What no one ever points out is that the chipsets in the TVs should be using proper signal recovery techniques to basically undo all the impairments that occur after those 1’s and 0’s are sent down the line. There is inter-symbol interference, reflections, jitter, skew, and differences in loss between individual conductors. Using simple chip design techniques (i.e. most chip vendors in this market do) causes a vast majority of the problems users complain about.

Find a TV or Projector with advanced silicon (lookup Vividreach) and you experience everything you ever thought HDMI should be. Saw it at CES and it was unbelievable. PS3 sending 1080p/60Hz/Deep Color over 20+ meters of thin 28AWG HDMI Type I cable with instant signal lock. Even better was the same signal working flawlessly over 100ft of Cat5 without any boosters, electronics, repeaters, etc.

Assuming the margins are solid enough, I could get behind a cable that sent 0.8’s instead of 1’s (assuming that’s a scale of the DC voltge). That just means it uses less power and is more ‘green’. That ought to make it worth at least a few dollars more.

The real error in the digital world comes from quantization (initial conversion from analog to digital). This happens on the recording side rather than the playback side, so I guess they can’t soak the consumer on that.

You make a very good point that the artifacts created by digital signal problems are in general very different from those created by analog signal problems. Anyone who has digital satellite TV can attest to the fact that when the signal gets bad, the resulting picture problems look very different than when an analog cable or over-the-air TV signal gets bad.

The funny thing? I’ve seen the snake oil vendors play the other side of this coin as well. I have to shake my head and sigh every time I see a company claim that their product or service has “digital quality”.

It gets other names in the digital world, but it’s caused by the same electrical characteristics of the cable that create what we call “distortion” in an analog signal.

But impedance mismatch and the like are expressly not what the cable packaging is claiming to fix. And signal issues in a digital setup like HDMI is going to show up as the picture going batshit crazy, not as it being not quite as sharp as it otherwise might be. Everything might be analog at its heart, but digital failure modes aren’t like analog ones.

HDMI cables have to pass the test specification to get the HDMI logo. Given how much money the HDMI licensing corporation rakes in, you can bet they’ve got their jackboots ready to stomp on anyone who uses that logo on or claims certification for bum cables.

That being said…

Let’s start with the fact that HDMI signals are digital. The signal is a series of voltage changes indicating ones and zeros. What does it mean to “reduce signal distortion”? That cheap cables send 0.8s instead of 1s?

I know you know better than this.

Everything is analog. Especially high speed digital signals. Ask Rick what can happen to a memory signal as it travels 1-inch down a PCB trace. Prepare for the rant.

Basically, not all of that “1″ gets there at the same time. Then, if there’s an impedance mismatch, some of it bounces back down the cable, then back up the cable. Suddenly, a “1″ might look like a “0″ or vice versa. You should see what nasty stuff multiple reflections can do to a pretty digital pulse.

It gets other names in the digital world, but it’s caused by the same electrical characteristics of the cable that create what we call “distortion” in an analog signal.

So… I’d probably be scared of a $2 HDMI cable. $13 in comparison to the ripoff price Monster wants sounds about right, though.