Preparing for 3D - Choosing the Right HDMI Cable

As the industry develops ever more exciting new bandwidth-hungry technologies, the installer and integrator are being asked constantly to help their clients make the best decisions to satisfy their desire for performance, while offering value for money, and simultaneously deliver solutions that are easy to maintain and upgrade.

With the demand for 3DTVs likely to increase, driven by greater availability of content, and we are certain that Super High-Def will be a future driver, how does the installer ensure that their clients get the best performance, but deliver it without risking non-profitable follow-up service and maintenance calls, and future-proof their clients - to a degree.

While the sources, such as Blu-ray players and rendering devices such as plasma and now 3DTVs, are typically rack-mounted or wall-mounted, the connections between are often less accessible and are regularly built into the building structure. It is therefore important to pick a cable supplier that has a reputation for high performance, quality and future-proofing as much as possible. If they offer lifetime product guarantee, even better.

Any signal path is as good as its weakest link and it is important with sources producing ever higher resolutions and rendering devices capable of resolving in very high definition, that the interconnects are the absolute best quality possible, especially where cable runs are long; often the case with installed solutions. Pick HDMI cables which conform to the 'Eye Test' - the industry benchmark for performance. Despite assertion to the contrary in the populist media, countless independent cable reviews have proven that digital performance is not all the same - especially over long lengths. And you do tend to pay for what you get. With more expensive cables, the extra cost being ploughed into better components, better connectors, better screening and uncompromising QC tolerances, not to mention a first-to-market product innovation strategy rather than re-badging off-the-shelf clones.

Lastly, one of the great things about our industry is that technology never stays still, and again, the installer is always looking to future-proof themselves. While sources or renderers can be upgraded, if you pick the highest performing HDMI 1.4 cables now, that is, high-speed, 3D ready, with Ethernet (my pick for the next tech wave) and tested to greater than 1080, you have a fighting chance of not needing to dig it all out of the wall for a good while.