There's an off-repeated piece of advice among AV enthusiasts. If an HDMI cable is built to spec
and it functions properly, there's no reason to spend extra money on something fancy,
because a digital transmission isn't nearly as susceptible to interference as an old-school
analog connection. In other words, it basically works or it doesn't. And indeed, we did a video
on our channel a while back that showed how silly certain over-engineered HDMI cables can be.
But that doesn't mean it's always a great idea to buy the cheapest, most bare-bones cable either.
So to find out what actually matters when buying an HDMI cable, we spoke to Ugreen,
a manufacturer of HDMI cables, and we'd like to thank them as well as Phillips AOC and David Sheff
for his translation services. So it turns out that using the correct material inside of an HDMI
cable can make a big difference, but that doesn't mean that you should go out and find cables with
platinum, unobtainmentium alloy, or whatever other nonsense. Cheaply made HDMI cables sometimes
use steel, which isn't a particularly good conductor, meaning it's something that you
should generally avoid. You might see cables that are made of copper coated steel, but these aren't
really any better. Instead, go for cables with pure copper wiring inside. The good news, however,
is that copper cables aren't super expensive, and you don't need to get anything higher-grade
such as silver-plated copper. What then becomes important is how thick the wiring is inside,
which is measured by something called a gauge number, and counterintuitively a lower number
means a thicker wire. As a general rule of thumb, your cable length shouldn't exceed 1.5 meters
with a thin 32 gauge wire. But as you go thicker and thicker, you can safely have a longer and
longer cable run without having to worry about signal attenuation or interference because your
cables are too thin, as indicated by this helpful chart. However, you won't find much thicker than
24 gauge, since at that point, the cable simply becomes too thick and difficult to bend. Another
thing to consider is the connectors on the end of the cable. Gold plating is better if you can find
it, but take note that I'm not talking about the large part on the outside that manufacturers
often color gold to give the cable a more premium look. I'm talking about the actual contacts on
the inside of the connector. Gold plating won't really affect your performance, but it will give
you better longevity as the gold is an effective barrier against wear and corrosion, especially
if you're unplugging and replugging the cable quite often, which I don't do because my TV
is too close to the wall. Once you've found a cable made with good materials, try and find out
if it's been tested to work with a wide variety of equipment. Some cheaper cables are only tested
with a couple of monitors, so they might not play very nicely with your gadgets if you're running
them in any kind of setup that isn't super straightforward, such as with an HDMI splitter.
If the manufacturer doesn't list testing methods on their website,
read reviews and find out if any other customers have had problems with compatibility.
And on the subject of compatibility, make sure you're buying a premium high-speed cable if you
want 4K at 60Hz or HDR. These have a speed of around 18 gigabits per second, as opposed to the
10 gigabits of the more standard high-speed cable, not premium high-speed, and you'll need the extra
bandwidth to enable higher frame rates and deeper colors. Interestingly, manufacturers actually made
these faster cables not with exotic materials or radical design changes, but simply by improving
the manufacturing process to minimize small defects in the copper that can hurt the signal,
increase latency, and introduce interference. However, faster speeds still mean a smaller
margin for error, so if you're trying to use ultra high-speed 48 gigabit cables to get the most
out of HDMI 2.1, for example, you probably don't want to get a cable longer than 3 meters. Just
remember, generally speaking, shorter and thicker is better. Just ask Kim K. Or Colton.