HDMI Advice appreciated.

[cumbriasteve]

Googled for ages and got nowhere so back to the forum of all knowledge.

Got my Hudl2 tablet up and working and very pleased with it.

Downloaded some video from the net (James May) and it works fine on the pc, dropped it on a card and it works just as fine on the Hudl.

Connected Hudl to TV with a long new HDMI, picture appears excellent but sound is slow, drunken, slurred or a mixture of all them.

Put some different sourced videos on the card and just the same.

Watched youtube on the tablet to the tv and bad audio again.

Don't have a spare lead to try at the moment but is there anything else it could be?

 

[mfletch]

I'd say better lead or stop drinking only joking

 

[cumbriasteve]

Ok..have poured the coffee away

Is there a big difference in cables, I saw on tv recently that a HDMI cable worked or did not work, as simple as that and they reckoned the gold plated one's were just a gimmick

I of course know sod all about them..hence the question.

 

[Kayos]

I'd guess at the video driver wants upgrading, a digital cable either works or it doesn't, I usually buy cheapish so they don't fall to bits.

A mega money cable won't make the zeros any rounder or the ones any straighter..........

 

[zx9]

The type of HDMI cable will determine what 'extras' can be communicated between devises, things like control data, audio return and network, but not how slured the audio sounds. I expect the TV and tablet have incompatible audio encoding, either bit rate or channels, it may be possible to set the tablet's audio to two channel stereo or something else the TV can decode but I don’t know the Hudl.

 

[cumbriasteve]

I will have a look at the tablets audio settings and see if there is any variants available.

Will also head daughters tomorrow..different tv and she may even have a cable too..see if that helps.

Cheers folks

 

[DanielW]

Is your TV HDMI?

 

[DanielW]

Oh and go into your TV settings and have a look for HDMI settings ie syncronising the sound or summat along those lines?

And also check your HUDL2 for any settings of the audio ie make sure its set for HDMI for TV

 

[rtbcomp]

I'd guess at the video driver wants upgrading, a digital cable either works or it doesn't, I usually buy cheapish so they don't fall to bits.

A mega money cable won't make the zeros any rounder or the ones any straighter..........

No but it will improve the resolution between a 1 and 0 and the rise & fall times will be better.

 

[anjum]

As I have spent hundreds on audio cable and I am personally convinced of the difference on top quality HiFi.

I don't believe the same applies to HDMI. See http://www.techradar.com/news/video/why-you-don-t-need-to-spend-more-than-2-on-an-hdmi-cable-1071343

 

[CRB]

We have a Hudl1 and it is only 720p so anything in 1080p is hopeless, fragmented and blocky. Lesson learned very early on.

It is not an HDMI problem but a software problem.

Cable will make no difference for what you are doing.

We have always used VLC Media Player, and have never had any trouble with any files.

Other than that

 

[Kayos]

As I have spent hundreds on audio cable and I am personally convinced of the difference on top quality HiFi.

I don't believe the same applies to HDMI. See http://www.techradar.com/news/video/why-you-don-t-need-to-spend-more-than-2-on-an-hdmi-cable-1071343

Completely agree, my home audio, car audio (even in the daily abused pug) and my PC setup is all high end, but the digital stuff doesn't seem to make a difference if it's 99p or £99.

In fact when it comes to optical I will always get suposidly inferior plastic ones over glass, simply because the glass ones crack and break, plastic doesn't

 

[cumbriasteve]

Well it looks like it's a software problem as mentioned in the replies but a strange one.

After some more playing around:

If I watch youtube through the tablet>TV on HDMI the sound is distorted, yet if I do the same with Sky news it is fine, makes little sense to me other than suggesting the cable is ok.

However everything if just watched on the tablet alone is perfect.

More fiddling and testing required I think.

 

[wookie]

No but it will improve the resolution between a 1 and 0 and the rise & fall times will be better.

Please cite a source to backup this claim, that's the kind of claim I'd expect from PC World/Currys or any other electrical retailer trying to sell over-priced digital cables.

There have been many independent tests done on digital cables and the bottom line is either they work within spec or they don't and if they don't you get either no picture/sound or it will only work at a lower bandwidth i.e. 720p rather than 1080p

 

[Rocketman]

HDMI cables can be a problem but it could be just as likely a £100 one will have problems as a £1 one. It's not quite as simple as they do or don't work full stop.

Anyway this particular problem sounds like the processing of the sound is going wrong IMO.

 

[wookie]

HDMI cables can be a problem but it could be just as likely a £100 one will have problems as a £1 one. It's not quite as simple as they do or don't work full stop.

Anyway this particular problem sounds like the processing of the sound is going wrong IMO.

I know they can be a problem, I've got a HDMI cable run of over 20M with a booster to get the signal that far.

I agree with you that it's a software/config problem rather than the cable.

 

[rtbcomp]

Please cite a source to backup this claim, that's the kind of claim I'd expect from PC World/Currys or any other electrical retailer trying to sell over-priced digital cables.

There have been many independent tests done on digital cables and the bottom line is either they work within spec or they don't and if they don't you get either no picture/sound or it will only work at a lower bandwidth i.e. 720p rather than 1080p

Which is effectively what I was saying. My comment was for data cables in general and not specifically HDMI cables. I back my assertion up with 30 years experience as a computer engineer, having worked on machines ranging from ICL mainframes to Sinclair ZX80's and most stops in between!

 

[the snooper]

Is your TV HDMI?

he couldn't plug it in otherwise

 

[DanielW]

he couldn't plug it in otherwise

 

[Flapdisk]

With regards to the quality of the leads it's all about capacitance and long term connectivity. A video lead is a bit like a TV aerial lead, a centre core with an insulating sheath around it and then a braid around that and then an outer insulating sheath, If you imagine it in cross section, you have the metal of the central core, then a gap with the insulator in then the metal of the braid.
Well this is a capacitor, and effectively all along the length of the cable and all the way around it you have thousands of capacitors.

On a cheap made lead where the central core is close to the braid the capacitance is a high value and as a high frequency is passed along the cable the charging and discharging effect of the built in capacitance will slur the high frequencies.

An expensive cable has had a lot done to reduce the capacitance, the distance between the central core and the braid is greater, this has the effect of moving the capacitors plates apart and reducing the capacitance value, the insulator around the central core is usually made with holes in it instead of being solid, thus reducing the dialectic thus reducing the capacitance.

And the other thing is the cheap leads have tin connectors or something else cheap and the dear ones are gold. When you first plug in a cheap one or an expensive one it will seem like there is no difference, but try it several years down the road, the cheap one will likely be intermittent because of tarnished connections.

The con in fact is that the difference between the two leads if they are a metre even two metres long will be marginal as the capacitance effect between the two could only really be seen by an expert but as the cable get's longer and the capacitance increases the more expensive lead will have a much more obvious effect on the picture quality.

Ok well that's the facts and the electronics of it but having said that the amount places like PC world and currys charge for a two meter lead with gold plated connections is just a rip off and criminal and bears no relationship to what the cable cost to them.