I Spent a THOUSAND Dollars on HDMI Cables.. for Science

Comments · 8.2K

• LI

  @LinusTechTips · 4 years ago · pinned

  A follow up: Belkin reached out to explain the results we saw with their cable: "Our coax design is that pins 2 5 8 11 and 17 are connected to a common ground shield to create a shield loop – so it would fail a continuity test – but it doesn’t mean that the cable fails. The reason Belkin chose this design is because it creates a shield loop to protect it from interference."

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• MA

  @marxmaiale9981 · 4 years ago

  The Included cables with 'Anything' are of key importance. We all get them. Add a segment to any product review about the Included cables.

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• SE

  @SethEverman · 4 years ago

  i spent around $330 USD on my 65 foot active optical HDMI 2.1 cable, to reach the projector i have. does not work <3

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• NT

  @ntb3884 · 4 years ago

  This is the kind of content that basically only LLT can do and is amazing to see your team doing

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• IA

  @ianv.rodriguez8367 · 1 year ago

  We really need a refresh of this

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• OK

  @Oktivian · 4 years ago

  <b>looks down at my 8 year old HDMI cable</b><br><br>Have you been betraying me all this time?

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• SI

  @SirWade · 4 years ago

  Sweet! Can we do the same thing now.... with DisplayPort? 😅

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• AR

  @argh7733 · 4 years ago

  So Linus is the guy who has all my HDMI cables when I need them !

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• GE

  @georgen9838 · 4 years ago

  Hi, ex-professional network cable installer/designer here. Relevance: we tested all runs, existing and new, with a calibrated cable certifier before any project could be called completed. &nbsp;(Trust me, that is a <b>lot</b> of cable testing!) &nbsp;A few comments:<br><br>1) That used-in-office ROG cable that &quot;failed&quot; may have actually been good when it shipped. You mentioned that it only failed continuity, and the video showed the continuity only failed on the shell -- the shell is by far the most common point of failure for a cable after repeated use, as it commonly takes the brunt of the beating from even typical bending of the cable where the housing ends. &nbsp;A few severe angles there under stress from some accidental yanks can do a number on them over time. &nbsp;(That said, get rid of it anyway: the shell ties to chassis ground, and a floating ground of any type can be hell on signal integrity. &nbsp;It served its time honorably; it&apos;s time to retire it. &nbsp;But props on ROG for sourcing a good quality cable.)<br><br>2) Seeing the same pairs fail across a number of different cables is actually remarkably common. &nbsp;Particularly with high signaling speeds, crosstalk across wire pairs can be a serious limitation on the performance of the overall cable, and the internal layout of the pairs relative to each other within the cable are very commonly the same not just across different cables or batches, but even across multiple manufacturers. &nbsp;There is more detail wrt why that is, but I doubt anyone&apos;s <b>that</b> interested. :) &nbsp;(This is, incidentally, true even when one takes into account different OEMs -- a consideration that I wish the video had at least mentioned, considering neither Amazon nor Monoprice manufacture their own cables. &nbsp;Heck, I wouldn&apos;t be surprised if Belkin doesn&apos;t for the majority of their cables either...)<br><br>3) For HDMI 2.1 in particular, you&apos;re right that long cables are much less likely to pass, but for that info to be useful to &quot;the average consumer&quot;, you should probably note what that <b>actually</b> means. &nbsp;A lot of the HDMI 2.1 spec doesn&apos;t require bandwidth greater than the 1.4/2.0-era Cat 2 spec. &nbsp;Specifically, if you&apos;re running up to 4K 60Hz without HDR or 4K 30Hz with HDR (or 1080p with pretty much any fancy feature you want), an HDMI 2.0 (&quot;Premium&quot;) rated Cat 2 cable is well within spec for those HDMI 2.1 applications -- which also means it&apos;s much easier to find longer runs that are spec-compliant, assuming no interference issues with the run of course.<br><br>If you do need Cat 3 spec&apos;d cables, just don&apos;t even plan on long runs without active components or the like, honestly. &nbsp;AFAIK there hasn&apos;t even been a single HDMI cable by any manufacturer certified to run past 15-16ft, and I&apos;m pretty doubtful that we&apos;ll ever see a certified passive 25ft Cat 3 any time in the near future if at all (bad spec design on HDMI&apos;s part -- another long story the details of which I&apos;m not throwing in here; this is long enough already). &nbsp;And if you&apos;re doing any long runs *at all*, you will want to stick with the officially certified Premium or Ultra High Speed products, with the HDMI.org sticker on them. (And verify their cert, of course!)

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• AR

  @Artamos1020 · 4 years ago

  Riley’s over dramatic acting is probably one of the best investments LTT has ever made. GG Riley

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• AN

  @AnthonyCSN · 4 years ago

  I don&apos;t even need new HDMI cables but I feel like buying new HDMI cables...

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• US

  @USMC-es4yy · 3 years ago

  Some purchase recommendations at the end would have been nice!

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