I can see some really nasty cables not handling huge bit rates too well or perhaps degrading over a long distance but thats no reason to spend £70 on a 1.5m cable. If you see a picture and over a 10 min period you see no dropout (small errors won't generally be noticed) then the cable you have is probably fine for the resolution you are using. Personally i have £5 no name cables running 720p and 1080i content and have had no issues with handshake or general transmission. My advice, don't buy more than you really need. Thats the beauty of digital.
What annoys me more is people who say they can tell the difference between co-ax and optical digital interconnects.... If you are having miss transmition on a audio cable you will soon know about it with the pops and squeaks.
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I can see some really nasty cables not handling huge bit rates too well or perhaps degrading over a long distance but thats no reason to spend £70 on a 1.5m cable. If you see a picture and over a 10 min period you see no dropout (small errors won't generally be noticed) then the cable you have is probably fine for the resolution you are using. Personally i have £5 no name cables running 720p and 1080i content and have had no issues with handshake or general transmission. My advice, don't buy more than you really need. Thats the beauty of digital.
What annoys me more is people who say they can tell the difference between co-ax and optical digital interconnects.... If you are having miss transmition on a audio cable you will soon know about it with the pops and squeaks.