[ApK]

Captain, some of your comments here seem very unlike you.

Weakest link theory? With an analog cable you can a/b a cheap cable and good cable and see a night and day difference, but you'll have to show me some evidence that a cheap HDMI cable is in someway inferior to an expensive one before I'll spend money on the assumption. If I can't tell the difference in picture by looking (as long as the cable doesn't break if you look at it wrong) then I won't spend a dime more. Weakest link theort doesn't apply if the price of the cable doesn't actually effect the strength of the link. Does it?

And Monster cables not good at ANY price? That seems a bit over the top. By all indications Monster Cables are good. Way over priced, but good. In fact, those usually ARE the ones the a/b in the stores to show the night and day difference with the included-in-the-box cables.

 

[ApK]

I read this and their explanation that converting digital->analog->digital may yield better picture quality than straight digital to digital just defies reason. I understand things are scaled and converted, but the less conversions is generally better.

You wisely included the word "generally" and that's the key. In a real system there are real and subtle factors that can be addressed to improve things.

Look at the earliest DVI computer monitors and you'll see that pure untouched digital doesn't automatically mean the end product will look better to human eyes than signals cleverly processed by smart people who know what they are doing. I think that is case here.

 

[ApK]

I would agree with analog, but not digital and let me explain why.

A broken digital cable produces no picture at all. That's bad. I think that's what he meant in response my post. If a cheap cable is actually prone have connections fall apart, that would indeed have a dramatic effect on the picture.

I have to agree there.

 

[ApK]

But my point is that if the cable has a poor connector you will either receive 100% of the picture quality or none at all. With analog you may receive 75% of the picture quality.

No one said you'd see slowly degrading saturtion and sharpness, but actually, you could have a margnial or intermittent connection. Ask anyone DTV OTA fringe area about the 100%/0% thing.

 

[ApK]

I think the point was just not to rely on a cheap poorly made cable that might fall apart, even for digital.