Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Consumer tip #27B

For those of you into the HiDef world, a bit of advice if you're thinking of getting an HDMI cable.

Right now, I just have my cable box hooked up to the TV with component cables, but since I'm getting a Playstation, I figured I would get an HDMI cable to hook it up to the set. So I went to Best Buy and Circuit City to check out the prices.

Outrageous!

The cheapest I saw was $59.99 for a 6-foot cable at Best Buy - and that was their own in-house brand.

Monster Cable was even more ridiculously overpriced at $79.

So I went on the web, found an outfit in California that sells all sorts of HiDef equipment and got a 6-foot HDMI for $7.26. Even with the $7 UPS shipping charge on top, it's not even close (and no tax either).

And the dirty little secret with these cables - there's no difference in quality: store brand, Monster or this outfit. HDMI is delivering a digital signal to your set, zeroes and ones; it either works or it doesn't, there's no real drop-off in quality.

What a rip-off if you pay 60 bucks or more.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The only time HDMI drops off in quality is the length of the cable. It drops off the longer it is, so you shouldn't get more than 6 feet if you can help it, but most people's components are closer to their sets than that so it's usually never a problem.

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