Trends

The Rip

Written by Mint.com
Published Mar 30, 2010
1 min read
The views expressed on this blog are those of the bloggers, and not necessarily those of Intuit. Third-party blogger may have received compensation for their time and services. Click here to read full disclosure on third-party bloggers. This blog does not provide legal, financial, accounting or tax advice. The content on this blog is "as is" and carries no warranties. Intuit does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, reliability, and completeness of the content on this blog. After 20 days, comments are closed on posts. Intuit may, but has no obligation to, monitor comments. Comments that include profanity or abusive language will not be posted. Click here to read full Terms of Service.

If you’ve already splashed out on the huge flat-screen tv, a state-of-art Blu-Ray player, and a satellite dish with a monthly subscription that brings with it hundreds of channels, then it probably seems like it’s a small price to pay for HDMI cables. But, this is exactly the mentality that gets people to pay for this habitually over-priced bit of technological excess. The truth, as our infographic points out, is that there is absolutely no difference between the cheapest and most expensive HDMI cables, at least over shorter runs. If you’re wiring an entire house, you may find these cables to be worth it.

To understand why you shouldn’t pay extra, you need to understand the difference between analog and digital. With analog cables, the signal degrades, with digital cables such as HDMI, it either works or it doesn’t. The signal doesn’t degrade any more than your JPEGs degrade when you put them on a thumb drive.

Embed the above image on your site
<a href="http://www.mint.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/TheRipHDMI3.jpg" target="_blank"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" src="http://www.mint.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/TheRipHDMI3.jpg" alt="" title="TheRipHDMI3" width="500" height="2812" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-9531" /></a><br /> <a href="http://www.mint.com/" target="_blank">Budget Planner – Mint.com</a>

Graphic by Wallstats.com