Gadget Guru

does gagu dream of electric sheep? Yes, and then some…

Punching power, UHD Blu-rays, and are expensive HDMI cables really worth it? Our guru of tech answers all of your pressing questions

AYou probably know this already: spend big bucks on the thing that links that one thing to the other thing and you are, in the most part, paying for pseudoscience and lies.

That said, GaGu will now offer up some legitimate situations in which you may be allowed to buy higherend cabling, while maintaining his right to send you to the naughty corner if you get conned into an extortionate copper purchase by a shifty salesman with commission falling out of his pockets.

First up, active HDMI cabling. It draws a bit of power from the HDMI socket on your TV to give the signal a little boost, which helps when you have longer cable runs or thinner wires, and, in a very small way, also helps in reducing the occasional error being sent from device to screen.

You don’t need active HDMI for the latter reason, though – indeed, the HDMI standard allows for the equivalent of one pixel per frame to come through completely garbled, and your TV’s error-correction regime will generally be on top of the rest – but if there’s distance in your set-up, Guru will allow you to use it. Don’t trust claims that it’ll pretty-up foliage or add extra detail: it can’t and it won’t.

You are also, naturally, permitted to spend a little extra on high-speed HDMI cabling, as long as you do so in the knowledge that it will make no difference whatsoever to standard HD signals. Even if you’ve not upgraded to UHD yet, picking up cables that support higher bit rates – using technology not mumbo-jumbo magic – is a recommended move.

If you take anything away from this, Guru hopes it’s the following: as long as an HDMI cable meets the standard’s stringent specifications, it’s going to work perfectly. Spend £5 or £100, GaGu doesn’t care, but take the latter option and you’re paying for a cosmetic upgrade to a thing you’re going to hide behind your telly anyway.

“Don’t trust claims th at active HDMI will prett y-up foliage or add extra detail: it can’t and it won’t”

above “Argh, you told me that little capsule was a fruit gum!”