HDMI cables with RedMere technology from Monoprice

[Smwoodward]

Maybe this will help. Digital, compared to the analog days, there isn't a need for "high quality", gold plated, unicorn blood filled cables. Take two 6 ft HDMI , one "unicorn blood" cable and one from monoprice and compare them to two 6 ft analog cables, one "unicorn blood" and one regular. On the analog side you will get better picture quality from the gold plated. blah blah blah cable than you will with the average cable. The same is not 100% true with the HDMI cable. You do not have to buy a $60 HDMI cable that stores sell to get the picture quality as the other cable. It either works, or it doesn't. Meaning if the monoprice cable works, you will not get better picture quality with the $$$$$ cable. That was marginally different in the analog days. When you start dealing with length of the cable, then quality of the cable comes into play a bit more, but you don't have to have the gold plated low impedance cables, the cables have to be manufactured to reduce the amount of signal interference that can be done usually with the same quality wire. It's just like cat6 vs cat5. The copper wire inside both cat5 & cat6 is the same, the real big difference is the increase twists on the pairs to reduce interference, and the separation channel inside the cable. Otherwise, exact same cable, just manufactured differently.

Reading up on the RedMere cables, they say that "... the picture quality on the HDTV will only be as good as the cable that connects the smartphone, camcorder or DVD player to the TV or monitor." This is not 100% true. A 6 ft monoprice cable and a 6 ft RedMere cable, the picture quality will be EXACTLY the same, as long as the cable works. Now, where this would be different, it seems like RedMere's cables are extremely smaller than normal HDMI cables. If you were to produce regular HDMI cables at the same size, they may be more susceptible to getting interference which would cause the picture quality to pixelate, have other strange artifacts and everything that digital does. To over come this, they added active technology which boosts the rezilliance to the cable. I could see this as the active technology on both ends of the cable converts the HDMI signal to a packet based system similar to TCP/IP with error correction, then back to HDMI on the other end or something similar.

 

[JerseyMatt]

Maybe this will help. Digital, compared to the analog days, there isn't a need for "high quality", gold plated, unicorn blood filled cables. Take two 6 ft HDMI , one "unicorn blood" cable and one from monoprice and compare them to two 6 ft analog cables, one "unicorn blood" and one regular. On the analog side you will get better picture quality from the gold plated. blah blah blah cable than you will with the average cable. The same is not 100% true with the HDMI cable. You do not have to buy a $60 HDMI cable that stores sell to get the picture quality as the other cable. It either works, or it doesn't. Meaning if the monoprice cable works, you will not get better picture quality with the $$$$$ cable. That was marginally different in the analog days. When you start dealing with length of the cable, then quality of the cable comes into play a bit more, but you don't have to have the gold plated low impedance cables, the cables have to be manufactured to reduce the amount of signal interference that can be done usually with the same quality wire.

Reading up on the RedMere cables, they say that "... the picture quality on the HDTV will only be as good as the cable that connects the smartphone, camcorder or DVD player to the TV or monitor." This is not 100% true. A 6 ft monoprice cable and a 6 ft RedMere cable, the picture quality will be EXACTLY the same, as long as the cable works. Now, where this would be different, it seems like RedMere's cables are extremely smaller than normal HDMI cables. If you were to produce regular HDMI cables at the same size, they may be more susceptible to getting interference which would cause the picture quality to pixelate, have other strange artifacts and everything that digital does.

...All of this is EXACTLY what I said before. But unfortunately a certain person is trying to blame his lack of English comprehension on me.

To over come this, they added active technology which boosts the rezilliance to the cable. I could see this as the active technology on both ends of the cable converts the HDMI signal to a packet based system similar to TCP/IP with error correction, then back to HDMI on the other end or something similar.

Redmere does not convert the transmitted format, nor does it add error correction. Basically it boosts the signal at the source end, then applies equalization and skew correction at the sink end to extract the original data. In overly simple terms, think of how AC power is transmitted long distances - the voltage is boosted at the source and then stepped back down by the transformer at the pole outside your house. It allows for longer distance with less loss over thinner gauge conductors.. A 6' Redmere cable only as 36ga conductors, whereas a 6' standard cable would use 28ga. Likewise a 50' Redmere uses 28ga where a standard cable of that length would require 22ga.

It's just like cat6 vs cat5. The copper wire inside both cat5 & cat6 is the same, the real big difference is the increase twists on the pairs to reduce interference, and the separation channel inside the cable. Otherwise, exact same cable, just manufactured differently.

Cat5 is 24ga, Cat6 is 23ga. Not the exact same cable manufactured differently. Cat6 conductors have a 10% larger cross section and 25% less resistance than Cat5. This is also why the HDMI-over-Cat5/6 baluns and HDBase-T work for longer distances - it is larger copper with higher bandwidth than one would find in a standard 28ga HDMI

 

[Smwoodward]

Redmere does not convert the transmitted format, nor does it add error correction. Basically it boosts the signal at the source end, then applies equalization and skew correction at the sink end to extract the original data. In overly simple terms, think of how AC power is transmitted long distances - the voltage is boosted at the source and then stepped back down by the transformer at the pole outside your house. It allows for longer distance with less loss over thinner gauge conductors.. A 6' Redmere cable only as 36ga conductors, whereas a 6' standard cable would use 28ga. Likewise a 50' Redmere uses 28ga where a standard cable of that length would require 22ga.

I didn't read exactly what it does, but that makes more sense.

 

[John Kotches]

Smwoodward:

I would posit that with analog video cables, proper attention to required characteristic impedance (i.e. 75 Ohm) and terminations is far more important than exotic construction. This will reduce the possibility of reflections at termination points minimizing reflectance back into the signal which would distort the fragile analog signal. Gold plating is used to prevent oxidation of the surface layer, nothing more, nothing less.

I've seen crappy and good, expensive and inexpensive analog video cables. Price not necesarily == performance.

 

[GaryPen]

Smwoodward:

I would posit that with analog video cables, proper attention to required characteristic impedance (i.e. 75 Ohm) and terminations is far more important than exotic construction. This will reduce the possibility of reflections at termination points minimizing reflectance back into the signal which would distort the fragile analog signal. Gold plating is used to prevent oxidation of the surface layer, nothing more, nothing less.

I've seen crappy and good, expensive and inexpensive analog video cables. Price not necesarily == performance.

Shielding plays a role, as well.

 

[Mojoe]

Whew!! That was a mighty big lesson in cable genetics!