Quote:
Originally Posted by
GQgeek 
There is a myth that because hdmi is digital, that it either works 100% or not at all. That is untrue. While it's true that over shorter lengths just about any hdmi cable will probably work, over longer lengths, the picture starts to change a little. Audioholics tested a whole bunch of cables with 200k worth of gear and here is the result:
http://www.audioholics.com/education...le-bench-tests
Based off that, I just ordered 2 40 ft cables from monoprice for $27 each. Were it for a more permanent solution I probably would have gone with bluejeanscable, but if the monoprice works and i don't have any snow or horizontal lines or picture drop outs, there's no reason to spend more.
Thanks for the link. This should not be surprising because digital transmission protocols are all simplifications of the analog domain: digital is designed so that there are such large differences between two states (like 1 and 0) that the normal analog vagaries aren't supposed to affect the integrity of the information in the signal. This is how digital can be made perfectly reproduceable and lossless, if margins are set up correctly.
However, as you start to go faster and faster, the digital designer has to be aware of analog limits and design accordingly because the margins available are now very, very slim, and the highest-speed digital designs are basically finely tuned analog circuits. Look at how as CPUs have gotten faster and faster, the kinds of design considerations that have to taken into consideration has become more complex --- the power supply design alone for modern CPUs can be horrendously complicated. Same thing as Ethernet went from 10 Mbps to 100 M to 1G to, shortly, 10 G, and the requisite wiring, signaling, and port specs.
The best analog designers today are mostly working on high-speed electronics and wireless because that is where the money is. Audio and video for the most part don't have the sharpest knives in the drawer thinking about it, and that is very unfortunate. One way that shows up is in the various aftermarket mods for audio tweaks: most of it is laughably amateur hour, wrong, and ineffective.
--Andre
