| jkimball said: This has to be the most popular internet myth ever! I hear over and over and it is quite funny to a (former) electonrics engineer like myself. I wonder how this rumour even started. Digital signals are still sent as waves - just like analog signals. In fact they are sent as square waves which is HARDER do to than an analog wave. Because the digital timing is critical theyare MORE likely to suffer degradation/signal problems. If an analog signal is distorted you get a crappy picture. if a digital signal is distorted your options range from dropped pixels - pixelation- nothing. Now because digital signals are so fragile, a lot of error correcting data is sent with the digital stream so digital *connections* rarely fail. That reliability has nothing to do with the cable - a crappy cable will generate so many erros that even the error corection can't cope and the signal will be lost. There was never a big difference between $100 Monster VGA cables and $5 VGA cables. There isn't a big difference between $100 HDMI cables and $5 HDMI cables. But a bad cable - of any type - will cause just as many problems in digial as it does in analog. I recommend the OP hook up the cable to wave generator, run it into an oscilloscope and see how the shape is. Sounds like a grounding problem - perhaps a worn inner shell? |
Other than an EE, I doubt very much that most people have function generators and o-scopes just hanging out around the house.
