Fry’s this week has a generic 10’ HDMI cable for sale at $1.99! Granted, this is a sales price and the regular price is $7.99 at Fry’s. Although at $7.99 this cable may no longer be a bargain compares to the cable by Monoprice but this is still a good price if you look at the $50; $80 even over $100 cable from shady  companies like Monster.

For $1.99, this cable is reasonably well made. The two ends are wrapped with foam sheet and inside they are further protected by plastic caps. The connectors are gold plated.

When compares to Monoprice’s $4.74 (qty 1) 10’ HDMI cable (white one on the right), it is quite obvious the Monoprice’s cable is superior, but does the $1.99 works?

I have tried to use the cable with several different devices with various audio and video settings all works WITHOUT any problem!

This $1.99 came packaged inside cheap plastic bag. While it is certainly not the flashy $50-$100 cable packaging, do you want to pay up to 50x just to have a pretty box to look at? Some people brought the propaganda of the shady companies and retailers into a false thinking the more expensive the cable, the better they are. While it is true we can make better cable than this $1.99 or even Monprice’s $4.74 cable and it probably will cost a little more but at $100? HDMI cable is NOT a high tech thing that some companies has “black art” secret to make it “better”. Further, shady company like Monster is just a marketing machine. Although I never believe their marketing gimmick, a few years back when a retailer was going  out  of business, they sold they inventory cheap and I brought couple Monster RCA cables at Radio Shack prices. Unfortunately, both of them failed in the first and second year of use. When I opened them up, I was shocked to find out how poorly those cables were made! Those Monster cables were not even worth what Radio Shack’s prices.  Don’t be fooled.

HDMI has become more and more important. Not just because HDMI simplified A/V connections, equally or even more important is the evil HDCP DRM. Without HDCP, the DVD players are not allowing to upscale video beyond 480P; even I have paid the full price for the DVD movie.  Without HDCP, the Blu-Ray players are not able to output HD audio.

Anyway, in order to get upscaled video for my old Mitsubishi VS-60111, I used the HDFury gizmo to convert DVI to RGB. The problem is HDFury only has one input and I have more than one HDMI devices.  Since my old Pioneer AV receiver does not have any HDMI connection, it is obvious I need a HDMI switcher. After searching on the web, I settled on the Monoprice HDMI switcher. At $20+tax+shipping  for a refurbished unit, it is a low cost option with very low risk.

When I receive the unit, the packaging is better than I expected. Although I brought the refurbished one, it came with retail box.  Package came with the following,

• The unit itself
• Power supply
• Remote
• Remote battery

What was really surprising is the unit is made of metal casing instead of plastic that is common to device at this price range.

Setup and connecting the unit is straight forward. Connect all the input and output HDMI and then the power supply and it works! I have tried Toshiba A3 HD DVD; Magnavox NB530MGX Blu-Ray; Oppo 980H DVD and LG RC797T all works without any problem. While some people may prefer auto sensing switch, I prefer the manual remote way of the Monoprice unit as I may have more than one device on at the any given time.

It is very important to note that this Monoprice is a powered switch meaning the input is buffered and amplified. Since some HDMI devices are very picky, a none powered HDMI switch may fail to work. Case and point is after I got the Yamaha RX-V665, I thought I can remove the Monoprice HDMI switch from the signal chain, I was wrong. Apparently HDFury is so picky that the output stage of the Yamaha RX-V665 does not have enough driving capability to drive the HDFury and the TV was not able to get stable video signal to lock on. As soon as I put the Monoprice switch in between Yamaha receiver and the HDFury, the TV picture came back as good as ever.

Bottom, this unit is an excellent value. Even right now I am only using the switch as powered buffer, it is well worth for the price just for this function alone. If you are looking for a HDMI switch, this unit should be a top choice.