The HDMI cable has been the subject of much controversy within the industry. We have had many issues with its connectivity and syncronisation beetween devices.

An American dealer of our acquaintance has taken the time to vivisect a couple of brand majors in HDMI cables ...

The first one is a very well known brand that the dealer was forbidden under pain of litigation and trade excommunication from broadcasting the name of. The tenuous and untidy nature of the soldering to the 19 pins is clearly apparent ... if any signal at all gets through to the one we've outlined in red it would be a bleeding miracle ...

The second one is less well known but very prolific brand that appears under many other brand name guises around the planet. Sadly this is typical of much of the HDMI marketing being carried out at the moment. The soldering is clearly of a quality that only could result in shorts and leakage ... god forbid if this level of construction quality ever gets into our automobiles and aeroplanes ...

There is just no way that these cables are going to work as advertised. The workmanship is completely sloppy. Mostly these cables are being sold as profit lines through chain stores and franchises where the sales people have no personal liability for installation issues or poor audio video performance but whose only real accountability is to their weekly commision payouts.

A true specialist store could not get away with purveying cables of this construction quality, they would be mired in complaints ... Alas these are the cables that the bulk of consumers are being presented with as an add on suggestion sell post the major decision of flat panel purchase in order to raise the store operating margin in a competitive environment where retailers profits have been eliminated from the sale of the Television itself.