Playstation 3 Monster GameLink HDMI Cable

The PLAYSTATION 3 isn't just another game console, it's a state-of-the-art entertainment platform. It's the only system for experiencing PS3 games and Blu-ray Disc Movies at resolutions as high as 1080p with explosive 7.1 surround sound. But maximizing your PS3's 3.2 GHz Cell Processor requires an extra high-bandwidth connection. It's here: GameLink HDMI for true high-definition video and surround sound in one easy cable.

People who say it is worth it either work for Monster and need you to buy their cable to justify their ridiculously insane executive salaries and bonuses, they work for a retailer and like the cushy compensation they get for selling something with exhorbitant margins, or have no frame of reference to judge quality. Or maybe they bought a Monster cable and can't bring themselves to admit they were ripped off and need to rationalize the expense to keep that warm fuzzy feeling about having a better entertainment setup than the Jones' next door who "skimped" and bought the $5 cable. There are enough unbiased, independent performance comparisons on the Internet that show generic $5 cables driving the exact same picture (and throughput) as the $100 Monster cable. Even comparisons based on objective criteria (bits coming out that go in), rather than subjective criteria like observation of two side by side screens. Go research, AKA Google it :). Five minutes will save you up to $95, so unless you make more than $2.3 million per year, your time is worth spending 5 minutes to save $95. I'll save you even more time by giving you links to some of those < $5 "gold plated" cables from other Amazon vendors such as HDMI Cable 2M (6 Feet), Eforcity New 10 Ft HDMI to HDMI Digital Video Cable GOLD-PLATED The simple homebrewed acid test of a cable is to take a 1080p feed such as a Blueray movie and pause it. If you see variations and flickers, etc., then your cable is bad. If it is a solid non-varying picture, your cable is good. See, the PS3/player/receiver is repeatedly sending the exact same pixel stream over and over and over 60 times a second - an unchanging picture verifies lossless transmission. If you understand why this is a good test, then you also know why the statement someone else made that poor cabling creates motion artifacts is absurd. Motion artifacts are a function of the decode process and video (de)compression which occurs in your receiver/player/PS3, not your TV. For those that believe colors will be better, yada, yada, it is digital, people. Digital. Think about what happens with satellite or digital cable. You either have a great picture, or you have none. If you have marginal signal (like during a heavy rainstorm) you may get transient horrible pixelated distortion interspersed with a blank screen and then great picture again. If you are still inclined to blame these decoding problems on the cable between your TV and receiver, see above. Unlike analog, you never need to tweak antennas, fiddle with connectors, stand in a certain location, or things to remove a shadow, improve color, remove snow, etc. You either have picture or don't, and when you have it, it is completely equivalent to the picture using other components. That is the digital world in a nutshell, folks. If you want high quality cables (that cost 20x) to make a difference, go back to analog technology. Now the above symptoms mostly apply to an encoded compressed video stream, like MPEG, that has errors. For an uncompressed stream of pixels like what goes over the HDMI cable to the TV, it isn't all or nothing, perfect picture or nothing, BUT the defects will still be as obvious as the nose on your face: sparklies randomly appearing, flickering, banding, or perhaps no picture at all etc. The notion that you get more vibrant colors or deeper blacks with a good cable vs a defective poor quality cable is the biggest load of bull. Not to mention standards regulate HDMI cabling..... If you have an HDMI cable that doesn't work well enough (see above), you RMA it because it is defective. Wiki HDMI to see what the latest standard is, and shop for compliant products. Even cables compliant to the latest standards, which incidently provides more than twice the bandwidth needed by a 1080i signal, still cost about $5. Category 2 cables are actually TESTED to rates that would support 1600p. You certainly don't need an HDMI cable marketed as a special "Playstation 3 Gamelink" console accessory to justify the insane markup. It is amazing the marketing lies that manufacturers can get away with these days. The description says "so textures are sharper, shading more realistic..." REALLY?!?!? Why stop there. Why not claim it improves anti aliasing effects, gives you more polygons, better frame rates for games, or magically turns your 720p TV into 1080p. Those claims wouldn't be any more of a stretch of the truth than what is claimed by Monster. Heck, even the overpriced "Sony" branded HDMI cable retails for almost half this product. It is amazing that they used to bundle this with the console for free if it really costs that much to source..... Responding to the gentleman that pointed out the flaw in the "digital argument" referring 1s and 0s sometimes getting lost, that is true, all cables made in this physical universe experience errors from time to time, more appropriately quantified as a number per period of time, specifically, bit error rate (BER). Where this reviewer is mistaken is that bit errors in a video stream are not going to make blacks look grey or whatever. That is attributing an analog-esque behavior to digital components. If bit errors are randomly popping up, then a pixel with an errored bit could result in any color. A black isn't necessarily going to be diluted into a grey. A black could become blue, red, or any color that differs by 1-2 bits somewhere in the bit pattern for the real color being transmitted. The noticeable effect would be as described above - multicolored sparklies or worse. And if an errored pixel was to result in a different shade of the same basic color, which is unlikely, it would be as probable a more vibrant shade as a duller shade. Lastly, seeing as Gigabit Ethernet can be virtually lossless over 100m (yes, that is meters) of UNSHIELDED twisted pair (UTP) where all 4 pairs are both transmit/receive in both directions full-duplex, I don't see how the point about 45 megabits of 1s and 0s being an extreme bit rate implying it is somehow pushing the boundaries of physics, is terribly relevant to HDMI which currently needs about 4 Gbps in a shielded cable for (typical) lengths rated in feet between your TV and receiver/PS3. 45 Mbps with low BER over short distances of copper cabling ceased being impressive decades ago. The gentleman who commented about Best Buy and Circuit City employees swearing that Monster is the only way to go. DUH!!! I have also noticed that Best Buy and Circuit City don't have any lower cost cable options. Naturally what they have just happens to "be the best". Sales 101. To be fair, there may be SOME reasons to buy a Monster cable: 1) The connectors maybe more durable. If you plan to unplug and plug your HDMI cables hundreds of times over the next couple of years and are worried about a pin eventually breaking, and can't stand the notion of buying another $5 cable if/when that happens (and can't do math well enough to see that this is still far cheaper than buying Monster), then by all means, the Monster cable is the cable for you. 2) Monster most likely has a lower defect rate in manufacturing. Sometimes in the cheapy cables, defective ones make it to market, but that is still the exception, not the rule. And you can send it back and get a replacement that will likely be just fine. If the small chance of having to RMA a $5 cable bothers you enough to justify spending up to 20x on a cable that is nearly 100% likely to be defect free when you plug it in, then perhaps Monster is right for you. 3) Long cable runs (specifically permanent installations within a wall) usually 50ft or more is where you will see a possible difference. If you are paying labor to run the cable, in the long run it may cost more to install a cheapy just to possibly have to redo it with a better cable. 4) If you are really concerned about future proofing your cable so that in 10 years when the next higher resolution TV (super high def??) hits the market, your Monster cable will be ready to handle the increased bandwidth (and so will the cheapy $5 HDMI 1.3 compliant cable...but lets forget reality for the moment because it is always inconvenient when pitching the various merits of Monster cables). Never mind that by then HDMI will have been replaced by some new cable with a different connector style, and your $100 Monster cable will be obsolete. Monster will be perfectly happy to charge you another exhorbitant fee for whatever supplants HDMI as the latest multimedia cabling standard. 5) Computer monitors can do higher resolutions, so if using HDMI as an interconnect between your PC (not your PS3) and monitor, perhaps the Monster might work better at higher resolutions. I'd still say it is worth trying the cheap one first before shelling out money for a Monster. Buy it for one of those reasons, not for the promise/lie that it will magically improve your video card or game console capabilities.

While it is true monster builds a good qualitly product. It is way overpriced. I just bought a phillips high speed cable with the 24k gold and pure copper insides with metal shielding. I was not going for anything but a better shielded cable to reduce noise over the really old cheap first generation cable I had. My old cable was dropping out too much on my ps3. The new cable cut the picture noise by half. I tried one of these monster cables a friend had too and we found the phillips to match it in terms of noise reduction and qualtiy of signal. I would reccomend getting a decent copper cable with the gold connectors. Just don't need any monster unless you need to spend more to feel good. Phillips is a good cable, I don't care what anyone says the connectors were good quality and fit nice and snug on my ps3 and tv. No drop out problems anymore either. Just saying monster is very nice just you can get a very simmilar product for quite a bit less. I find monster's are overkill. I do love their surge protectors though. They are the only monster I will shell out the extra cash for anymore.

Is there REALLY anything else to say here... If your not using monster cable equipment already than you better crawl out from whatever rock your under ask somebody. Simply the best!

People are forgetting one crucial fact. It can be argued all day whether or not the quality/build of the cable affects signal quality (and it very likely doesn't in this case), but nobody cares to mention that this cable "officially made for the Playstation 3" is still just an HDMI cable. Never buy game cables from Monster unless the console connecting end is specialized. In this case, the said "game" cable is still just HDMI on both ends. If you don't like Monster cable, don't buy it. If you swear by Monster cable, it still makes no sense to buy this particular cable when you've got the regular Monster HDMI400 cables selling on ebay for $10.00 brand new. There is no reason to buy such an expensive cable in this case.

A friend of mine works at a large electronics retailer, and has a love-affair with Monster cables. In all fairness he praises their power filters and their surge protectors more than their actual cables--however when he purchased a new Blu-Ray player he got this Monster HDMI cable "to make the most of HD." I couldn't help but do a switcharoo and give him my $6 eBay HDMI and borrow his Monster. I was unable to notice any difference, and waited to see if he would. The night before I made the swap he was showing of Ratatouille almost frame-by-frame, and the next day he was doing it again--oblivious to the swap. After giving him back his cable (and watching him swap the two back and forth looking for any difference) he made the decision to return the Monster (and ordered a $6 eBay cable). To clarify, there was absolutely no noticeable benefit for paying 1000% the price.