HDMI LEADS

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Cervelo

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I have just upgraded my 1080pHD TV to a 4K HDR TV and am wondering about my HDMI leads.

I have 1 HDMI lead going into the TV from a AV receiver, which has 3 HDMI leads from Sky Q, Blue ray DVD and a PS4.

The AV receiver can upscale to 4K so I'm wondering do I need to change all my leads or just the one from the AV receiver to the TV, at this moment I'm only thinking about the PS4 as the DVD player and Sky Q are only HD.

All the HDMI cables I have are Monster 1000HDEX HDMI 1.4 purchased in and around 2009 and can be upgraded FOC on their "Cable for Life" upgrade program.
 
The shorthand difference between HDMI 1.4 and 2.0 is 4K at 50/60 frames per second and some enhanced colour depth on the more recent standard. I'm not sure 1.4 can support HDR fully either.

I don't think the PS4 supports 4K (maybe the PS4 Pro does, in which case you may wish to replace that cable)... definitely the cable from the HDMI switch to the TV should be changed and while you're getting one, you should get one for the systems you have that support them, as they're replaced.

If you've got the opportunity to replace free of charge now, you might as well do so for all cables.
 
The HDMI 1.4 cables should work just fine with 2.0 in general, especially if it is high-speed cables, especially (2), of the cables are short'ish enough, and even more so, if you are using an AVR (who amplifies the signal).

Simple test: plug it all in. If it works fine, without sparkles or blocking, then that's it.
Most likely, your cables work just fine. Please note that there is no "soft" quality degradation as such. If you get the picture without artefact, you are good. If you get a picture, then putting in a different cable won't improve the picture.
There is no need to change cables if everything works.

Here's a good article to start if you want to know more: https://www.cnet.com/news/4k-hdmi-cables-are-nonsense/

Don't waste money on expensive cables...
 
newirishman said:
If I remember the Monster "cable for life" programm correctly, you won't just get a new cable when you ask for it - they want to make sure that it is in fact a problem.
Here's some detail: https://www.monsterstore.com/pages/cable-for-life
Click to expand...

that would make sense, but would the new cables for example work for the max 4k settings on the ATV 4k, i had to change some cables as i couldnt select croma 4.4.4 at full resolution
 
Thanks guys for all the answers, I have just sent off all the info to Monster that they requested for the upgrade program, so we will wait and see what they say.
They never asked about my setup, no doubt that will be one of their next questions.

newirishman, you might be correct, I noticed while putting the system back together (Monster wanted the serial numbers from all the leads) that my AV receiver 4K upscaling was not set on.
Well "Holy God Batman, My eyes are hurting", there is definitely an improvement in picture quality but will have to do more testing.
One thing though when I try to set my PS4 to HDR a message tells me my TV does not support HDR
Not sure if this is a lead issue or the AV receiver ??
 
Depends on the AVR pass-through capabilities. Connect the PS4 directly to the TV, and see how that goes. (Again, use a short cable if you have). Would be surprised if it is a cable issues tbh, there is no “HDR” enabled cable as such.
Depending on your TV and AVR, the TV’s up scaling might be better than the AVR.
If you use the AVR to upscale signal, your our existing cable should be alright I’d say given there’s not much of a point of going to settings demanding high bandwidth if you source material is standard HD.
 
Once again you are correct, my AVR doesn't support HDR pass through only the latest AVR from Sony now has this feature
The article you referenced is an interesting read, many years ago when I was building my Hi-Fi system the advise then was to spend a bit of money on the interconnectors and speaker cables,
as these two items can effect how you system can sound but I'm gathering that that rule doesn't necessarily apply to HDMI
I presume this is because one is analogue and the other is digital.
The reason I thought I might need to upgrade was I wasn't happy with the picture when watching TV but I'm after discovering that the picture quality from my SkyQ is not great
Its super on the free HD channels and some others like Film4 but the SkyQ channels in SD are not great and Eurosport is nearly unwatchable
I never had a problem with Sky+ and upscaling to 1080p but it seems the upscaling from SkyQ's SD to 4K is not working to well
 
Last edited:
Just got a response from Monster re my HDMI leads and am a little surprised at their answer

"Hello,
Thank you for your e-mail and the information.
According to one of our technicians, the cable you are using with your Sky Q would need to be upgraded.
The other cables should work with your equipment.
It seems that the Sky Q box is a full 4k resolution and the cable you have is only 10.2Gbps.
The minimum for 4K is 18Gbps so a Monster® Black Platinum Ultimate High Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet would work for this.
Can you confirm that you want to go ahead with this replacement, please? If so, can you confirm which cable is to be replaced and send us the corresponding receipt, please?
Best Regards,
Monster Europe Customer Service Team"

So it would seem from Monster's point of view that if I'm watching 4K content then I should upgrade my leads.
 
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Just coming back to this after five plus years!!!!!

I didn't avail of Monsters offer to upgrade my HDMI leads as I felt it wasn't worth the hassle for very little gain
But since then a few things have changed, the TV is still the same but am expecting that need replacing in the next year or two
Sky Q has been ditched in favour of streaming so no need for a HDMI lead there
The PS4 was replaced with with a PS4 Pro in late 2018 but kept using the original 10.2Gps HDMI leads

In January this year I replaced the AV Amp which brought a few improvements like HDR, improved sound and hopefully future proofing for 8K
But it wasn't until I replaced my old leads with more up to date leads 8K 48Gps HDR that I really noticed a huge difference in picture quality while playing "Call of Duty" on the PS4 Pro.
While the picture quality was in 4K and I considered quite good with the old leads, the level of detail that I now get is like Night and Day
The colours are slightly more vivid but it's more that I'm noticing little details in the scenery and equipment I use in the game that I never noticed before and viewing things in the both nearby and in distance seem to be slightly more in focus and lastly when I do upgrade to the PS5 Pro later this year I know that my system is more then capable of handling it

So to wrap up and answer my original question if you've made the move to 4k and run your viewing or gaming needs through an AV Amp then I would highly recommend that you invest in some good quality HDMI leads to get the most from your equipment
 
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