The High Definition Media Interface (HDMI) standard is the current digital high-definition standard for HDTVs across the board, replacing the composite, S-video, or component video audio/video interface standards of the analog era of TV peripheral connections. The HDMI ports and cables of the digital era of A/V connections serve as the conduit between your HDTV and media device, whether it’s a 4K UHD Blu-ray Disc Player, standard BD player, DVD player, media streamer, PC, laptop, tablet, smartphone, cable or satellite box, or gaming console. It’s also used for computer monitors and projectors, by the way.
HDMI cables are practically a dime a dozen in electronics stores nationwide. However, if you wish to get the absolute best HDMI cable for Projector to Laptop, you should get one that’s capable of transmitting 4K Ultra HD signals for the HDMI 2.1 standard and above. To be more specific, we recommend the KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable & HDMI Cord with Full Metal Connectors.
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What Is HDMI and The Different HDMI Cable Types?
HDMI is the propriety A/V interface used to transmit raw, uncompressed video data and similarly uncompressed digital audio data (that could also be compressed as well) from an HDMI-compatible source device. This can be a video projector, digital HD television, digital audio device, display controller, media player, or computer monitor. HDMI is the de facto standard for all HDTV connections and most modern peripherals either require an HDMI port or adapter in order to be able to link up with today’s smart TVs.
HDMI serves as the replacement for analog A/V standards, the most advanced of which is a component video or YPbPr (last seen as the A/V standard used to connect a Nintendo Wii to an HDTV). At any rate, n terms of transmission speed, quality, and upgrades to HDMI specifications as defined by the HDMI Forum Technical Working Group, HDMI cables can be separated by the following types.
- Standard HDMI Cable: The dime-a-dozen cables have a 30 Hz refresh rate and support up to 720p or 1080p/1080i resolution. It’s the most basic and common cable type you can get your hands on. It also supports up to the HDMI 1.3 specification but can’t do 4K. Anything transmission higher than HDMI 1.3 can will result in it defaulting to 1080p or 720p.
- High-Speed HDMI Cable: A high-speed HDMI cable supports High Dynamic Range (HDR) at up to 60 Hz and can do up to 4K resolution. It’s backward compatible, so it can also support everything a standard HDMI cable can support and more. It supports up to the HDMI 1.4b specification but can’t do 8K or 10K resolution video like HDMI 2.1 could. Premium high-speed is for the HDMI 2.0 specification.
- Ultra High-Speed HDMI Cable: An ultra-high-speed HDMI cable can support 8K and 10K resolution video at a 120 Hz refresh rate. If it’s dealing with 4K video, it can handle up to 240 Hz refresh rate. It supports everything previous cables supported due to backward compatibility. It supports HDMI 2.1 or the latest specification at the time of this writing in 2020.
What KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable Brings to The Table
The KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable is the best high-speed HDMI cable brand we’ve come across and we’ve practically tried them all. It’s the most cost-effective solution to our high-speed HDMI cable needs without sacrificing 4K quality. In short, we’ve gotten more expensive 4K cables and their quality didn’t particularly exceed what KabelDirekt brings to the table, so the conscientious consumer should go for 4k cables in order to get the most out of their cable investment.
- The HDMI Cable at First Glance: The KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable is a collection of cables and cords for easy usage with any HDMI source device and display. It can be used equally well on an HDTV, an HDMI-compliant computer monitor, and 4K projectors. By the way, 8K and 10K projectors don’t exist yet, so it’s more practical to invest in a 4K HDMI cable since you’re able to connect to more display types and more programs and movies on BD or cable choose to go 4K instead of 8K anyway. Additionally, the cable boasts of having full metal connectors to ensure long-lasting usage that won’t break apart easily from all the plugging and unplugging you’ll be doing with them.
- Shielded and Protected for Your Pleasure: The KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable & HDMI Cord with Full Metal Connectors also comes with double-shielding that protects its gold-plated, oxygen-free, and corrosion-resistant connectors. This solid construction and protection allow the durable cables to last you a long time while still delivering sensitive high-speed 4K data from your 4K source media to your HDMI-2.0b-compliant display reliably, whether it’s an HDTV, HDMI computer monitor, or 4K projector. This comes with no delay and no need for delay switches on your audio to sync with your video. It’s constructed this way to ensure safe and efficient data delivery without data loss or accidental damage to the cables from regular usage.
- High Resolution and Deep Colors: If you’re a jaded customer who’s been buying plasma and LCD TVs for what seems like forever or at least for a decade in order to get “crystal-clear” or “immersive” video, motion, and picture from your television, you probably can’t imagine how much more 4K and 4K cables can improve upon your present 1080p HD experience. Simply put, the image quality of uncompressed digital video signals was improved upon once again, this time in the form of 4K resolution that gives you detailed uncompressed pictures the size of a typical projector screen. This way, you can see high-resolution images with the deepest colors so large you’ll need a huge HDTV or a projector with a large screen to see them in detailed, fluid action.
- Blistering and Torrential Transfer Rates: If you were to use a standard HDMI cable, you could still see the 4K signal being delivered to you, but at a downscaled or downgraded rate of 1080p or even 720p since those are the signals that the cables can only take. In order to experience the full ultra HD quality of 4K resolution video, you need cables like the KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable to provide you with up to 18 Gbps of transfer rate. KabelDirekt supports 4K, also known as Ultra HD, and 1080p, also known as Full HD. It can also transmit ARC, 3D, Ethernet, and all other available HDMI functions so far outside of the HDMI 2.1 specification (reserved for 8K to 10K resolutions).
- Experience The Full Potential of Your HDTV or Projector: KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable & HDMI Cord with Full Metal Connectors is the product you should depend on if you want to push your 4K projector, HDMI monitor, or HDTV to its full limits or capacity as long as it has an HDMI 2.1 port. Otherwise, all 4K signals will be downgraded to 1080p and might suffer from some color loss or compression artifacts since it’s not really being viewed at its fullest size and resolution. The full metal shielding of the KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable helps a lot in providing unmatched signal quality on top of protecting the cable from damage. Signal loss comes from lack of protection and more quality data can be transmitted in a solid, shielded cable like KabelDirekt 4K.
- KabelDirekt Compatibility and Lightning-Fast Transmission: A typical KabelDirekt package includes high-speed 4K HDMI cables that are typically 30 feet in length. Additionally, the cables support all 4K and HDMI 1.4b features, which includes 4K at 60Hz or 60Fps, Ultra HD 4K resolution, Full HD resolution at 1080p, high-speed transmission with Ethernet, and ideal for use with HDTVs, Microsoft Xbox One, Sony PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc players, and 4K program signals from cable/satellite boxes. You can also stream 4K programs through the cables to boot. These are the cables to get when you want lightning-fast, flawless transmission with low latency and attenuation issues at an absolutely affordable price.
- Next Level Data Transmission for Gaming: If you don’t want to downscale your 4K signal and defeat the purpose of going 4K, then you should invest in the affordable KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable. It’s at a price so affordable, there are some standard HDMI cables at high-end electronics stores sold at roughly the same price! What’s more, you need these cables if you wish to attach your PC that’s capable of 4K at 60 Fps to your TV for superior co-op or multiplayer gaming action at a wider screen. You can also pair up your 4K cables and HDMI 2.0 ports with low-latency projectors to get real-time action with minimal to no lag to worry about. A standard cable can’t handle that level of data transmission, but KabelDirekt 4K was designed for it specifically.
- Cables That Can Take High Refresh Rates: The smoothness of the movement of your player avatar, the sports team you’re watching on your HDTV during sports mode, or “The Hobbit” movies by Peter Jackson require a high refresh rate that’s measured in cycles per second and stated in Hz or Hertz. We’re all used to the cinematic standard of 24 Fps, which requires about at least 24 Hz to replicate the effect on cathode-ray tube TV sets. The importance of Hz can be seen in gaming for NTSC and PAL regions during the CRT or analog era of television. Because PAL ran at slower 50 Hz, games from NTSC regions tend to run slower (such as Sonic the Hedgehog) on PAL TVs since NTSC used 60 Hz. If you want your computer graphics and frame rate to run smoothly, it’s a must to have an HDMI cable that can run 4K at 60 Hz or Fps.
- The Level of Color Precision: It’s hard to imagine after getting used to HD viewing and gaming, but the difference between 1080p HD and 4K Ultra HD is about the same as the gulf between standard definition TV from the 1990s and current generation HD, especially in terms of color fidelity. Every year, TV and projector manufacturers find new ways to improve the color depth and precision, and they did it again with 4K. Instead of boring you with the details and terms like “chroma subsampling” or “color data compression”, suffice it to say that 4K and its millions of pixels have found yet another way to give your videos more color depth than ever before with less artifacts, data compression, and so forth, thus requiring 4K cables from KabelDirekt to appreciate.
- Backward Compatibility Means You’re Buying 2 Cable Types in 1: Buying the KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable practically means you’re also buying standard and 4K cables in one cable. What this means is that everything a standard HDMI cable, the KabelDirekt 4K cable can do as well if not better. It’s compatible with all previous HDMI standards before HDMI 1.4b or even HDMI 2.0. Anything below HDMI 2.1, you’re good to go, including HDMI media sources and devices using HDMI 2.0 or HDMI 1.4b all the way down to HDMI 1.x. It works with HDTVs, a variety of game consoles, personal computers, handheld devices, A/V receivers, beamers, projectors, and even more if you have a converter or adapter for A/V to HDMI handy. It even has a 36-month or 3-year manufacturer warranty to boot.
- A More Than Adequate Bandwidth: The KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable & HDMI Cord with Full Metal Connectors provides you with more than adequate bandwidth needed to make uncompressed data as large, colorful, detailed, and smooth-moving as 4K video for a movie or TV series or 4K polygonal graphics for videogame travel at real-time speeds from your source media to your HDTV, monitor, or projector. There’s a lot of nuances in terms of the divide between standard HDMI, high-speed HDMI, premium high-speed HDMI, and ultra-high-speed HDMI that’s been simplified in the previous section for consumer convenience. A premium high-speed cable like KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable for HDMI 2.0 covers the highest demands of 4K without breaking the bank.
- Do You Need a Special Cable for 4K? To reiterate, even though you don’t necessarily need to pick up special HDMI cables in order to view 4K TV and you can still view it fine on standard cables if you want to see the full 4K difference you need high-speed cables to watch 4K in its full glory without downscaling back to 720p or 1080p because standard cables default to those resolutions. Actually, you need both that and a big enough HDTV to display all those millions of pixels. Some even suggest using a projector to get the right screen size needed to showcase the pixel-perfect detail of 4K because a smaller TV screen squishes the uncompressed image size back to about 1080p anyway.
- Why Not Go Full HDMI 2.1 and 10K Instead of Merely 4K? HDMI 2.1 is probably the future of HDMI transmissions unless an even better and more improved specification comes along to topple it. However, the most common upgrade from the current Full HD standard of 1080p standard remains 4K. Not many movies or television shows have switched to Ultra HD 8K, much less Ultra HD 10K. Therefore, it’s not as wise an investment to get devices (of which there are only a few) with HDMI 2.1 specs or acquire ultra-high-speed cables much faster than the KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable. The wiser investment is the 4K cable because it caters to both the current standard of 1080p and the special edition Ultra HD Blu-Ray standard of 4K. Besides which, even projectors are only available in 4K right now.
To Summarize
You need a cable upgrade whenever you wish to take advantage of the benefits of higher HDMI specification grades, like playing an FPS like Halo 5 at more than 30 frames per second (Fps) or enjoying the full advantages of HDR TV and its high-fidelity technology that pushes 4K Ultra HD to its full potential. Sticking to cheap standard-issue HDMI cables at the store isn’t wise since you’re missing out on all the color depth, detail, pixel-perfect image fidelity, and movement smoothness of 4K. Besides which, the KabelDirek 4K HDMI cable is practically the same price as the more expensive standard cables but offers so much more in terms of quality and bandwidth capabilities.
As a rule of thumb, standard HDMI cables are for 1080p, high-speed HDMI cables are for 4K, and ultra-high-speed HDMI cables are for 8K to 10K. We believe that KabelDirek 4K HDMI cable is the best high-speed cable in the market to date. There’s no need yet to go full 8K or 10K seeing that the technology is at its infancy and there aren’t many programs going full 8K yet. 8KTVs are still exorbitantly expensive and uncommon. 8K projectors are also nonexistent at the time of this writing. 4K presently is the cutting-edge technology currently used for projectors and HDTVs that offer millions of pixels per uncompressed frame or image. What more can you ask for from the KabelDirek 4K HDMI cable? What’s not to like? Buy one today.
References:
- Alaina Yee, “4K HDMI cables: How to cut through the marketing lingo and figure out what you actually need“, TechHive.com, December 11, 2019
- “HDMI“, Wikipedia, Retrieved May 14, 2020
- “KabelDirekt 4K HDMI Cable & HDMI Cord with Full Metal Connectors“, Amazon.com, Retrieved May 14, 2020