hdmi cable: are there different levels of quality?

>> will i see a vast differrence between RGB and HDMI?<<

No. The difference is slight, if at all.

>>Is there a range of quality of these cables? <<

Of course. However, IMHO it isn't worth paying the enormous difference. Several hundred (or more!!) dollars for an HDMI cable is ridiculous. Go to MonoPrice.com and find some very good cables for well under $100, most are under $50...

-RW-

Kenbo,

While I respect RW's ability to have his opinion, I must greatly disagree. Much will depend on your display, running HDMI to a CRT might not do anything for you, but maintaining an all digital feed to a fixed pixel display (Plasma, DLP, LCD,SXRD,LCoS etc) often will give you significant gains in detail, and I have witnessed this first hand in many systems, both of my main ones included.

As far as cable, yes, there is a great range, and again I must disagree with RW as I have firsthand seen huge differences between different S-Video cables, and have heard plenty of difference in digital cables, I must assume that yes, there is a difference in HDMI cables as well, I have been too busy to demo some of the higher end ones myself, but suspect they would show similar differences.

I know, many of you will bite my head off for this post, as you use cheapo Rat Shack video cables, but I think many will agree with me, albeit silently!

KT

I substituted an inexpensive HDMI cable from my cable box to my SXRD HD TV, replacing component cables, and there was a marked improvement in clarity and detail. Not sure of the technical reasons (or if a better HDMI would be a further enhancement) but the difference was not subtle.

Over as AVSFORUM there is a growing number of members who have purchased higher-end HDMI cables and they are getting easier 'handshake' between the components. The HDCP (copy protecting software) is unreliable and there seem to be more problems with some cables than with others. The wireworld brand seems to be the best buy for the price.

thank you all for your help!! ken