It's easy for marketing messages to convince you that a fancy HDMI cable will do more than the others. But in reality, all you need is a cheap HDMI cable that can pass a 4K/60Hz signal reliably. But when you know what to expect from your HDMI cable, finding the right one is simple. It’s usually a matter of considering the cable size, its general construction, and the specific HDMI format it uses. When running HDMI cables through a room, you generally want to use a flat cable. They can slip under rugs, run smoothly along the edges of a doorway, and can become almost invisible once installed. They’re also the right choice for most in-wall installations.

Best HDMI Cables for Your TV in 2023 - CNET The Best HDMI Cables for Your TV in 2023 - CNET

There are several HDMI formats. But you really only need to keep your eye on a couple of them. The first pair to know are HDMI 1.4 and 1.4a. The two are basically indistinguishable at this point because any HDMI 1.4 product that’s not terribly old will be made to the 1.4a standard. The original Standard or Category 1 cables were certified to handle 1080i or 720p video. The later High Speed or Category 2 cables took the bandwidth up from 4.95Gbit/sec to 10.2Gbit/sec, which meant they could transport 1080p video at 60 frames per second or 60Hz, or 4K video at 30fps or 30Hz. Category 3 or HDMI Premium cable reaches 18Gbits/sec and supports 4K video at 60Hz, while the highest spec Category 3 (8K) or Ultra cable can do 4K at 120Hz or 8K at 60Hz. If your source device is at one end of the room and your display is at the other (such as a video projector and its screen), or if your source and display are in different rooms, you might need a cable with a built-in signal amplifier to ensure the data can be transmitted from one end to the other. You’ll commonly find these cables classified as “active” HDMI cables (preface each of the cable types we’ve already discussed with “active”). Another solution for long cable runs is an HDMI signal booster, such as the Key Digital KD-HDFIX22. Holding the Ultra Clarity Flat HDMI Cable, the flat white cabling looks fairly unremarkable. Lettering on its side intermittently reminds you the cable is of high speed HDMI bandwidth. Each cable ends in a bright orange HDMI connector. The connector is absolutely hideous, and that’s a good thing.HDMI has become the standard connection for hooking up your TV or projector to Blu-ray players, media streamers, set-top-boxes, gaming consoles and home cinema systems. And while it’s now been around for nearly 20 years, it keeps evolving to cover new resolutions and features. The longer the distance that a signal needs to go, the more likely that parts of that signal won’t reach its destination without amplification (e.g., an active cable or a signal amplifier box).

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Meanwhile, eARC (the “e” standing for “enhanced”) is a more recent upgrade to ARC along with the HDMI 2.1 standards. Taking advantage of the torrential 48 Gbps that Ultra High Speed cables support, it can fully support uncompressed audio. Since eARC is baked into HDMI 2.1, you will need an Ultra High Speed HDMI cable to get the full effect. Length and wall installation

Flat Hdmi Cables

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HDMI Cable Types - Lifewire Everything You Need to Know About HDMI Cable Types - Lifewire

With so many cords connected to your devices, it can be difficult to determine which one you want to grab at a glance. Especially because so many cords end up looking the same. The cream-soda orange color of these connection headers makes them tough to mistake for any other cable.Tether Tools is a company that makes high-quality HDMI cables that are very popular with photographers thanks to their performance and dependability. Thanks to the HDMI Mini connection (Type C), this cable makes it easy to connect your camera to a TV or monitor without needing any fiddly adaptors. Cables, HDMI or otherwise, do one thing: transmit data. HDMI data is measured in gigabytes per second (GB/s). You’ve also likely seen version numbers floating around as well (HDMI 1.4, 2.0, and, more recently, 2.1). These technically describe the communication standard being used by the hardware you’re connecting with the cables, rather than the cables themselves. All you need to know for our purposes is that you should get a Premium High Speed cable (18 GB/s) to connect HDMI 2.0 devices and an Ultra High Speed cable (48 GB/s) for HDMI 2.1 gear. If your hardware supports 2.0 or 2.1, you need the matching cable to take advantage. Older cables will still work, but the data will be throttled to whatever the cable can support, limiting framerate and resolution. Not everybody needs 4K cables, 3D features, or nearly three dozen separate audio channels. HDMI 1.4 cables are still widely used, and are often a bit less expensive than their HDMI 2.0 counterparts. While HDMI 2.0 is actually about five years old, 2.0b is not yet three years old. The difference between these formats is actually quite simple. The newest version, 2.0b, carries double the bandwidth of the 2.0 format, reaching a maximum of 18Gbit/s. That higher bandwidth is necessary for 2.0b to support high dynamic range content. Cable Size If you’ve heard of HDMI specifications (e.g., HDMI 1.3, HDMI 1.4, HDMI 2.0, and HDMI 2.1), you might wonder how HDMI cables relate to them.