I retired from personal blogging in July 2008 but you can find me over at blog.xero.com
Follow @roddrury
Now that Blu-Ray has won, and as I’m not expecting to be able to download iTunes movies anytime soon I decided to tackle my aging stack and get a Samsung Blu-Ray player - to match my 1080p video wall.
These Blu-Ray players don’t exist in New Zealand according to Samsung.co.nz and Noel Leeming. I asked a question on the Samsung website and got this thoughtful response. (I think they are supposed to write something between the lines)
Welcome to Samsung Customer Care Center. We thank you for your interest/
valuable feedback. Please find hereafter, our response.
Your Transaction no. is nnn. Please quote this reference in all
subsequent communications.
————————————————————-————————————————————-
You are receiving this e-mail because you have previously made an
enquiry about Samsung Customer Care Center through our web-sites.
Please do not reply to this mail as it is an automated email and cannot
be responded to. If you wish to send feedback or queries to Samsung
Customer Care Center, please send a new e-mail or contact us at:Samsung CustomerCare Center
Call: 0800 SAMSUNG
0800 726 786Best Regards,
Samsung Customer Care Center
Undeterred I found Harvey Norman on Tory Street for the first time. They had a lot of gear in there including the Samsung BDP-1400 in stock. I also need to replace my 8 year old Sony 5.1 Receiver with an amp that had HDMI inputs. I went for an Onkyo 7.1 with 3 HDMI inputs.
That will handle the Blu-Ray player, AppleTV and apparently Sky is out soon with an HD receiver that should plug into the 3rd slot.
The sticker price of the BDP-1400 is $1400, but just a glance at the sales dude and it’s $1000. So I was feeling good until I got the question = ‘What HDMI cables do you have?’.
Apparently there are HDMI cables and there are HDMI cables. Standard HDMI cables are not rated for HiDef. The super duper cables are $499 sticker ($400 with a glance) and of course you need two. What!?!
I definitely have a problem with spending $400 on a cable, and even worse $800 on two. That really took the gloss off the purchase. How can a cable cost that much? I smell a rat.
Anyhoo, it all installed easily and works well.
HDMI really cleans things up. I pulled out around 8 cables from my old system that I no longer need. I still had to run left/right/video from MySky and a 2nd old Sky box through to the receiver and up to the tele. You only get out what you put in (you can’t get composite in and HDMI out of the Onkyo).
Samsung (they should change their name) seem to have the best game in town right now. They work well and the remotes are easy to use. The Onkyo Receiver seems good but they haven’t nailed their interface as well as Samsung has.
I don’t really watch movies more than once so for Blu-Ray movies I’m looking at signing up for DVDUnlimited. Anyone have any thoughts on that?
Also what have you heard on HDSky? Sales dude reckon’d April.
blog
$400 for a cable is a scam. HDMI is a digital standard, and therefore the effect of the cable quality is zero. The digital stream has error-correction built-in, and the receiver will correct for any errors in the stream. I hope you really didn’t buy those cables…
On another note, the owner/operator of the Lower Hutt Harvey Norman electronics section is very much into his audio/video equipment, offers an honest opinion, and knows what he’s talking about. And he’s super friendly to boot. Highly recommended.
Also, I’m fairly certain there’s an Onkyo that will allow you to output HDMI from an analogue source. Nice amps, too.
Oh, PS: The Playstation 3 is considered a top-tier Bluray player (it supports all of the fancy interactive features). I’ve personally set one up, and it’s a really good media displaying device (it will sniff the network for shares containing photos, audio and video — not sure if it can discover Macs though), has all sorts of cool Internet connectivity (you can buy a keyboard and use it to surf the net), you can buy games and movies online (some of which works in NZ — not sure about the movies, but the games do), and just has a really simple and easy-to-use interface. I was very happily surprised by how much value it offers (even if you don’t play games, which the owner of the one I set up doesn’t).
you were right not to pay the $400 for the cables - it’s a digital signal so either it will be perfect or else it just won’t work. Do a google search for “hdmi cable scam” to learn more.
Word has it they’re going to try beat Freeview to the punch, however by the sounds of it their licencing deals aren’t going to shit hot. They will however have an HD Prime for UHF freeview. 1080i from whats been whispered around.
Rod - do yourself a favor and buy a Logitech Harmony remote.
ha ha - this post is now the number 5 result for “hdmi cable scam”. The more people that know about this the better.
http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=hdmi+cable+scam
Why didn’t you just buy a PS3? If I was going to buy a blue ray player, that would certainly be the direction I would go.
As for dvdunlimited, I was a customer of theirs when they were based in Nelson, which was great, I got awesome service, and it was a really pleasent experience. After Sky took over, I left them probably within three months, the turn around time became much worse, and the general level of service went through the floor.
I hope you didn’t spend more than $20 on a HDMI cable. Unless you’re trying to run HDMI over 10m + there is no differnece.
Harvey Norman love selling Monster Cables with the huge profits they make. Monster Cables are the biggest scam of all time and the monster cable displays that are typically in HN stores with dual displays should be banned as they are misleading.
Hadn’t heard about $400 cables. When I did my system a few months back they had $30 cables or the high quality $80 cables (1m). I went Samsung for everything visual, I agree they are really pushing the traditional Japanese leaders at the moment.
Change their name, no chance! Samsung is officially the world’s #1 consumer electronics brand (Sony is #2).
Sounds like it might be an idea to visit that Harvey Norman store again, because the HDMI cable story is total lie. A scam.
HD Sky has no date, no-one seems to have any details about their delivery plans. It almost certainly won’t be over their existing DVB-S platform, so it will be DVB-T off existing UHF frequencies, but the government has made noises about clawing back some of Sky’s allocations.
Expect HD Prime around the same time as Freeview HD launches (July), good money would be on an HD Sky Sport, and HD Sky Movies, probably only one of each, but anything else is a bit harder to predict. The big sticking point is HD Prime has been floated as encrypted, to lock out Freeview boxes from getting it and Sky to adopt up-selling into bigger HD Sky packages by offering the boxes very cheaply for HD Prime, and thwart Freeview. How that affect’s Primes ‘FTA’ status for rugby replays etc is unclear.
But who knows, there was a lot of smack talk about HD Prime being encrypted, we won’t know for a while yet.
Hopefully you didn’t get one of the defective Samsungs ( http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/09/samsung-sued-for-defective-blu-ray-players/ ).
SKY will start broadcasting in HD for the All Blacks Tri Nations tests in July this year.
“HD Sky has no date, no-one seems to have any details about their delivery plans. It almost certainly won’t be over their existing DVB-S platform, so it will be DVB-T off existing UHF frequencies, but the government has made noises about clawing back some of Sky’s allocations.”
—
I’m not sure you have got this info from as Sky’s HD plans are well known in the industry. Launch date is expected to be around August and they are using the same new boxes that Foxtel are using, AKA MySky2 which will also feature IP capabilities (that will probably not be used at launch). Sky have also made no commitment yet to rolling out Prime on the DVB-T UHF Freeview platform because of their ongoing fight with TVNZ & Freeview over access to the existing Freeview channels. Sky have to rebroadcast channels using their own bandwidth rather than being able to set their box to tune into the existing Freeview satellite channels and are unable to negotiate access to TVNZ6 and TVNZ7.
I don’t think anyone is expecting Prime on Freeview muxes (and that’s not what I meant), I think Sky will convert their existing UHF channels into DVB-T muxes for delivering Prime HD, possibly NDS encrypted, and other HD services. That seems pretty likely unless Sky can find some spare transponder space on D1 and/or cut bitrates on existing channels down even more than they are.
Understand about the PS3, I just didn’t want games in the house.
Calls into Harvey Norman now about the cables.
Harvey Norman dude said that the cheaper ($NZ150) HDMI cables did not shift enough signal data down the tubes for 1080p and you *may* end up with a pixelated picture. Do HDMI cables have bandwidth issues?
http://www.monstercable.com/hdmi/
They’re lying. Figure on maybe $40 for a cable from DSE. Demand your money back. I have a PS3 running quite cheerfully at 1080p over a DSE cable.
Hi Rod,
Great blog.
My attention was brought to what happen with your email request. Fair to say that yes this is not exactly the desired response and way in which we like to treat our customers !
I will personally investigate what happened and make sure whatever bug is fixed.
In the meanwhile I am happy to answer questions you may have on our product directly or point you in the right direction.
The BDP1400 is a great product, thanks for your support. I do agree on the comments around HDMI cables by the way…
Best regards,
Jean-Philippe DIEL
General Manager Marketing
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS NEW ZEALAND
jp.diel@samsung.com
No. HDMI cables do not have bandwidth issues.
The signal is either delivered in a form that can be decoded, or it is not. If it is not, the picture does not degrade in any analogue-like pixellated way, it simply disappears. If you can see a picture then the cable is, by definition, adequate to carry the signal.
You can test this if you wish, by partially unplugging the connector during playback to simulate a degraded cable.
The vast majority of the document at the link you posted at best skirts the truth. In the event of some mysterious future revision of the HDMI standard requiring cables of vastly different electrical characteristics, those new cables will be available at the same time for the $20 a current HDMI cable costs. Buying a ridiculously expensive cable on the specious claim that it will support an undetermined and unpublished future standard makes no sense.
You got scammed.
Called and then went down to Harvey Norman in Tory Street. The guys down there had printed out some studies and were adamant that they had seen side by side comparisons of cables.
Regardless, they were happy to give me a credit and in that simple act gained a customer for life.
I really like that they listened, were knowledgeable and in the end did the right thing. I totally recommend them. Refreshing to see some great customer service and switched on retail staff.
Pixelation assumes something about the way the data is packed into the bitstream, like it can “degrade” parts of the image but not others. Do you ever hear of pixelation with DVI-attached LCD monitors? No? Here’s a hint: HDMI is more or less DVI with audio support.
Fact is, so long as the cable is tested up to 350MHz or so (that, BTW, is around Cat5e ratings, so for small numbers of strands you’re talking about a $10 cable), it will cope with existing HDMI specs just fine. DVI single link cables, which are not $400 each, push 1920×1200p60 down them, and that’s a whole lot more data than current “top end” HD is (which tops out still at 1080p24).
Since it’s digital, cable losses for signal on short (
I really wouldn’t be that happy with someone who tried to sell me a product that was overpriced by 1000%. Still, it’s a big retail shop - you can’t really expect expert technical advice from a kid on minimum wage.
For big purchases, take a friend knowledgeable in the area where possible, same as you’d bring a more mechanically minded friend when buying a car.
I picked up a high-speed (i.e. 1080p rated) HDMI cable for $70 at Farmers (think it was a Panasonic brand). Unsure if “high-speed” means anything but it does the job.
“I don’t think anyone is expecting Prime on Freeview muxes (and that’s not what I meant), I think Sky will convert their existing UHF channels into DVB-T muxes for delivering Prime HD, possibly NDS encrypted, and other HD services. That seems pretty likely unless Sky can find some spare transponder space on D1 and/or cut bitrates on existing channels down even more than they are.”
Sky have plenty of bandwidth on D1 for their HD services and that’s why they are launching DVB-S services. Deplicating the Freeview DVB-T network just for Prime makes absolutely no sence.
Getting back to the monster cable issue if anybody sees the Monster Cable dual display demo running Monsters Inc have a look behind it. You’ll see a DVD player running a monster component cable and regular composite cable. Ask the friendly staff how it’s fair to compare two different video formats and suggest that they try plugging a monster cable into the composite output and and a regular cheap cable for the component and explain why the cheap cable now looks better than the monster cable!
Rob said…
In the event of some mysterious future revision of the HDMI standard requiring cables of vastly different electrical characteristics.
I am not an expert on HDMI standard let alone know much about it, but I believe that the specs must have been thoroughly & properly written by those who are involved in this industry standards. All electrical transmission cables be it communication cables (twisted-pair , coaxial, etc…) or power cables, are designed using the Telegraphers Equations (TE). The performance of the signal propagations based on the cable electrical characteristics are known beforehand during design time using TE, even before the specs reaches the manufacturing floor. The fibre-optic cables has a similar form of design equation to TE, but it is more complex as it relies heavily in numerical simulations to find the best design parameters.
PS: I used to work as an electronic design engineer in a previous career (mid to late 1990s), before jumping into software programming. Our division (design division) used to design specific cables for special purpose-built equipments. The specs is then send to the manufacturer for production. I have been out of the game, that I am up to date with the latest buzz words in the industry.
Shame you didn’t buy a Playstation 3. There is the negative aspect of games if you don’t want that, but … it is an excellent streaming player for content from Mac or PC.
I stream movies from my Mac using Nullrivers excellent media connect software (£10) and the PS 3 is excellent for that, the built in web browser, video chat (if someone else has one) + ability to install linux and Myth TV for an all round media extender are very cool.
I can connect a larger hard drive to it and play that content directly, its not quite Apple TV but I didn’t want two of them in the house.
As a Media Player the PS 3 is way underrated and the games, if you go that far are great fun.
Hi, We import HDMI cables . Short 0.5mtr and upto 20 mtrs. We have experianced issues with cheap cables inparticular with long cables if the AWG/gage is incorrect the cable simply will not work. Also the performance of the cable depends on the output surse port ie a cheap DVD,s electronics on the HDMI port will be different and NOT perform as well as reputable name brand DVDs.
To be honest a good cable should be a reasonable cost, you get what you pay for like anything. What you will see I beleive in the middle of the year (ish) is a mass of cables at less costs. HDMI will be like USB in 3 years…….also what out for the interface FREEPORT which will prove a lot of head scratching I am sure once equipment has this on……..
Other options do exsist for transporting HDMI over long distances ie HDMI equalisers > 45 mtrs! HDMI baluns ( Transports over cat5e/cat 6) upto 60mtrs! These use 2 cat5e/cat 6 cables.
Good luck with your shopping for cables , were would we be with out cables??
Another argument for the PS3 over the BDP-1400 is that, as far as I know, the PS3 is upgradeable to future ‘profiles’. As far as I’m aware, the Samsung BDP-1400 is ‘profile 1′ only, whereas profile 1.1 and 2.0 are in some form of existence already.
From what I can understand, profile 2 is simply ‘more power, more features (like picture in picture)’.
Alas, I can’t say I have any more useful information as I’m nowhere near being the proud owner of a blu-ray player, but should I ever want one, I say the PS3 seems to be the way to go, simply due to its upgradability.
It may be of interest: I understand that TVNZ’s contribution to Freeview HD will be to upconvert the SD transmissions of TV1 and TV2. Apparently they won’t have enough time to re-engineer their transmission systems to handle HD source material. July is the current planning date for HD launch as they have negotiated HD feeds from the Beijing Olympics. I’m not sure whether they have settled on their internal production format, but last I heard they were considering 720P for production and transmission.
All Freeview HD content will be broadcast in 720p.
TV1 and TV2 on Freeview is currently being broadcast in 720p and all content is upscaled from 576i. I’ve been watching 1 and 2 over the past few days since it went live and have to say it looks absolutely stunning. It makes Sky’s 1 and 2 look like crap!
If you want great HDMI cables with a huge selection and a cheap price, see this company http://www.rapalloav.co.nz
Gizmodo has a good write up on the Monster Cable debate (http://consumerist.com/353938/monster-cables-monster-ripoff-80-markups), including a thoughful reply from Moster Cable themselves, http://consumerist.com/358006/monster-responds-to-monster-cables-monster-ripoff.
If you wish to buy a Monster cable your better off buying from the US from somewhere like Amazon.com where your likely to pay only 20% of what you pay in New Zealand. The $NZ400 HDMI cable from Harvey Norman is normally priced in $US75-90 range in the US.
Rod, HDMI cables are being given away free now here in the USA. Recently I bought a Sony DVD player which came with free HDMI cable (not a Blu-Ray, just upscaled DVD signal which is very very good). The player only cost $66 at Costco. And I got a new DirecTv HD DVR receiver, which also came with a free HDMI cable. You are being ripped off.
Hi Rod
What model Onkyo did you go for? How is it performing so far?
Am planning to upgrade shortly, so keen to hear your thoughts.
Cheers
Mark
[...] only ones that can provide true HD. This is known as HDMI scam. The most recent case I can think is Rod buying two $400 HDMI cables… Yes, really.That’s just wrong. Whatever the $400 HDMI cable does it can be done with a $50 [...]
Hi,
Does anyone know if the Samsung BDP-1400 can play standard DVD’s from different regions around the world?
I have a number of DVD’s from the UK that I want to be able to continue watching.
Thanks
I’m having trouble with normal audio CD’s.
Also it is sloooooow. Can take many minutes to get up and running. Even a simple eject can take 4 or 5 attempts.
Once up and running BluRay is fine and standard NZ DVD’s work well (though look furry after Blu-Ray)
May I suggest MovieShack? We have been using the service for 2 years now and it beat DVDUnlimited 7 ways to sunday (which was the first service we had)
[...] gist is that Rod Drury went to pick up a blu-ray player and ended up being talked into buying a $400 HDMI cable aswell. [...]
wow haha are you kidding me
have you ever heard “bandwidth, Data transfer rate”??
ps3 needs a 6.68 Gbps transfer rate, monster supply a 10.g Gbps HDMI cable
for next generation Blu Ray,
these “cheaper cables” ont be 1080p certified Monster have teamed up
with simplyHD to prove it! i could go on and on!!
dont go saying your feelings as fact
your a joke.you sound like you runnig good gear, what a waste
Just go http://www.hdmi.com, their official site & also search wikipedia, you’ll find that hdmi 1.3 has a video bandwidth of 8.16G/bits and a signal bandwidth of 340Mhz, that should clear up any issues.
When I went to purchase my HDMI cables they tried the same trick re: ~$400 cables. When I asked why they were so expensive, they told me they were gold plated (literally I think) ;-) but that they had been injected with Nitrogen. I told them that nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas. What does it do to improve audio/video quality? (Insert blank look from salesperson here). Needless to say I went with a cheapy. Months later I saw the $400 cables reduced to $50! People voting with their feet eh?
Hi
Im not a technical person so this may seem a stupid question..however here goes.
I have a HD Direct TV HDT Tuner Model H20 Digital TV SATELITE RECIEVER.(From USA) It has an acess card in it. We have a satelite dish where I live (in Auckland) Can I somehow conect it up here AND WATCH USA TV or rejig it to get it going here?
Thanks for any assistance
Grant