I recently upgraded to a PC supporting HD so I thought I’d have a go connecting it to my HD TV, what I needed was an HDMI cable that supported 1080p.

Having spent a fair proportion of the last 20 years fiddling with hi-fi and video cables for various AV setups, I was not surprised to find many different grades and, more importantly, prices available to me.

I was offered 24K gold plated plugs with silver soldering for optimum signal clarity, 99.99% oxygen free cable to combat signal degradation, fully coated and triple shielded cord which I was told would prevent signal interference and don’t get me started on gas injected dielectric, whatever that is.

The prices were equally baffling, ranging from 49p to £130. So I slipped into hi-fi mode and prepared myself to take a leap at something costing a little more than 49p but significantly less than £130 but then I had a realisation.

We’ve been taught to look for things like gold plated plugs and oxygen free cables because with an analogue signal things like signal clarity are important. HDMI on the other hand is digital, so as long as the signal gets from one end to the other nothing else matters after all, nobody buys gold plated network cables do they?

So how can the cable manufacturers get away with overcharging us for digital cables with all the analogue extras we’ll never need? Because we’re used to it, so used to it in fact that despite this revelation I still couldn’t bring myself to buy the 49p cable but I did spend significantly less than £130.

Jake Dovey