among av enthusiasts if an HDMI cable is

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built to spec and it functions properly there's no reason to spend extra money

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on something fancy because a digital transmission isn't nearly as susceptible

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to interference as an school analog connection in other words

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it basically works or it doesn't indeed we did a video on our channel a while

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back that showed how silly certain over-engineered HDMI cables can be

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but that doesn't mean it's always a great idea to buy the cheapest most bare

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bones cable either so to find out what actually matters when buying an HDMI

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cable we spoke to you green a manufacturer of HDMI cables and we'd

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like to thank them as well as phillips aoc and david chef for his translation

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services so it turns out that using the correct material inside of an HDMI cable

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can make a big difference but that doesn't mean that you should go out and find cables with platinum unoptimium

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alloy or whatever other nonsense cheaply made HDMI cables sometimes use steel

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which isn't a particularly good conductor meaning it's something that

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you should generally avoid you might see cables that are made of copper coated

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steel but these aren't really any better instead go for cables with pure copper

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wiring inside the good news however is that copper cables aren't super

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expensive and you don't need to get anything higher grade such as silver

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plated copper what then becomes important is how thick the wiring is

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inside which is measured by something called a gauge number and

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counterintuitively a lower number means a thicker wire as a general rule of

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thumb your cable length shouldn't exceed 1.5 meters with a thin 32 gauge wire but

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as you go thicker and thicker you can safely have a longer and longer cable

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run without having to worry about signal attenuation or interference because your

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cables are too thin as indicated by this helpful chart however you won't find

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much thicker than 24 gauge since at that point the cables simply become too thick

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and difficult to bend another thing to consider is the connectors on the end of

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the cable gold plating is better if you can find it but take note that i'm not

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talking about the large part on the outside that manufacturers often color

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gold to give the cable a more premium look i'm talking about the actual

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contacts on the inside of the connector gold plating won't really affect your

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performance but it will give you better longevity as the gold is an effective

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barrier against wear and corrosion especially if you're unplugging and

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replugging the cable quite often which i don't do because my tv is too close to

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the wall once you've found a cable made with good materials try and find out if

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it's been tested to work with a wide variety of equipment some cheaper cables

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are only tested with a couple of monitors so they might not play very

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nicely with your gadgets if you're running them in any kind of setup that

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isn't super straightforward such as with an HDMI splitter if the manufacturer

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doesn't list testing methods on their website read reviews and and find out if

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any other customers have had problems with compatibility and on the subject of

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compatibility make sure you're buying a premium high speed cable if you want 4k

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at 60hz or HDR these have a speed of around 18 gigabits per second as opposed

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to the 10 gigabits of the more standard high speed cable not premium high speed

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and you'll need the extra bandwidth to enable higher frame rates and deeper

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colors interestingly manufacturers actually made these faster cables not

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with exotic materials or radical design changes but simply by improving the

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manufacturing process to minimize small defects in the copper that can hurt the

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signal increase latency and introduce interference however faster speeds still

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mean a smaller margin for error so if you're trying to use ultra high speed 48

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gigabit cables to get the most out of HDMI 2.1 for example you probably don't

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want to get a cable longer than three meters just remember generally speaking

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shorter and thicker is better just ask kim k

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or Colton this video is brought to you by

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