What to do with HDMI cords that are 10 years old?

ID say keep one or two if you have a cheap tv DVD player combo in your bedrooms. As far as technology goes if your using the max 4K -“/ stereo capabilities you’ll have to upgrade.

Like if you have a new Xbox or play station I’m pretty sure a 10yo hdmi won’t work.

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I will hopefully be upgrading to 4k OLED TV in next few months. Any HDMI recs or must haves for such a TV? (I'm looking at these cables from monoprice. They are in wall rated and HDCP 2.2 compliant)

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I have same question.. Hanging a TCL 55R635 on the wall tonight, but the HDMI cable running thru the wall is about 7 years old.

Also pairing it with a PS5 if I can ever get one..

not sure if I need to be stressing new cables or not

I would likely toss them.

New cables are cheap

They are perfectly fine. They will move a digital signal just as effectively as a new cable. All the hype about premium cables is just that, marketing hype.

They are probably fine to keep. Yes the HDMI spec has changed, but that doesn't mean your cables won't work.

Cables are just dumb copper. Old cables weren't "certified" to the new spec because it didn't exist when the cables were originally tested. But they'll likely work just fine.

The specs that have changed are in the data stream, not the actual copper that moves it.

An HDMI cable is just 2 HDMI connectors joined by a shielded copper wire.

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The specs that have changed are in the data stream, not the actual copper that moves it.

An HDMI cable is just 2 HDMI connectors joined by a shielded copper wire.

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Mostly true, but there are differences between cables. Similar to ethernet cable, the HDMI specs define 3 different categories of cables.

True probably any cable in the last 10 years will work with 4k, and probably even older category 1 ("standard speed") cables will do it. But the only way to know for sure is to try it.


Edit: Yeah there's a whole lot of bullshite marketing in the cable market, but "standard", "high speed", and "ultra high speed" cables are real things.

I think they added ethernet as a why-the-frick-not decision, and it never really caught on I guess because turns out networking is kind of complicated. I think they're trying to repurpose the ethernet for eARC.

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The newer HDMI cables have higher transfer rates and performance is only noticeable if you have a high-end 4K TV.

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The newer cables that are tested for high speed data rates carry a label only if they pay the HDMI licensing fee to be able to state that. This is coming from me, someone who actually worked for an HDMI cable manufacturer.

They ALL transport the same 1's and 0's as any other cable. The difference is how well they will shield the signal from electromagnetic interferences and that the amplitude will pass that digital eye so that it doesn't clip or exceed the top and bottom end of the cable's capabilities. If you start seeing sparkles in your image, change cables. If not, your cable is working just fine.

Think of it as electrical cable. At a long enough length, attenuation creates resistance, and transformers are used to keep the strength up. In cables, same thing applies, so as long as attenuation is mitigated, by either short cable lengths or by thicker gauge wire or by electronically manipulating the signal with boosters, the other end doesn't care about anything except 1's and 0's. Period.

*I worked for the ex CTO and VP of Sales for Monster Cable when they left to start a venture capital competitor and can tell you with full confidence: cheap cables will perform as well as expensive cables depending on the conditions. Wrap cheap cables in with electrical cables and expect poor performance because they generally don't shield against EMI very well. Keep them separated and you should be fine. More expensive cables should (but not always) have better attenuation loss performance and better ability to hold the top and bottom end of the signal due to better EMI shielding.

This is my understanding as well. Thank you for confirming.