I just bought the WD TV live. They didn’t come with the HDMI cable. I want to go get the HDMI cable, but I’m not sure which one is best to use with WD LIve. Anyone have any cable that is decent and good price that they want to recommened.
Just about any will work, if you want to save some money there are pleanty of sites you can order from that will save you some cash over goin to best buy or something. But if you do go there or some where similar, DO NOT get the monster cables. They are a huge rip off and offer NO better picture quality over the others.
I usually order from walmart online. Free shiping to store. Thanks for the answear
Also does HDMI cable will make a different with the colorfull cables that come with WD TV LIVE?
Welcome to the forums.
Does it make a difference in what way? HDMI is about as better over component as component is over composite, so an HDMI input will definitely be better than the cables that come with the Live (it offers other advantages as well, such as 5.1 audio you can only get via optical otherwise, plus handshaking, plus a single cable, etc.).
Thanks for the answer, your post will make a better solution. This is the cable I thought at walmart.com. and hope it will produce a clearer picture. With the 2 cable that come with Live. It doesn’t produce much different with a regular TV. So I am hoping that the HDMI will make a different.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Cables-Unlimited-6ft-HDMI-V1.3b-Audio-Video-cable/5585819
That one should work fine. I buy the cheaper HDMI cables over the more expensive ones, and nobody can tell the difference.
cuteJustin wrote:
. With the 2 cable that come with Live. It doesn’t produce much different with a regular TV. So I am hoping that the HDMI will make a different.
I’m not sure what you mean here, but if you have a high definition television or monitor (HDTV) then using an HDMI cable with the Live (AND playing HD sources) will certainly be as good as it gets. However, if your source is not HD you can’t expect the Live to produce an image with it that is HD (it’s the old “garbage in, garbage out” situation).
In my experience it depends on the length of cable you need and what quality you are using. If you are using 1080p then for cables longer than about 2-3m I would not go for the cheapest unless you can test them. Saying that I bought a 10m cable for my projector from Ebay for less than a monster 1m cable and it works perfect. For the TV my HDMI cable is only 1m or so long so even a real budget £3 cable does the trick at 1080p. The signal is digital so the only problems you may get with a long poor quality cable is drop outs, often visible as sparklies on the screen.
Another factor to consider is the cable end construction. I just got a WDTV Live unit and used a 4 foot HDMI “cheapie” cable. Picture and sound work perfectly, but the connection to the HDMI port is iffy. It looks like WD have set back the HDMI port a bit further into the box than on my Sharp TV set, so the cable just barely makes contact when inserted. It disconnects and reconnects as I bend the cable around a bit, indicating that it can’t seat into the port on the WD unit properly. I ended up having to shave down about 1/8th of an inch off the cable end boot to expose more of the metal connector barrel. It now provides a solid connection that can tolerate the cable being moved around.
I wonder if this may be a problem that other users have found with the HDMI not working or not reliable. When I first hooked the WD TV up, the HDMI didn’t work and I had to configure it using composite video. I thought it was because of initial default but quickly learned that the WD will drive the HDMI if it detects a connection there. Sure enough, after wiggling the cable around a bit, the HDMI port came to life.
Overall, I’m very pleased with the WD TV Live; I ended up returning the Hornettek Phantom (rebadged Patriot Home Box Office) I bought earlier as it had HDMI auto detect problems. The only thing that unit had over the WD is the ability to play DVD files properly through the DVD menu, which , I understand, the next release of the WD TV will also support. In terms of user interface, network support and functionality, the WD TV Live wins hands down, and I actually paid less for than the Phantom.
