I have been using the HDMI cable that come with my Samsung upconvert player.

Is this a bad thing?
Should I get a after market one?

I also think my XBOX 360 DVD player looks better than my normal player.
Is this possible?

Beau

If you see tiny white spots/flashes in the picture, your cable is not good. If you don't, you are just fine. The Xbox could certainly be a better player than some other players. I imagine it's not the best on the planet, but not the worst, either.

I've always used a company called MCM. Their website is www.mcminone.com. Great prices, great cables.

Yep, quality stuff for 1/2 to 1/3 the price of monster. Look great too. I laso have no qualms with going into Radio Shack and picking up their higher end cables.

I'm using the HDMI cable that came with my upconverting CyberHome DVD player. It works great, so I see no reason to replace it (considering it would cost me as much for the new cable as it did for the player).

The 360 probably has a newer DVD drive than your DVD player - so its very possible.

from what i understand and i'm not a cable guru by any means, but with digital signals you either get the singal or don't. if your cable from the manufacturer is working there is no need to get a new one.

With the HDMI system some people are getting what they call "sparklies". That's what I referenced earlier. Each one would be a minor drop of signal. It doesn't break up into blocking like MPEG failures do, but it is the same kind of problem: bits of lost signal.

Unless the cable is actually damaged, pretty much any HDMI cable under 15' should work. So the 6' ones that usually come with equipment should be great if long enough. Once you need longer ones, there are more problems.

So is this 6' S-video cable for $2.80 basically the same as this Monster S-video cable for $29.99?

Am I missing something?

Well, no. That monoprice cable is an extender cable (M/F). The Monster cable is a standard (M/M). But I don't think that is what you meant...

The monoprice S-Video cable item #2402 is what you want. And it is even cheaper at $2.59.

I've used monoprice cables nearly exclusively (aside from one Monster cable and one AR one -- only because I wanted them right away). Quality wise (both manufacturing as well as quality of the output), I cannot tell a difference at all between Monster, Monoprice and AR. But your wallet will notice a huge difference.

So if I need a component video cable to go from my DVD player to receiver is this what I need?

And I also need a fiber optic audio cable. There seem to be many similar cables. How can I tell which I need?

Thanks for your help.

Yep.

You want an optical toslink cable. Like this one. You could also "splurge" ($5.25) and get the metallic body optical cable here (which is what I would do).

Actually the monoprice cables are probably better than the Monster.

I have Monster M1.2s cables (listed at 5.00/ft in bulk) and there is not a significant difference in that and 12 ga. zip cable found at Home Depot for .30/ft.. If there is a difference it is very subtle and certainly debatable. This was a personal experiment. And I'm not using low quality components either (Martin Logan speakers driven by ATI amps). These speakers are known for revealing deficiencies upstream. The only drawback to the HD zip cord is that it isn't magnetically shielded.

I'm floored by the advice I see that you're supposed to spend 10% - 20% of your HT budget on cables. That is total crap. When I was shopping for HT gear, I made to compromise on the speakers and got the best high current amps I could find. I planned to "upgrade" cables later from the 12 ga. zip cord. When I began experimenting with cables is when I found out how wrong these people were.

Don't listen to people who try to tell you otherwise. They're the same ones wanting to tell you to buy silver or gold conductor cable for hundreds or even thousands per foot. I've found that you cannot judge the quality of a cable by it's price.

And lastly, don't buy it from Best Buy. They have the highest prices on cables I've ever seen. I recently had to buy a USB cable for a digital camera. The cheapest one I found at BB was $30. I found one at WalMart for $6. My camera doesn't notice the difference either.

I agree that spending that much is total crap. But we are not talking about speaker cables, Svideo is the topic. I have no doubt that the Monster listed above is a superior cable to Monoprice's in terms of performance. I have a Monoprice Svideo cable and it is really nothing special. Works, no more.

Saw a 4 foot HDMI Monster Cable at BestBuy the other day... $150!!!!

I'm using a 3 meter DVI -> HDMI cable from monoprice.com and it works like a champ... I even ordered a spare HDMI-HDMI cable for if/when I ever move to an upconverting player, and a couple of extra tos-link cables.

I use the same thing to connect my HDDVR to an LCD HDTV and it looks great.

what's the difference between using that and an hdmi to hdmi?

Nothing really, except that it can't pass audio signals through the same cable.

Almost half the price

I ended up with an AR HDMI cable for my new Sony NS70. Would have bought a RCA HDMI for about $30-$40 at Sears/Target, but they were sold-out.

for monoprice.com

I needed a 10' DVI/HDMI cable and went to BB. They wanted $134.00 for a 12' cable. WTF?!! No way I was going spend that much for a cable. I was recommended monoprice at AVSforum. so, I checked out Monoprice and they had the exact length I wanted and it was $12.99 shipped.

I always order my cables from Parts Express. Their own brand, dayton audio, is fantastic. www.partsexpress.com