[Credit: Victor de la Fuente, Flickr]

With any new technology, there's a lot of jargon to get used to. Just when TV buyers got used to the idea of component and composite, another kid comes late to the party to try to make a splash. This four lettered friend, HDMI, does more than previous connectors though -- it takes both audio and video with only one cable. Like any new technology, there are a lot of questions floating around, and we're here to help demystify the HDMI basics.

 

Typically, with older TVs, you'd have a row of five cables coming out of your source (your cable box, for example) and going into your TV. Keeping the cables straight and making sure the correct ones are plugged in to the right place is a bit of a mess. Sure, they're color coded, but with two red cables (one for audio, and one for video) there was a lot of unnecessary hassle. Not to mention, when you add surround sound into the mix, you could end up with ten cables for one device. It's easy to see the old system wasn't working.

HDMI solves the multiple cable conundrum. The cable standard's primary benefit is taking the five or more cables and cramming them into one. Instead of the mess of wires that litters your HDTV's backside, one cable could pass from your TV to your cable box, and you'd get full quality HD video, as well as full quality surround sound. If you're looking for a particularly clean setup, think about getting an HDMI switcher, a device which would let you hook up all of your HDMI devices to the switcher, and then use one cable from the box to the TV.

When looking for an HDMI cable, shoppers will notice they're particularly expensive. That's in part to electronics retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City jacking up the prices of cables over the past few years and shrinking their profit margins on larger ticket items like TVs and DVD players. If you're a savvy shopper, and don't like the idea of paying $100 for a four foot cable, do some online searching. Cables shouldn't be more than $10 for almost any reasonable home theater length (if you're doing extremely long cable runs digital cables do start to get pricier). I did a quick Google search for "HDMI Cables" and found a 10 foot cable for $8.49.

Some home theater nuts and electronics salespeople will tell you the pricier a cable, the better the experience. While that might be true for a select few cables, like the ones going from your speaker amplifier to your speakers, all signal travelling over HDMI will end up the same quality. HDMI doesn't transmit analog signals from your source to your TV; instead the signals are digital, ensuring a pure signal from the source to the output on your TV. If the cable is lower quality than the $100 equivalent, you won't notice a difference simply because there won't be any difference.

To put a fine point on it: do not spend over $10 - $20 on a cable for normal home use.

HDMI Types

Now that you've got the pricing out of the way, lets talk types. HDMI has a few different flavors that you can use to suit your situation. Type A cables, like the rightmost connector in the image at left, are the most common HDMI connectors. They'll connect most devices, including cable boxes, DVD and Blu-ray players, as well as game consoles, to your TV. Some devices use the smaller Type C connector, pictured all the way to the left, to connect. Typically these connectors are found on laptops or other small devices, where space is extremely limited. You'll need a type C to type A converter or cable to connect this type of device to your TV.

HDMI is based on the older digital standard for computer monitors called DVI. There are adapters out there that will actually convert the signal from DVI to HDMI, meaning you can plug your regular old DVI-toting computer into your big HDTV.

Now that you're full of HDMI understanding, it might be a good time to figure out the other particulars of HDTV buying. We've got a comprehensive HDTV buying guide if you're still trying to figure out which TV is right for you. If you've got more questions you'd like to have answered, hit our tips page and send in your questions, reply to Obsessable on Twitter, or you can IM me directly on AIM at imobsessable. Till then, happy cabling!

[Image credits: WellWin]

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