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Blue Jeans Cable shows off 100-ft unamplified HDMI cable
News releases about cable generally come in somewhere between "meh" and "pfft" on our interest-ometer, but this one we couldn't pass up. Blue Jeans Cable, the one-time victim of that cable company, has demoed real quality HDMI cables without the hype. Getting more than about 30-feet of HDMI cable to make good on its "just plug it in, and it works" promise has always been challenging, but Blue Jeans showed off a 100-foot stretch of its 23.5AWG HDMI cable carrying 1080p/60 material at InfoComm this week. No exotic lights, ferrite beads, cryogenic gimmickry or even speed rating here, just quality bulk Belden wire with Bonded-Pair technology that maintains a constant cable impedance and keeps all those bits flowing in synch. Sure, $266 for a 100-foot stretch (shorter lengths are available) of Blue Jeans' Series-1 HDMI cable isn't the cheapest, but you're paying for quality.
Where to get A/V cables
Many, and I mean, many of you have left comments concerning where to get cables for your HDTV. Monoprice.com has been a favorite of many of you but there are other places when quality is a concern. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the cables that Monoprice sells are good but, lets be honest here, there are better out there. A couple of months ago we showed you how to make great quality component cables. BlueJeansCable.com takes out all the guess work, and fun, of constructing these cables. They use Belden cables with Canare ends; just like we did. Last but not least is Monster Cable. Say what you will but these are great cables. Yes, they cost a good amount of money and sometimes their business practices can be questionable, but they make one heck of a cable. HDMI, DVI, and optical are digital so cheap low-priced should preform as good as expensive ones, right? Not from my experiences. Radio shack was clearencing out some cables so I picked up a few optical/s-video kits only to return them as the optical cable just did not sound right. I found it is all in the connector so before you order that ultra-low price HDMI cable, make sure it has a good connector.
